Reviving images from 2 college basketball games in the 2007-08 season

If you're a regular visitor to Photo Potpourri, you're aware that in the past couple years, I've gone back to some of my very old shoots -- those I did before launching this blog in 2008 -- to breathe life into images for which at the time I had insufficient tools to deal with properly in post-processing. In most cases, it was a simple matter of restoring detail to shadowed areas of an image.

The challenge in those photos was that I shot them all in JPG format (I didn't begin shooting in RAW format until 2009), so I had limited opportunities to recover accurate exposure and color information. Still, I had success with a lot of the images in the "revival" effort.

I recently decided to do the same thing with two college basketball shoots from November 2007. The first, between Butler and Indiana State universities, was on Nov. 15 at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, the home court of Butler. The other was 11 days later  in a game between the University of Indianapolis and Franklin College at Nicoson Hall on the UIndy campus.

There were a variety of challenges with those shoots -- I learned only afterward that I had inadequate gear and, in my opinion, significantly inferior lighting at the UIndy arena. Indeed, both arenas also had unlevel lighting -- brighter in the center/midcourt areas, darker at the ends where the hoops were located. I will note that lighting at Hinkle was better than that at Nicoson.

Also, I was pretty new at doing sports photography indoors. I had shot high school basketball 30 years previously, but back then I was shooting black-and-white film, and I had a dark-room technician willing and able to push my film's ASA to 1000 or more during the chemical development process.

In 2007, my primary camera was a Canon 30D, which had a regular ISO ceiling of 1600 that could be doubled to 3200 if I wanted. But pictures shot with the 30D at ISO levels above 800 reflected significant degradation due to noise. So my camera was inadequate. On top of that, my fastest lens at the time was a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, hardly an ideal tool for indoor sports. I had an OK aperture, but for indoors sports you generally need reaches of 80 to 250 millimeters.

So to get even close to proper exposure, I found myself shooting wide open (f/2.8) at 1/250 and ISO 1000 (just over my "threshold") in a lot of shots. 1/250 doesn't cut it in a fast-moving game like basketball. I was afraid to push the ISO to 1600 (or even 3200) because I didn't know there was such a thing as noise-reduction software at the time. Six months or so later, I bought Noiseware noise-reduction software and went back to many of the pictures from those two games and used it on them.

Finally, I lacked knowledge that a camera had a continuous-focus tracking mechanism to help keep more photos sharp. The 30D had such a tool (AI Servo), but at the time, AI Servo sounded like gibberish to me and I hadn't "discovered" it, much less explored it. AI Servo would make a significant difference a year or so later when I finally looked into it for subsequent sports shoots. But because I didn't use it while shooting the 2007 basketball games, quite a few photos from the shoot had to be tossed summarily. The focus on quite a lot of the pictures ended up being on the background instead of the subject(s) in the foreground. The few pictures that turned out tack sharp were the result of dumb luck, I guess.

One other piece of background information relative to the basketball shoots should be in this post. In November 2007, I was more than halfway through a photography correspondence course I had enrolled in through the New York Institute of Photography. (My experience in this course was one of my very first posts after Photo Potpourri launched in late 2008). My interest in shooting these basketball games was driven primarily by a need to fulfill an assignment associated with a recently completed chapter in the NYIP course pertaining to sports and action photography. I had to submit a photo depicting action.

I submitted the photo you see leading off the post, my favorite from the UIndy game shoot. (The requirements were to show one of these three: action that was frozen, as in this photo, blurred movement, or a panned shot in which the subject is still but the background is blurred. Personally, I think NYIP should have required one example of each, but that's my opinion).

As always, to view a larger, sharper (hopefully?) version of a photo, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog from a mobile device. To view full galleries of all the images I made (good and bad), click on this link for the UIndy game pictures, and this link for the Butler game pictures.

Above: I was very excited about this shot, and I cropped it both horizontally (as you see in the lead-off photo), and with a pseudo-vertical orientation (shown above). Neither is the original composition, however. The original contains the full length body of UIndy player Keith Radcliffe (14) taking a shot while defended by Franklin's Marty Young (44).

The next favorites of mine from that shoot feature UIndy Greyhounds guard Tyke Cocherham (5) doing a pretzel-twist under-the-basket reverse layup (above) and dribbling around a Franklin defender along the baseline (first below). In the second photo below, I have another shot of Keith Radcliffe, moments before he leaped to put up the shot shown in the lead-off photo.   

Above: Freshman Tyler Kitchel (30) dribbling into and around the stiff arm of a Franklin defender.

