2020 Mount Basketball home-openers amid COVID-19

It was great to get out & cover some Division-One competition last week. Mount Saint Mary's Women's & Men's Basketball were victorious in both their early December home-opening contests. This was my first collegiate game action since March 8th. The Men's game marked 9 months exactly since COVID-19 levied shutdowns. These have affected us all greatly & issued-in dramatic policies that have dismantled NCAA competition, especially for smaller schools. I was eager (to say the least) to get back to action & it was a blast. This is the second season for great new LED lights in the MSM Knott arena. It's exciting to put behind the days of strobing here, my largest indoor field of competition. The lack of fans gave me full rein of the fieldhouse ... just staying 6+ feet away from players. I wanted to shoot tight, elevated mostly, & focus on the benches rather than vacant bleachers. The following week brought some positive cases & some postponements. I hope all are healthy & we can get back on the court in early January. Here are some of my favorites - please visit my photostore info page for image requests. Thanks for looking ...

The Year of the Hose

The Year of the Hose ended in late Fall of this year, when the weather was still warm, after shooting dozens of hoses throughout the Midwest & Eastern US. I connected with Swan Hose Co., the leading watering hose company in North American at the end of 2017. Looking for a Lifestyle photographer, I entered in to a photo-niche that I never expected. Although I regularly do portrait & commercial work, never on this scale & with this geographic spread. I guess it's a wonderful thing about this gig, the camera can lead in many directions. It was a wonderful influx of outdoor work, that filled time where there was often a lull (in the summer). It was a great excuse to travel, & nice to use a unique segment of my brain that fires differently than during sports work. Pleasurable as well to integrate my family and first-hand connections into my job. Including nearly all my immediate family; especially my Sister, Mother, & Father who are avid gardeners & who now finally are proud of my work (joke).

So many awesome & solid products. I've found everyone I've worked with loves hoses.
It was a blessing & I look forward to photographing more hoses "in the wild" in 2019.
Here are some of my favorite #hosepix

F&M Rowing on the Susquehanna

10/03/16 - Wrightsville, PA: I went out with F&M's Rowing team for their morning & evening practice sessions. Sometimes when covering competition is challenging, we opt for practice. Though these conditions weren't as ideal as my last session, I was still able to capture some usable content, stock, & some documentation for use when they're writing feature pieces on godiplomats.com

Shipley Wedding

9/21 - Westminster, MD - The Shipley Family & I go way back. There's great energy between Steve & Cathy. They have so much fun, it was great to witness. Thank you Guys for asking me to cover this for you.

My favorite rivalry

4/24/13 - Lancaster, PA - Franklin & Marshall vs. Gettysburg: I really enjoy covering these Centennial Conference schools when they're pitted against each other. I'm lucky to catch them together almost every season. This was a "triple header" I kind of stumbled upon earlier this week … mostly for F&M, but some for the Bullets too. Here are my favorites.

Peerless Naval Lunar

9/24/12 - York, PA: For a second, I thought that Navy was waxing where NASA is now waning. Instead it was just a exceptionally unusual scene from what I normally bare witness as I'm hammering away on astroturf. I'm not sure if this was Naval training, or observation, or just a joyride, or even if it's typical. It's certainly not something that I see everyday, and I'm trying to make a point to "capture-it if I like it" ... especially fleeting momentary visual opportunities like this. The shot has been tweaked for affect in Lightroom + about a 15% crop, otherwise the elements of the composition are true ...

Bankers' Hours

I guess it's that time of year ... when the sky opens up unexpectedly and you just have to roll with the punches. But that makes it fun, & my school needed some rain-out stock anyway. Plus, I made it home before dark ... it was a good spring day.

Orange & Blue Revolution

I was asked to make some high impact portraits of student athletes to help cornerstone an upcoming Gettysburg College Orange & Blue club fundraising campaign, which will help fund the school's athletic teams & the very athletes I was to portray. The focus of the project was to communicate intense game-focus determination through intimate portraits, without an overbearing suggestion to a specific sport.

So I choose to approach it with a simple black background to highlight the subjects; and with the use of striking lighting, I attempted make a bold impression that would translate well into print publications for National distribution to their alumni.

It was an exciting opportunity to research & orchestrate a new creative production, travel with my mobile studio, & make images of athletes who I normally only catch on the field or court.

Off the Wall ...

01/14/12 - Erie, PA: I had a request from a good friend & colleague to make some maternity images of her, while in Erie covering some sports for her school. Now I usually stray from this type of work, but the stars were in allignment & we went for it. We did a lot of conventional shots & used some researched stock for ideas. This image began as a typical "pregnant woman peaking around the corner of a wall" shot. We did that, than I noticed that cool homemade wall art & the clean walls. So I did a 180° and put a umbrellad strobe behind her & camera left. I got the belly highlight I was going for, and I was pleasantly surprised with the light's reflection off the foreground wall. I've never made an image quite like this, & it may be one of my favorite personal portraits. And I really dig the wall art.

