Now in my fourth year documenting the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL), I am as enamored with the league and the game as ever. 

 

For four weekends in the spring I travel the country as I capture each session. At the conclusion of the final session, twenty-four of the forty teams will qualify for an opportunity to compete at Peach Jam. 

 

The task is demanding. There are generally 7 games going on simultaneously in three slots at a time. For example, on a Friday of any given session there are 7 games happening at about 6:30PM, 7 more at 8PM, and 6 games to round out the full forty teams at 9:30PM. On that Saturday, there are two sessions of three such blocks from morning to night with a small break in between for lunch and rest. For the teams at least. 

 

Throughout that time I load two cameras with clear memory cards and two different lenses (usually a wide and a telephoto), grab my foldable seat, and roam the sidelines from court to court as I capture moments of peak performance, despair, hustle, and jubilation—all in one photo if I'm fortunate. Although the games all start at the same time, they rarely reach halftime in unison so there really is no convenient time to pause and upload my images, particularly when I'm working alone. So I choose a time where I can tear myself away from shooting so that I can upload images for my client. I try to do this in under 20 minutes and get back on the sidelines. 

 

Occasionally I shoot some short video clips to help tell the story of what's going on. The video found here is a brief summary of the first two sessions of the 2017 EYBL season. It contains both moving and still images and I hope it conveys some of the amazing energy that I experience from the sidelines.