There was a lot going on this week, so get ready for a variety of coverage! Volleyball fell to no. 2 Kentucky in four sets on Friday and football lost to the no. 3 Aggies of Texas A&M on Saturday. Men’s
basketball took on Virginia Military Institute for the first time and won 106-68 on Sunday.
There are a few things I really like about this photo. The obvious one would be that Missouri outside hitter Caylen Alexander is hitting the ball, in peak action, just about in the middle of the frame. Another obvious one would be that the word “MIZZOU” is once again being used to frame the edge of the photo (I should probably get over the whole framing words trend I’ve got going on). I think my favorite reason though is that the Tiger logo is facing the Kentucky players, almost like the tiger is “eating” the other team. Okay yeah, that’s a bit lame…but I like it.
Right after I got this shot of Maya Sands diving for the ball, I took a picture of my camera’s screen with my phone to text to my friend, Rock M writer Dylan Heinrich. This is pretty much the shot I try to get every time I shoot volleyball, but it’s not the easiest thing to capture. The only things that could have made this shot better would be if I was at floor level when I took it, if Sands didn’t look a bit like she was blinking and if the photo wasn’t so grainy. I wish I had a slightly higher shutter speed so the ball was completely frozen, too (my settings were f/2.8, 1/1,250 and ISO 5,000 for this). I also love that Sands is wearing Tiger socks.
It rained a bit before the football game on Saturday, and I was walking around the field while trying to protect my cameras when I came across this scene in the student section. MU juniors Katie Pepper and Emily Salmons were taking shelter from the rain under the giant flag the student section waves after the Tigers score, and I thought it was a humorous (and relatable) moment.
Full disclosure: They initially posed for the camera before I told them to “pretend I’m not here” and they looked away from me. I do this pretty often when people notice me taking photos of them because I want them to act as they were before they saw me so the photo is more candid. Obviously, they can’t just forget the camera’s there, but it’s the closest I can get to a genuine, in-the-moment shot after the fact.
I won’t lie: I struggled to get good action photos during this week’s football game. I couldn’t really get super close to the action most of the time, which was really frustrating, but even David Carson (St. Louis Post-Dispatch photojournalist, Pulitzer Prize winner, awesome guest lecturer) who was sitting next to me for some of the game admitted he was having a hard time, too, which made me feel a bit better. I was however able to come back with this nice photo of the unnecessary roughness penalty call on Zion Young. Here, I like that we can see the flag in the bottom left corner next to Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed, who’s smiling at Young, and Young is looking at the referee out of frame and protesting the call.
Another photo I liked from the football game came from post-game. I’ve gotten a lot of similar medium shots of Missouri players with their arms around each other for the Alma Mater after each game, including a loss, so I wanted to try something different. I decided to go up in the stands to see if I could use my wide angle lens to show the student section crowd that stayed to support the team through the loss. I moved down to get the players and fans at the same level and as the song ended and the players walked off the field, several fans put up “heart hands” toward the players, which made for a nice moment.
This next photo from Sunday’s basketball game is of Jayden Stone dunking. These are some of the best shots you can get from covering basketball, but they don’t happen all the time so you need to be really paying close attention to get the shot (which you’ll see later that I missed another time). I love here that he’s practically horizontal from the momentum of him swinging from the hoop, and I intentionally zoomed out to get his full body in frame as opposed to going tighter like I usually do for that reason.
Here we’ve got another small series, this time with reactions from freshman Nicholas Randall’s backwards dunk. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get the actual shot, but I was paying attention to how everyone was reacting after the fact and came away with three photos of Randall yelling, Randall celebrating with his teammates and the teammates on the bench celebrating that I really liked.
I love the little moments, and this is a great example of one. To close this week’s column we have Truman and Missouri fan James Gray dancing together to “Cupid Shuffle.” I was sitting in my designated box next to several other photographers when I noticed the interaction and I think I was the only one to actually take any photos of this. I definitely wish I would have stood up to get a better angle, but I still really appreciated the moment for what it was.
Thanks for following along this week. Be sure to tune in next week for coverage of the final home football game of the season as the Tigers take on Mississippi State!
