In this week’s coverage of Photos of the Week, gymnastics gets the first feature of the season! The Tigers hosted their Black & Gold intrasquad meet on Friday and Team Gold took the win 158.150-157.650. Men’s basketball faced Alabama State on Thursday and Bethune-Cookman on Sunday, winning 85-77 and 82-60, respectively.
My favorite part about this picture is the mirroring we see with T.O. Barrett and Alabama State’s Tyler Byrd. Both players have their opposite arms outstretched while the other is bent
inwards, and even their legs are doing the same thing. As I’m looking closer at the photo, even the background plays into this. The people sitting on the bench on the left side of the photo are wearing black suits, contrasting with the white jerseys of the players on the right side, which obviously matches Barrett’s jersey. I could go more into the jersey colors and the similarities I like there, but I’ll leave it at that.
Dunks always make for some of the coolest pictures, especially when the players swing on the rim afterwards. I got the chance to shoot another one like that on Thursday when Mark Mitchell dunked during the game against Alabama State. I only wish Mitchell was facing me a bit more and had a more exciting expression on his face.
I love shooting fast-paced, high-energy sports like basketball. Players are often overlapping each other in photos while defending or passing, which can create really cool layers and framing. In this case, I was lucky enough to capture this photo where Barrett’s arm is outstretched toward the camera just at the right angle where there’s a clear gap between him and Alabama State’s Micah Simpson. Because of all that layering of players, it’s not often that you can get a clear photo with a gap like this, which makes it all the more unique in my opinion.
Gymnasts are such incredible athletes. The amount of physical strength, flexibility, agility and grace they have is so impressive. This photo stands out to me for a few reasons: (obviously) Amy Wier is upside down, she’s facing me, and the contrast between her body and the background is so clean. Because of the angle, there’s a clear and clean background, and it almost feels like she’s above us. Gymnastics is one of the coolest sports to take photos of because it’s one of the only sports where you’re able to get a low angle like this, and this photo is a prime example of the impact of the low angle on the composition and content of the actual picture.
This photo was actually taken during warmups before the gymnasts competed in the first rotation. It’s important to take test shots before just going for it to make sure your settings are correct and to give yourself time to adjust as needed. It’s not easy to get detailed shots of gymnastics because we’re given specific boxes to stand in for the different events and they tend to be a bit far away for safety reasons. The box closest to the vault was actually fairly close and I decided to try tracking the gymnasts as they ran toward the vault to see what I could get, which is how I got this photo of Kaia Tanskanen. I love that we can see her eyes looking at the horse as she’s actively propelling herself forward and up off the springboard.
I know I said it earlier, but gymnasts really are some of the most insanely talented athletes in the world. I did gymnastics for probably four years growing up and never really advanced. Not only is the ability to do the splits so cool, but to be able to do it mid-air as part of a routine on the beam is next level. Similar to the first gymnastics photo (but even more so here), I love the separation between Hayli Westerlind and the background. The contrast is striking and the fact that we can see her whole body frozen in this position of peak-action is stunning.
Also, thank god gymnastics will be held at Mizzou Arena as opposed to the Hearnes Center going forward. The lighting here is so much better compared to the harsh shadows we get in Hearnes, which I think helped me get better gymnastics photos than I’ve ever gotten.
In this photo, the lighting is beautiful. This sounds like a no-brainer, but because the lighting in the stadium is focused on the court, it allows the crowd in the stands to fall into the shadows. Because of this, the contrast between the on-court action and the audience can lead to some really visually appealing compositions. In that sense, this picture is similar to the one from the kU game in last week’s POTW. It’s also similar to the one from a few weeks ago when we think about Robinson’s apparent calmness as he looks around for a teammate, while Bethune-Cookman’s Rickey Mitchell Jr. is reacting in an opposite manner while he tries to defend.
Much like the first photo, this is another great example of symmetry or mirroring in terms of composition. Here, Annor Boateng and Bethune-Cookman’s Jakobi Heady are facing opposite directions but their positions are almost exactly the same. Their heads are both looking right while the rest of their body is slightly facing left and their arms are bent upwards. I find photos like this extremely visually attractive, and I also love Boateng’s expression as he looks for a teammate to pass to.
I like to hang around the court immediately after the game to see if there’s any cool interactions happening, but I don’t normally stand where the players walk to the locker room like I did here. I wanted to get some photos of players high-fiving kids as they walked by but of all of those, this photo of Gates signing autographs was probably my favorite. It’s definitely not the most pretty looking photo and the lighting in that corner is horrendous, but I’ve never seen players sign things for fans here, let alone the head coach. One of the security guards even told the kids before the players walked by that they don’t usually sign things and just give out high-fives, which made this moment even more cool.
That’s all from me this week! And that’s actually all the new coverage until January while I’m on winter break, but be sure to keep an eye out for some more non-traditional Photos of the Week editions in the next few weeks. To echo Coach Gates: good luck to all the students in finals!
