Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC.

I recently invested in a rangefinder camera and wanted to give it a whirl doing what they are famous for: Street photography. Last Friday I went out to Chapel Hill’s famous Franklin Street. It’s hosted huge Halloween gatherings and bonfires after the basketball team wins a national championship. But on any given Friday it is tranquil yet also full of life. Here are some of my photos of storied Franklin Street.

Well, at least if you include an exhibition game.  Photos

Harrison Barnes

Morehead Planetarium at night

I have this thing for night photography and black + white photos.  I have always enjoyed the moody look to them.  This weekend I joined to of my photographer friends Will and Kevin and went out on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill at 10pm to get some shots. Here are some of my favorites.

Dexter Strickland vs. Georgia Tech

I’ve been cover the UNC men’s basketball team this year. I have to admit that my photo game was pretty rusty to start, but thankfully I’ve been able to improve. Here are some recent games:

UNC Men’s Basketball vs. Presbyterian photo galler

UNC Men’s Basketball vs. Marshall photo gallery

UNC Men’s Basketball vs. Rutgers photo galler

UNC Men’s Basketball vs. Virginia Tech photo gallery

UNC Men’s Basketball vs. Georgia Tech photo gallery

Tyler Zeller photo that was ref assed.

Here is another in our series on ref ass, and their ability to block great photos. If you have a fetish for ref ass, basketball is where you will find bliss. 3 refs contained on a small court is just a recipe for blocked photos. Usually I delete them, but every now and then sharing my pain is therapeutic. Indeed, many ungentlemanly words have left my lips from my spot on court side when a good photo is ref assed. (I think I just created a new term).

I realize I’ve been off my blogging game, at least here. But I have been writing up some stuff on Inside Lacrosse’s blog. Here are two recent ones to check out:

Fallball Update: UNC Lacrosse preps for San Francisco

By any measure, SF Lacrosse Classic a huge success

UNC freshmen Charlie McComas is overcome with emotion after defeating Johns Hopkins lacrosse in an overtime win.

Better late than never I guess. While cleaning out my hard drive, I realized that I neglected to post photos from North Carolina lacrosse during their overtime win against Johns Hopkins, and their NCAA First Round win over UMBC. Here are the links:

UNC Lacrosse vs. Johns Hopkins (3/28/2009)

UNC Lacrosse vs UMBC (5/9/2009)

Ben and Chris Hunt’s dad spoke with me earlier in the year about commissioning me to do some portraits of his sons. They are both players on North Carolina’s varsity lacrosse team. Ben is graduating this year so all involved wanted to get some pics of him in his lacrosse gear on campus before he entered the “real world”. We finally went out Wednesday and got some pics of them on campus, just one day before Chris had to leave town. Here is one picture from our session today. In the background is Morehead Planetarium on UNC’s campus. I thought they turned out well overall. The effect in the photo below was accomplished by using two off camera strobes.

Chris and Ben Hunt

I traveled up with UNC for the quarterfinals to Annapolis, MD. They gave a great showing, lossing by just 1 in a 11-12 loss to the Duke Blue Devils.  The Blue Devils will now advance to the NCAA Lacrosse Final Four in Foxborough, MD.  I will be traveling up there with them and it should be ton of fun; they have always been great to cover. Until then, here are some photos of Duke Lacrosse vs. North Carolina.

A great ACC championship game was played last Sunday when Duke defeated UNC 15-13 to take the ACC crown. Only days before Duke had crushed UVA 15-4 and UVA had been the seen by the media as the favorite to win the ACC title (at least at the outset of the season). I never like loosing, but I thought the Heels played very well against a team that has been crushing other teams left and right. (I certainly wouldn’t feel so great if I was a UVA fan.) MVP was in my book and the voting media’s book CJ Costabile who as a defenseman scored a hat trick. I love seeing a defenseman score and seeing one score 3 is rare. Defenseman Milton Lyles from UNC also put one through the pipes. Lyles, who can sprint like a cheetah, beat Costabile to score his goal.

Anyways, I took both some action photos and some behind-the-scenes stuff.  I put a post on Inside Lacrosse on my behind-the-scenes work. My goal was to create mirror images from both teams locker rooms. To show that while rivals, their preparation is the same. I didn’t do well as I hoped, but didn’t completely bomb it either.

I also have some of my action photos at this link: Duke vs. UNC Lacrosse photos (ACC Championship Finals)