Above: A Franklin player is guarded by UIndy's Myron Jackson (23). (If you're wondering why I'm not identifying the Franklin athletes by name, it's because the school doesn't have a 2007-08 roster available online as do UIndy, ISU and Butler).

Above: UIndy's leading scorer in the 2007-08 season was DeAndre Brock (32), shown putting up this jump shot. 

Above: From the Butler game, this shot of Indiana State's Adam Arnold pulling down a rebound probably is my favorite because it depicts some action ... and (most importantly) is those that turned out tack sharp. 

Above: Because of the limited focal range on my Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, the only shots I had a decent chance to keep in sharp focus were those in my vicinity, like this one of Butler senior guard A.J. Graves. I had several other interesting shots of Graves elsewhere in the game, but they were not in focus.  

Above: Another shot of action coming toward me, this time Butler's Drew Streicher (32) passing off the ball to a player out of the picture. 

Butler's Zach Hahn dribbling around a defender (above) and three-point shooting specialist Pete Campbell (34) launching a jumper near the free-throw line (below). I played with the orientation of the photo below before deciding to use Campbell (on the right) and the referee (on the left) as my reference points. Yes, it appears like the court is going downhill, but ... even 11 years afterward, it still doesn't bother me too much. 

Above: Senior guard Mike Green (10), who had transferred to Butler from Towson, proved to be a valuable pickup for the Bulldogs, beginning the previous season. The Bulldogs would finish the 2007-08 season with a 30-4 record, which included a first-place 16-2 finish in the Horizon League and a league postseason tournament championship (which gave them an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament). Butler beat South Alabama in the first round of the NCAA's before falling to Tennessee 76-71 in overtime in the second round. Below is another shot coming toward me, a safe composition for assuring sharpness when I had no continuous-focus activated.

Above and below: Fans in the legendary "Dawg Pound," who camp out at every home game in the seating area behind the east goal.  

A case of rotten timing: Craft brewery opens in my former 'hood

This is a catch-up post from last fall, when I made a trip to Indianapolis for my oldest son's wedding. The night of the nuptials -- a very casual ceremony in Garfield Park near where I formerly lived -- my daughter Kelly Anne and I decided to leave the post-ceremony part at the Konz homestead to make a beer run. We walked over to Garfield Brewery, at the corner of Hervey and Shelby streets.

A quick aside: As I watched craft breweries open in seemingly every nook and cranny of the Indianapolis community during the last eight years or so of my time in Indy, there were many times I opined (sometimes quietly, and sometimes aloud) that micro-brewers were overlooking our neighborhood as a locale for such an establishment. In the interim, I faithfully patronized the closest craft brewery to me -- Fountain Square Brewery.

And of course, less than a year after I pulled up roots and moved to North Carolina in July 2017, a Garfield Park area resident got the brainstorm idea to open (you guessed it) a micro-brewery in my former neighborhood. Garfield Brewery opened in spring 2018 (or thereabouts); October 2018 was my first chance to visit it after its opening.

On my son's wedding day, there wasn't a lot of time to appreciate the brewery or take in the ambiance (it's a very modest-sized establishment, although someone told me the owner is contemplating some kind of expansion in the future). We got a growler fill of a pale ale (and they let me sample two other brews, a pumpkin spice and a berry ale, neither of which I cared for) and quickly left. There was a band performing that night (see photo below), and I understand the brewery has live entertainment pretty often on weekends.

It its previous life, the building now occupied by Garfield Brewery was a diner called Sisters' Place (which I never set foot into at that site while I was there). Sisters' Place eventually uprooted about 15-20 years ago and moved north to the southeast corner of Madison and Terrace avenues, and the site remained unoccupied until the brewery took over.

(And to show you how time flies, Sisters' Place at Madison and Terrace has since been sold and now operates as Christina's Pancake House). Before the Shelby and Hervey location became a diner (which was before my time in the neighborhood), I have to believe the property was home to a gas station of some kind. Sisters' never bothered to remove the filling station infrastructure in the front, nor did the brewery, which must have decided to retain it as old-school charm (see photo below) ... and to provide cover for its outdoor seating area.

But I digress ...

Garfield Brewery's beverage menu is sprinkled with brews named for local streets, landmarks and the like. As the photo leading off the post shows, there's a Tickle Belly berry ale, named for the neighborhood's moniker for a slightly belly-tingling sensation one feels while driving on the somewhat humpy Pleasant Run bridge near the fire station at the north end of the park. My kids have known about Tickle Belly Hill almost since we moved into the neighborhood. Some small kids in the neighborhood had troubled pronouncing "belly"; you'd occasionally hear them say "berry" instead. No doubt, the brewery knew about that malapropism when it picked the name for its berry ale.

