A basketball, a sunset, and a Pringles can

Megan Patterson of South High School is the girls basketball playmaker.

I had been carrying the idea for the girls basketball "Playmaker" photo around in my head for a couple of months when it came time to shoot it. I was thrilled when I found out that Megan Patterson had been chosen as my subject. I photographed her once before when she was going to school at Delores Huerta Prep for a story on her shot putting and discus throwing.

(Megan will attend the University of Central Florida on an athletic scholarship for shot putting and discus.)

She was a joy to photograph both times.

This time I had a chance to talk with her and her parents for about a half an hour prior to photographing her. That was because I had not taken into account the fact that the clocks had recently been set to an hour later so the sunset was later than I had thought.

Once the sun dipped behind the mountains it was "game-on". I had about 15 minutes to get all the photos I could of Megan shooting layups.

I mounted a flash on a light stand just out of the frame on the left side and to control the light and keep it just on her face I used a very high-tech piece of equipment, a Pringles potato chip can. I cut the ends off and cover it with black gaffer's tape (to add some stability) and slide it over the end of my flash. It works very well.

So with the light in place, and the remotes on the flash and my camera, I stepped into the ditch across the road from the basketball court and started to shoot. I literally shot her so many times that the batteries in the camera completely died.

There had been a guy shoot some baskets on the other end of the court and for a brief minute thought about including him in the photo, but it just didn't work out. So I would wait for him to get out of the photo and shoot, shoot, shoot.

And then the sun went down on the photo shoot and I climbed out of the ditch grateful for a girl basketball player who is patient with a goofy shooter like me.