A couple of months ago I put up some pictures of pickup basketball made with my digital camera–experimenting with the idea of of photographing in between moments of the game–for instance, when the ball is on the rim, and the players are jockeying for position or blocking out for a rebound.

Rather than work with a fast nimble camera, I’m working with the 4×5 view camera, exploiting, in a sense, its awkwardness for the task–waiting for moments of relative stillness, players gazing upward, or poised for a play developing out of the frame. The 4×5 negatives can be scanned at high resolution and printed at large scale.

I’ve played basketball most of my life, and know the street game well. There is a gritty poetry to the way it’s played in the city, the ex-college players, faded high school stars, and playground wannabes all jostling for the ball, struggling for fleeting moments of glory or the satisfaction of fitting in, keeping up, playing within oneself.

Quality of play on the Lower East Side is mixed, but I’ve seen some really good players lately in Roosevelt Park just south of Houston Street. It’s a diverse group of all ethnicities, all shapes and sizes, decked out in equally varied clothing and foot gear.

Click on the photos to get at least some sense of the detail of the 4×5 film.