I've been shooting a summer 5v5 basketball tournament at Washington Park for the past few weeks. I shot a few games when I had nothing else on the schedule at work. It was just something I found on my own and wanted to shoot for fun. Without the pressure of getting stuff for the paper, I was able to have some fun with it and shoot basketball the way I see it, rather than some of the standard tight action shots. We ended up running some of the images as stand-alones.

I'm a sucker for backlit images.


Because I wasn't shooting for the paper, I decided to take some risks and do something interesting, like putting the only wide angle lens I had with me onto a remote camera. There wasn't a ladder for me to use to put it behind the glass, so I ended up standing on a chair and putting it on the post. I wasn't tall enough to even see through the viewfinder, so I had to guess on the focus point by looking at the focus distance window on the lens and shooting at f/8 for a little wiggle room on the depth-of-field. The background is a bit cluttered for my tastes, but I think it may provide a sense of place.

This is the same dunk, as seen from my hand-held camera with the 80-200 on it.


Nice light, clean background and good action that is, unfortunately, heading away from me.

I had fun shooting this tournament. The organizers told me their purpose was providing a positive influence for the guys and to help keep them out of trouble during the summer. Many people from the community came out and watched the games.

On Wednesday, Aug. 6, I photographed Vivian Nowakowski. Vivian's husband, Andrzej, lost his wallet and had to reapply for his green card. (They both immigrated from Poland as children.) Andrzej has a criminal record, so he was denied. He now sits in the Wyatt Detention Center in Rhode Island awaiting possible deportation. Vivian is representing him on his appeal.

Vivian has been on dialysis since '95, and she received a letter from the Yale-New Haven Transplantation Center that she may be ineligible for a kidney transplant without her husband there to care for her during recovery.

Vivian is also caring for her aging parents. Her son, a Marine, expects to deploy in spring '09.

"It's just overwhelming. Totally overwhelming," she explained, as she held back tears.

"I said to myself that I'm not going to give up on my husband."

The story can be read here: Part 1 and Part 2.

I was able to spend some time on Friday with a 4-year-old named CJ, who has a rare disease called Urea Cycle Disorder. His body isn't able to digest protein properly, so it turns to ammonia in his body. He's only allowed 7 grams of protein per day, so they have him eating special low protein foods and carefully reading the labels of anything he eats.

During the interview, he crawled onto his mom's lap for a bit, and I snapped off a couple frames before he went off to play again.



I thought this picture was nice because it shows that he's just a regular kid. His shoe is coming untied, but he doesn't care, because the spring-loaded door over that electrical outlet is really neat. I asked him what he likes to do for fun, and he said, "dig holes."