25th Anniversary of NC State's last ACC Tournament Win!

This past week NC State University celebrated it's 125th anniversary. Today, Thursday March 8th the ACC Men's Basketball tournament starts with NC State taking on Boston College for a chance to make the NCAA tournament field. Each NC State win will bring this years team closer to a tournament bid. I realized that the last time NC State won the tournament was when the university was celebrating it's 100th anniversary...25 years ago!! My files are more organized than they have been and I was able to pull the images fairly quickly from that tournament which took place at the Capital Center in Landover, MD.

There were some famous names attached to that tournament and it is hard for me to comprehend how it was that long ago. NC State went up against Duke in the first game as the 6th seed and prevailed against the Blue Devils 71-64 in overtime against such players as Danny Ferry, currently VP or basketball operations of the San Antonio Spurs, and Quin Snyder who is currently an assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers.

Mike Giomi, a reserve played often behind Charles Shacklford.
In the regular season, State had won both games against semi-final opponent Wake Forest and Tyrone "Muggsy" Bogues.


State prevailed again against the Deacons 77-73 with Charles Shackleford leading the Pack with 17 points and Bennie Bolton sccoring 16 points. State then advanced to the title game against UNC who was undefeated against ACC teams that season.



In the last seconds of the UNC game Vinnie Del Negro had a chance to win the game, but was fouled on the play. He sank both free throws to provide the winning margin 68-67.














NC State made the NCAA tournament that year and their first round opponent were the Florida Gators coached by former NC State coach Norm Sloan and assisted by former playmaker Monte Towe. Florida had another assistant coach that year that was a former Wolfpack guard. Can you name him? He's now an assistant coach with the NY Knicks. Unfortunately, led by future star Vernon Maxwell, Florida overcame a 9 point second half deficit and scored 17 unanswered points to end NC State's title hopes.

PHOTOSHOP User & AlienSkin Software

Last year we completed a project for David's Dumpling & Noodle Bar, a great Asian restaurant near NC State University in Raleigh. It involved the enlargement of a series of images that I created for the interior. Because the canvases were as big as 11 feet wide in places, we needed to use a software called BlowUp by AlienSkin which allowed us to size up our images dramatically. We tried BlowUp after looking for an alternative to the PS built in sizing features. The results from BlowUp were stunning.
This month AlienSkin featured the project in their ad for the software used on the rear cover of Photoshop User February issue. It was certainly a nice tribute to David's project. And if you haven't been to David's yet, what are you waiting for?

And yes...to answer your question, the above image is an illustration completely manufactured in Photoshop CS5.

Wiley School - Before and After

I'm not sure I would make a good journalist. I do consider myself an illustrator. I illustrate with camera, lens, film (or digital), software, etc to create an image that is an interpretation of what I see. The image on the left is how a photojournalist might photograph this scene. There has been some controversy over photojournalists manipulating their images digitally and as a consequence ethics have been put into question. Writers on the other hand are allowed to illustrate a scene in words, yet aren't questioned as to their perspective or point of view, their bias, or what they leave in or leave out in describing a scene, event, or story.
Yes I do believe that photojournalists must have an ethical line that they can't cross, but that line is gray. When photographing an event, the photojournalist must document the scene as they interpret it without manipulation, but the gray area is what is considered manipulation. In the above example, the photograph on the right is certainly manipulated and is "my" illustration of this scene as I interpret it. However, the photograph on the left is also manipulated in how I chose to photograph it. I left out much of the building not showing the people that may have been just off camera. The lens I chose compresses the view. The moment I chose kept cars out of the foreground, however, there were many cars zipping by while I was taking the image. Were the colors that way? What I saw and felt was more of the image on the right. The camera couldn't quite capture what I saw with my eyes. The highlights on the railings caught my attention... the dappled lighting through the trees... the feeling of late afternoon. The camera didn't capture any of that, but it was there. As an illustrator I was able to recapture those feelings of what I saw. Isn't that what a photojournalist should do as well? So the question here is which photograph really captured the scene the way I saw it? The one on the right of course. As a photojournalist the ethical line would have been crossed by turning on the light...which is what I did...and why I'm not a photojournalist at least with this picture.

Compilation of 15 years... and then some.

SIMON | <-

A compilation of photography by Simon Griffiths over a period of 15 years to the present. 124 pages of beautiful photography highlighting both commercial and personal projects from the portfolio. Includes portraits of famous North Carolinians, The Preemie Project, Photographs of Myanmar(Burma), and the greeting cards that together have sold over a million copies.

NC State honors the 1988-89 Basketball Team

When I heard that NC State was going to honor the 1988-89 basketball team at the UNC game Tuesday night, I decided to pull out the binder full of images from that season. I recently moved all my negatives and files closer to home such that I could pull photographs more easily. At 11pm, I realized that there were just too many images that I could scan from that season. Looking through the images I saw a lot of bench participation, something that seems to be lacking this year. I also looked for some image of Corchiani or Gugliotta having words with a referee, but I didn't find that either. After an hour of culling and scanning, I was sleepy and done. All the images shown are from the 88-89 season and feature the key players. I hope only that this year's home game against UNC will be exciting, closely matched, and perhaps State will be the better team for once.

Gary Carter

Over the last few weeks, I have been moving my extensive files to a more accessible location. Back in 1987 and 88 I was a frequent visitor to Shea stadium, obviously home of the NY Mets. Fortunately, I have kept fairly accurate data as to where to find certain photographs, so when I heard the news of Gary Carters death due to brain cancer, I went looking this morning and found these few gems from 1988. It's difficult to see such an great athlete die so young. In doing my followup series I am sometimes amazed at the change over the years. In my mind, the individuals are frozen in time both in my head and on film...so it's an eye opener to see such change. When I scan some of these images though, many of them bring me right back to exactly what I was doing when I shot the picture. I may not be great with names, but I'll always remember an image I took. Well....most of the time. :)

Kay Yow- Hopes 4 Hope

Today at 5pm, the 7th annual Hoops 4 Hope basketball game will take place at Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. The legendary coach of NC State's women's basketball program for 34 years passed away in 2009 after a long battle with breast cancer. I had the privilege of knowing Kay and photographing her at some significant moments in her life. The photograph on the left was shot around 1987, only two weeks after Kay had radical surgery...her first battle with the disease. The photograph on the right was taken in 2008, one of her last portraits to be made.

My own mother had a radical mastectomy in 1975. At 83 years old, she is still here and although dealing with the ravages of getting older...she is still independant and in better shape than many her age. One can beat this disease and live a full life. It's important that those attending the game tonight remember that. Hope lives.