Origins: Showcase Basketball

Showcase Basketball founder Galdino Haime, at the neighborhood court he first learned how to play basketball

Sometime around Christmas of last year I was contacted by Galdino Haime about doing a photo shoot. The last time I'd photographed him was my first-ever studio shoot all the way back in September of 2014. On that occasion, I had rented Studio34x in Almere to do a shoot with the van de Kieboom family of models (mom Djelika and daughters Fabienne and Anna). At about the same time, Galdino's business partner, Michael Evolution had contacted me and I suggested he drop in on the Kieboom shoot. I had the studio for the full day, so I could get a few shots of him if he liked. He agreed, and brought Galdino with him.

The van de Kiebooms, (L to R) Anna, Djelika, Fabienne

Michael Evolution of Showcase Basketball, at the 2014 Amsterdam Streetball finals halftime show

Galdino wanted a new shoot, but wasn't picky about where. I liked the idea of shooting him in locations that were meaningful to him and his development as a freestyle basketball performer. Galdino suggested his home town of Den Haag. I left the selection of specific locations up to him, because he knew the city better than I did, but also because I wanted to get locations that had meaning for him, rather than just going for cosmetic qualities. 

I asked Michiel van Ommen to come along to help with lighting and then we set up the shoot for January 28 of this year. Speaking of which, I was going to write a different type of article at the time, hence the delay in getting this out. I brought my normal kit to the shoot: my primary camera, a Phase One XF, a backup Phase One DF+, A Phase One IQ3-100 digital back, a 55 mm, 80 mm, and 150 mm Schneider-Kreuznach lenses, 2 Profoto B1 flash units, an enduro carbon fiber tripod and head, light stands, and a few light modifiers. I had a hard time making up my mind whether I wanted to bring my MacBook Pro for tethered shooting, or my iPad for essentially the same purpose. In the end, I brought both. To haul all these things to Den Haag, I rented a car, which happened to be the tiniest car I could have gotten. This wasn't on purpose, but it was the only vehicle available for the weekend.

In Den Haag, we transferred our things to Galdino's car, after he moved the child seats out of the way. Our first stop was the place where Galdino first played basketball. "It is a new court," he said, "but it is built right on top of the court I used to play on when I was a kid. This is literally where I learned how to play basketball." Galdino hopped out of the car and helped us unpack. He had two gym bags. One was full of specialty freestyle basketballs, the other with different outfits he would wear for the shoot. A blue suit hung from a hook inside the car, but that was for later. 

While Michiel and I set up the lights, Galdino put on a track suit and started warming up. That was a good idea on his part, because it was a very cold day and early in the morning. The sky was dark and threatened rain. I worried the lights would be damaged if it rained, so I asked Michiel to keep a watch for raindrops.

Galdino on the home court, listening to some tunes and warming up

Galdino balances a spinning basketball on an extended finger. Watching him do this was very impressive!

After shooting the home court, Galdino drove us to a court near Den Haag's Centraal Station. Parking was a bit tricky, but we found a place about a block away from the court we would shoot at. Before we got there though, the train bridge presented an interesting opportunity. We walked up the hill to see if it would be safe to shoot Galdino with a view of a train behind him. It was, and there was a solid wall of what looked like bulletproof glass to prevent anyone from crossing onto the tracks, so I put the 150 mm on my camera and we shot a few images there, before we got to the courts. Waiting for the trains was the most nerve-wracking part of the shoot, because they would appear and disappear almost as soon as we saw them. To get the shots we wanted took a few tries, but we got them in the end.

After shooting on the train bridge, we went to our second court of the day, another court Galdino used when he was young. This one had a pretty good view of downtown Den Haag behind Galdino, but getting the court and the city in the same shot was tricky. Galdino pointed out a gleaming tower in the distance "They have an excellent restaurant up there. If we have time, maybe you can get a shot of me wearing my suit up there," he suggested. I wanted to do it, but we didn't have time. It had started to warm up, so we got some shots of Galdino without his jacket.

It started to rain basketballs, so Galdino had to use an umbrella

In this shot, Galdino is balancing two spinning balls at once, each spinning in the opposite direction. It was tricky to get this because I needed a slow shutter speed to catch the spinning motion, but not so slow that Galdino was blurred.

After the "train station court", Galdino was eager to get to the Electriciteit Fabriek. This building, he said, was an old factory that had been converted to an artist's space. For this, he would wear his suit. He parked near the building, then changed clothes right there, which was a bit unexpected, but the next thing I knew, he was out of his t-shirt and jeans, now in a crisp custom-tailored blue suit, looking very much like an executive (who could juggle basketballs very well).

Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring the lights into the building, so we had to use available light only. The room was dark, which made this a very challenging location. Michiel had the idea of using everyone's cell phones to cast a constant light on Galdino. It worked, but it wasn't nearly as much light as we had available from the B1 units. Galdino said nothing about how the Electriciteit Fabriek was connected to his development as a freestyle basketball performer, making me suspect he just thought it was a cool space--which it definitely was.

Galdino stores his basketball on a leather couch while an orange ribbon spins in the background. The ribbon was part of a kinetic sculpture that added quite a lot to these shots, so I was glad it was there

Basketball master Galdino Haime has a seat for the second time of the day. The couch, by the way, was not originally in this location. Due to recent hernia surgery, I couldn't move it, but Michiel and Galdino did the honors, and moved it onto a concrete platform in front of the orange ribbon sculpture.

Taking a break from big business, Galdino balances a spinning basketball on the corner of his sunglasses.

This is one of my favorite images from the shoot. We were in a restricted area for this, but got permission to do it, so this is not guerrilla filmmaking.

Galdino was a great pleasure to work with, and quite an impressive freestyle basketball performer. If you haven't seen him or his partner Michael perform, it's worth having a look. You can see some videos of their freestyle basketball performances on their website here.