My Martin Luther King Jr. Day

  I was in D.C. today and I'll be honest, it wasn't for any altruistic reason. I had a piece of gear that was broken & my favorite camera repair shop is in town … so with the combination of a government (thus traffic) holiday & free parking, it was a match made in heaven. With some midday time waiting for my repair, and I decided to jog the mall. It was a beautiful crisp day, and I was heartened to see many other people and their families enjoying it. I went out simply for some exercise & to wander through many monuments that I haven't seen for a while or even at all. Soon I found myself at the foot of The Lincoln Memorial. I didn't preconceive this adventure in this way. To be walking grounds where thousands of citizens have stood to rally for their rights. Who listened to Martin Luther King Jr's famous words echo through the District's Mall valley.
  I felt so fortunate to be in here, on our Nation's annual holiday to honor his work for the Civil Rights of minorities & the poor. It was a refreshing day well spent. I even got to meet some new people … pictured in the first image: Lynda Jone-Burns of Washington D.C., walks through the World War II Memorial with her family, & with an original copy of The Washington Post from Friday April 5, 1968.

Franklin & Marshall Squash

11/20/11 - Lancaster, PA: Another one of my toughest sports to cover, primarily because I'm always behind glass and shooting backs (@ F&M). Maybe it frustrates me because I'm boxed out. I'm still waiting for permission to shoot physically on court. Come on, John White let me! What's the big deal? This lead shot I've been trying for a few years. It's one of those where I'm just spent on shooting backhands in the corner … and then the mind starts to wander. I try for symmetry, good emotion, and ideally two balls. This one may be my favorites yet. The remote work is a little more fun, maybe because of my slightly medieval homemade remote box ... these were a few of my favorites.

Football finale | Franklin & Marshall vs. Gettysburg

11/12/11 - Lancaster, PA: With the conclusion of this season with a classic matchup, which first began in 1890, my football coverage for the year comes to an end. The game itself continues to be one of my most challenging, thankfully each year I pick up a little insight for my approach. There's so much happening on-field, with 22 players often engaging in their own micro battle and/or deception (which often deceives me), that the game regularly stretches my level of engagement.
  But Saturday's game was fast. It was the fourth quarter before I even knew it. The two teams were quick to get off plays & that helped keep my mind out of the game. Leaving me with a few focal points & my reactions. Still as always, I left the field missing a few things, but walked away happy with a few different shots & modest general coverage. With the 28-14 F&M victory over Gettysburg, the series is now 45-45-7.

Winter? Yikes.

11/9/11 - Gettysburg Wrestling: I'm kind of bummed that my last football game is this weekend and that I'm covering winter season athletics already. I should be mentally prepared to move indoors, with the October snow & end of Daylight Saving Time, but I'm still a little upside-down about it all.

Tweaked-out Marymount Soccer

I've had some late night gigs over the last two days with Marymount … even kind of scary-creepy. You know where midnight fog rolls in following a lightning delay, and you can't feel your limbs anymore. And there are these deep weird red, & orange, & green colors cycling through my frame. So, I pushed for some grainy late season action & ended up with some cool captures - all of which scare me in some way.

Urban Roots Farm

8/9/11 - Springfield, MO: I photographed my first urban farm last week. It's something I really find fascinating and inspiring. Urban farms are a complete reversal of conventional perceptions of what a city should be … and I like that. They help redefine a cityscape, and often reclaim land that has long been overlooked as a dump site or unsafe open space.

Melissa & Adam Millsap are owners of Urban Roots Farm. They're civic pioneers with a bold vision to help their city, feed and educate its citizens, and maintain a healthy lifestyle for themselves and their family. They lobbied city legislators to establish urban agriculture, and funded their business with social lending which has helped energize their West Central neighborhood. They use spent grain as compost from a local micro-brewery, and have developed a non-profit called The Springfield Urban Agriculture Collation which is helping to feed school students in their USDA declared food desert. They are making exponentially positive changes in the Ozarks.

Thanks for viewing some of my favorites from a day on the farm …

Noodling ...

Summertime is a time for me to regroup, plan, wander, and do some decompression … like digging in the earth. My Father in law is an old share cropper from Missouri, so he felt right at home as we were walking around my garden looking for a little extra something for dinner … when he dove straight into my potato patch and pulled out a new potato. "We call it Noodling for potatoes" … and that just made me smile.

Urban Bounty

It doesn't get much better … on a slow summer day … to forage for fresh fruit in the city. Mulberry trees are near the end of their production this time of year. You know these trees … when you walk under them the ground is stained purple with its berries. Well, we went on a three person mission ; ) on foot, for these sweet treats. And we hit the jackpot … and then stumbled upon some black raspberries … and then I found a cherry tree! I'm afraid I'm unable to reveal the location of this Oasis … but needless to say all parties involved were satisfied.

My Greatest Work

5/20/2011 - Paradise, MD: The pride & joy of the Sinclair Clan, Mason Paul Sinclair, born at home 6 pounds 12 ounces 21 inches @ 12:17 pm.

It's all about the knee pads ...

Go Green Terror!

A True Beauty

As soon as I walked into the room Mariyah started posing for me … all smiles - radiating the innocence held with these kids; they melted away that silly protective life shell that was weighing me down and I didn't know it. It's fun to be a photographer, just for the experience.