So a little over a week ago, UNC's ride to Detroit ended with the Heels hosting the title trophy over their heads. It was an absolutely incredible way to cap the careers of a number of Carolina players, and felt like the perfect closure to my sports photography career in Chapel Hill, as well, seeing as my wife and I will be moving to Manchester, England in a little under six months. I had always talked about wanting to photograph a national championship game, and it proved to be pretty exhilirating and fun, minus the fact that they wouldn't actually let us on the court for the celebration, which is probably wise because up until realizing that, I had imagined myself: a) throwing elbows to get in position for a shot, accidentally breaking someone's nose and being dragged off the court screaming, never to see the trophy-raising, or b) getting trampled by some of the larger, more motivated (read: cutthroat) photogs in the elephant-stampede like frenzy that would have gone on. And yes, I've actually had something similar to the latter happen to me after Davidson beat Georgetown in Raleigh last year, and I was thrown underneath a table by some big guys from Getty who weren't afraid to push me aside to get a shot of Steph Curry acknowledging the Davidson fans after the game.

Fortunately, neither took place and I was able to get some pretty good shots of the celebration. My biggest regret was that the Carolina fan section was directly to our right, so that most all of the players were looking that direction when jumping up and down. The players eventually acknowledged the student section, which was directly behind the two rows of photographers, but by then the confetti had stopped falling and it didn't have quite the same feel. From all the great photos you see of confetti and streamers falling on the guys, I had imagined that lasts for like a full minute or two... nope. The stuff comes out of the rafters for about 30 seconds and that's it. Yet another reinforcement to always be ready to shoot - I had thought about changing lenses on one of my cameras but fortunately thought the better of it, as I would have spent the entire time fiddling with cameras instead of getting the shot. Anyways, a gallery of photos from the title game is at the top of this post, from which I've also taken and posted a few of my favorites on the site here.

If you're interesting in ordering a print from the championship game or the blissful mayhem afterwards, just send me an email through the contact form found elsewhere on the site. Thanks and enjoy!

Of all the great pictures I got the chance to take this weekend, the one that is currently spreading all over the internet isn't a shot of Tyler celebrating amidst the confetti, or Roy getting misty-eyed during One Shining Moment... it's one that I innocently shot looking into the crowd just before UNC's game against Michigan State.

I happened to notice a lot of the former UNC basketball players milling around in the stands, as all the other photographers did, and we were all snapping photos of Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Rasheed Wallace, George Lynch, etc. milling around in the crowd. However, when everyone else put their lenses down I kept mine up juuuuust a little bit longer and happened to catch a shot of former Tar Heel Makhtar N'diaye holding up someone else's homemade sign.

For the joy in every UNC victory, there is an equal amount of revelry in a Duke loss, and I clearly underestimated how much people would take this photo and run with it. I never thought another picture I took would get spread around on the internet more than the infamous Danny Green dunking on Greg Paulus picture I took, but this one has really shown up a lot, and on blogs that I already love like The Sporting Blog and Clay Travis' blog, and my current employer has even asked to run it as a double-truck in their next issue. I even had tons of friends emailing me the picture without ever realizing I was the one who had taken it.

A part of me is always happy to see my work get passed around like that, but another part of me is kicking myself for being so stupid as to post anything online, even on my own Facebook page, without putting my name on it first. So for anyone still wanting to pass it around, here it is, with proper attribution - please feel free to send it along. (And yes, I can sell you a print if you really like it that much - I've gotten this question quite a bit already. Email me.)

Thanks to everyone who's enjoyed the photo thus far. It does make me a little sad that Makhtar is the one holding it up, but the expressions on those guys' faces is priceless.