Oakland CC vs SC4

This past Saturday I had the opportunity to photograph two more basketball games for Oakland CC. It happened to be Pink Zone so the women’s team wore pink. They also had t-shirts for sale and a silent action going on to raise money.

Going into this I knew it was going to be a little bit different since it was Pink Zone. I knew I wanted to capture some of the pink that was around, but I also wanted to do more. I have been working with Oakland CC Athletics for over a year now, and I was looking to do something new, something that I had never done before. The problems was trying to think of a way to photograph basketball in a new way. So the morning of the games an idea came to me. It was to underexpose the camera, and use my speedlights to light up the player(s) while blacking out the background. However, I couldn’t do that during the game because I did not want to mess with the players’ eyes. So, I went with the next best alternative, the announcing of the players and the warm-ups.  The above picture is an example and below are pictures from the games.

Oakland CC's #12 looks up after disagreeing with a call.

Oakland CC's #12 makes a buzzer shot at the end of the first half.

In the end, the women’s team won their game as well as the men’s team.

Players get worked on by the trainer before their game.
A member of the men's team warms up before the game against SC4.

– Tim