Fit to be tied

Nothing but net
London, ON
January 2009

When I was a lot younger than I am now, I despised basketball. I had always been short for my age, and I had the misfortune to attend a high school that, despite excellent academics, was the most basketball-crazy school you could imagine. Every phys-ed class ended up being an excuse for the gym teacher to pick shirts and skins and let us spend the entire period playing pickup b-ball. The only intramural sport that mattered was, you guessed it, basketball.

So after years of being picked last and honing my distaste of this overdone sport, I was glad to graduate and finally put it all behind me. To this day, I have no desire to pick up the orange ball.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the sport, however. Because as far as aesthetics go, there's lots to like about this game. I'm drawn to it through my lens precisely because it's so simple. There aren't a whole lot of elements associated with it - ball, net, court, sneakers, etc. - so it's always a challenge to tell the story within such a sparse context. I've tried this before, but once is never enough for me. So on a cold winter's night when my kids were playing b-ball at a local gym, I ventured onto the court and zeroed in on the net.

Funny how I enjoyed the experience much more this time out.

Your turn: A sport you love and/or hate. Please discuss.

One more thing: This photo is monochrome, though I didn't set out to shoot it that way. If you've got some black-and-white goodness that you'd like to share as part of this week's Thematic Photographic, just click here.