A Dynamic Game

Also from the first official NBA season, the above photograph demonstrates how basketball is a dynamic sport, which reveals a major hurdle in basketball photography. This hurdle comes in the form of a question to the photographer. 

How do I capture the frenetic motion of the sport while also properly capturing a moment in time? 

In the case of this photo, the subject's face and body are not fully focused, a result of his barreling drive down the sideline. As a motion shot, this image gives the viewer the perspective of how fast-moving the game is. In the two other photographs from this era, the subjects are frozen, while this image seems to be one in a larger moment. This motion proves to be an argument for consuming basketball media through the medium of film rather than photography. As a result, at the end of this era, the NBA reached its first broadcast deal for the 1953-54 season (Fischer, 2024). Going forward, NBA moments could be viewed across the country as the dynamic sport it is, while also still having photography to enshrine important moments and figures.