I returned from San Diego yesterday and was ready to get back to the project after being gone for some time, although I wasn’t ready to leave the great weather behind. Returning to North Carolina reminded me of what humidity is — a reminder I could have done without.
After lifting weights the players returned to the locker room to vote for their choice of captain for the upcoming season. I was trying to get a photo of a player filling-out the ballot but they all turned away to vote and voting only took about 5 seconds. But I did get some photos of them dropping off their ballot.
The missed team photo due to rain last week was looking like it would again be missed as clouds loomed over Chapel Hill. No rain fell however and the team photo went on as scheduled. Jeffery Camarati, the UNC staff photographer, would typically do this photo but he was with the football team down in Florida. In his absence I did the photo and I have done many, many team photos in my days starting with my career at Georgetown University. But today had to have been the worst experiences doing a team photo yet. I set up four monolights on tripods to properly light the team. In the course of setting up though, one of the tripods tipped over taking with it a $350 light and a $250 radio. All were smashed and all were broken. To add insult to injury the battery power pack that I was using to power the lights went bad so I had no strobes to use. As I was going through this disaster after disaster I was thinking to myself, “thank God this isn’t men’s basketball”. I can only imagine the earful I would have gotten.
All that said the photos came out fairly well. It would have been a little better with the pop that strobes would have added, but I was overall pleased. Dave Lohse and Jeff had a great idea of having players wear either a blue or white jersey. In general the offense wore blue and the defense white. The players also brought their stick, helmet and gloves and were given the option to hold their stick and helmet however they wanted. It was refreshing and contrary to the usual team photos where players are lined up and stand in a uniform manner. We took multiple set-ups, asking the players to change positions each time.
