The Big Game Youth League, founded in early 2023, is a junior basketball league featuring various teams from around the UAE. I served as the photographer for their inaugural season January 2023 to April 2023.
There were multiple games played on Saturdays and Sundays, sometimes as many as three being played simultaneously, totalling around 12 games a day. I developed a strategy to rotate to each game, ensuring I spent a similar amount of time on each court. Keeping an eye on the energy of each game was also important, as some games required more attention than others.
I was non-stop shooting on League days and often ended up with over 256GB of footage since I was also recording vlog and social media content for HMD. I was shooting with a Sony ZV-E10 (a vlog camera) with a 16-50mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, which was tricky to use in the League's first venue due to its terrible lighting. I fixed up the photos in Lightroom, often using the same technique for most of them and making small adjustments where needed.
The deadline for these photos was around four days from Sunday. It was tight since I had such a large volume of photos to filter through and edit while managing university work and my full-time job. Additionally, I had no Wi-Fi and was working off my phone hotspot, which significantly slowed down the transfer speeds. Surprisingly, I managed to make it work.
I have to say it was an enjoyable experience, witnessing basketball at various levels alongside the sometimes busy atmosphere when games got really dramatic.
I can't show all the pictures I took so I'll just post a few - you can check out Big Games Facebook page to see more.