Of course, the Sisters Coffee porter is named for the brewery's previous iteration (as mentioned above). The Red Line American red ale is named for the Red Line rapid transit bus system under construction at this very moment along Shelby Street, a portion of the much larger Red Line rapid transit system under development throughout Indianapolis (and into Fishers, I understand).

The Pagoda Fresh Hop pale ale is named for the iconic pagoda in Garfield Park, the Mac Oktoberfest (presumably a seasonal brew) I'm guessing was named for the park's MacAllister Amphitheater and the Hervey Street Hefeweizen's origin should be obvious. I just visited the brewery's website and noticed the Pagoda pale ale is not listed currently, which is a shame. It was delicious.

Four Day Ray is one of the finest craft breweries I've visited ... so far

While in Indiana for the birth of a granddaughter on Feb. 12, I had a chance to stop at Four Day Ray Brewing, a craft brewery in Fishers that I'd been itching to to visit for some time.

Actually, it's more than a brewery. It's also a restaurant that serves traditional pub fare, but it does so in a setting that -- at least in my experience visiting craft breweries and pubs -- is one of the nicest and most striking of them around.

Four Day Ray is at 11671 Lantern Road, about two blocks north of East 116th Street in an area that was bottled up in construction activity for what seemed like an eternity when I was still living in Indiana. If you're familiar with 116th Street and know where Greek's Pizzeria is, it's almost two blocks directly north of that.

I had roamed the new mixed-used development area of this portion of downtown Fishers when I was up for a visit in May 2018, and I came very close to Four Day Ray during my walk-around at that time, not realizing I was as close as I was. I went through my May 2018 photos on the drive back to North Carolina on this recent commute, and I could see the brewery in the near background in one of the pictures. At the time, though, I didn't know that's what it was.

Because Four Day Ray has a decent menu and serves food to sit-down crowds, it is open more hours than most craft breweries. In many of my first visits to craft breweries, I strive to indulge a flight so I can sample anywhere from four to six of a brewery's offerings. I wasn't in the mood for a flight, though, when I went there two weeks ago. Instead, I asked the server if I could try small samples of two brews that jumped out at me on the beer menu -- the Afterburner smoked lager and the Air Raid pale ale.

I was pleased that my pallet reacted positively to both, but it forced me to decide between them to wash down my meal of a half-slab of barbecued ribs. I went with the Air Raid, and I was not disappointed.

I so much enjoyed the pale ale -- agreeable to the tongue, just the right amount of hop bitterness (which is not a lot) and almost the exact amount of maltiness I've come to appreciate in the pale ales I really enjoy.

The ribs (above) were cooked pretty well, but I thought they were weak on the spice rub I've come to enjoy in ribs. I asked the server if I could get a side of barbecue sauce, and she kindly complied. I often prefer to eat ribs without sauce if they're prepared with a delectable dry rub (a good example is the Texas rub at Ruby Tuesday's ribs). Thankfully, the sauce made the difference with the ribs at Four Day Ray, so I left a happy diner and imbiber -- so much so that I bought a six-pack of Air Raid to go. While buying the six-pack, I learned that Fridays are $7 growler fill days.

Lee Ann stuck to unsweetened ice tea with her meal, which was a pair of pulled pork sliders (above) and a side of french fries. We both also got a nice-sized green salad with balsamic viniagrette dressing (below). The salad and dressing were very good.

Four Day Ray has a lot of seating space for dining customers. You can find it inside on two floors (levels) and even more outdoors. I roamed the interior after I finished my meal to grab the pictures you see in this post.

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. To view a full gallery of photos from my visit to Four Day Ray, follow the link in this sentence.

Photo concept hits me while in IKEA store

Every once in a while, a photo concept hits me like a lightning bolt, and that's what happened the other day while walking through an IKEA store in Fishers, Ind., with family members.

We were well into our stroll through the store (probably even beyond the halfway point) when a series of patterns, lines, colors oddities (to me, anyway) started to jump out at me as I perused the displays sprinkled about.

I pulled out my iPhone X and started taking shots. I didn't think at the time that I'd grab very many, knowing that we were almost through with our stroll. But I ended up taking a lot more pictures than I thought I would. The photo of the floor rugs you see leading off the post was probably the busiest of the photos I took;  it had both patterns and colors.

But that's the simple point of this post. I did only minor editing (occasionally to boost shadow detail), but otherwise, these are mostly the raw images.

Again, it's simply about patterns, lines, colors and oddities.

As always, to view a larger, sharper version of a photo, simply click on the image. This is particularly helpful when accessing the blog using a mobile device. To view a full gallery of images from this shoot, follow the link in this sentence.