Caitlin Clark's Buzzer Beater
An interview with photographer Brian Ray, who captured the moment
On Tuesday night, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark hit a buzzer beater from the logo to defeat Michigan State.
The moment immediately went viral, partly because the broadcast game clock was slightly off (something that’s addressed in the interview) so there was some confusion online, but mostly because of how cold-blooded the shot was, including the incredibly satisfying thump of the swish.
After the moment happened, we were treated to an iconic photo captured by Brian Ray, Director of Photography University of Iowa Athletics, which I then turned into this meme.
I wrote briefly about my process on Twitter, but when figuring out what to pair a sports image with, I spend time thinking through what makes it unique. In this case, it’s the perfect reflection on the court. There are a handful of artists who came to mind for the reflection - Peter Doig, Claude Monet - but I also knew I had photographed a piece by Winslow Homer from his 2022 exhibition at the Met. A decent amount of his work incorporates bodies of water, and I knew with this particular painting there was a color palette that matched. Sure enough, after a handful of different positioning/cropping attempts, I managed to get the yellow and green of the jerseys, the size discrepancy of the players, the orange of the hoop, and most importantly, the reflection on the water.
As for the photo, I wanted to get some more context on how it was captured, and I was lucky enough to spend some time speaking with Brian about his process.
LJ (ArtButMakeItSports)
Here with Brian Ray, Director of Photography University of Iowa Athletics, and I’m excited to chat about the Caitlin Clark buzzer beater on Tuesday vs. Michigan State, and the process that went into your photo(s) of the moment that ended up going viral.
Brian Ray
Thanks for having me. At Iowa, we're pretty blessed that we have two full-time staff photographers and a full-time photo intern. So we're able to bracket a lot of events. For some background, I'm the primary photographer for our women's basketball team. My assistant director, Stephen Mally, is the primary photographer for the men's team. And then I also travel with the football team. I had been gone at the bowl game and just flew in that day for the Michigan State game. Stephen was serving as the primary photographer, which gives the secondary photographer, in this case me, pretty much unlimited creative license, because the primary person is tasked with capturing the game. So Stephen’s responsibility is to have all the action, all the moments, etc, from the front side under the hoop. And the secondary person is free to roam, free to create, free to do whatever we want. I spent most of the game shooting in the reverse position, at the opposite end of the court, because we know that Caitlin, when she makes a three, she turns and celebrates going back down the court. So we've been pretty lucky over time to have captured numerous celebration photos.
As the game progressed, sometime during a time out in the third quarter, I was sitting and noticed that since the edges of our court are black, there was the reflection. And then I spent most of the second half shooting with the camera basically on the floor, practicing, trying to figure out how the reflection worked and how to best capture it with different angles and whatnot.
LJ
Can you take us through the exact moment the final play went down?
Brian
So when the time came, it just lined up perfectly. Caitlin was directly between the hoop and shot clock, and I was on the opposite side of the floor, and everything that I had been practicing and visualized just came together. And then it helped that as she celebrated and she turned and she basically ran right to me. So all that prior planning ended up working out in my favor.
LJ
Were you lying down on the floor with the camera, above it? How did the shot work logistically?
Brian
So I'm using a Canon R3, 70-200 2.8 for the lens. The camera is laying on its side in the vertical position, directly on the floor, with the LCD screen flipped out. So I can look down and I'm basically shooting off the screen, and I'm not even necessarily looking down the court. I'm looking straight down at the screen following the action that way. That’s how I was able to get that nice reflection - because the lens of the camera is basically right at floor level picking up that black paint creating a reflection.
LJ
In this case, did you get a handful of different shots and then pinpointed the one that had the shot clock at the right time?
Brian
So there's a sequence of 189 images from the time right before the shot goes up. It starts with about 00.2 on the clock. She jumps, you can see her release, then the ball starts to come down and I follow her as she is celebrating, and then she runs down the court right to me. So there's a whole sequence that the department has since turned into a little video (below).
this was a screen recording, so apologies if the resolution is low
The funny thing about the shot is, I didn't, at the time, within all the chaos of everything happening, realize how close she was to not getting it off. I had no idea that it was quite as tight as it was. And then the controversy that kind of blew up in the social media world because the Peacock clock on the broadcast was off compared to the actual shot clock; I had no understanding of any of that. The way we handle games is we're moving photos live, utilizing either hard lines at various points in our court, or we're using the stadium Wi-Fi. So as the game finishes, their celebration on the court, I'm going back to the locker room to keep shooting, basically just transmitting images from the back of the camera as quickly as possible. I had no idea what was really in there. And our social media team takes it from there and posts. And then the post that I created that you used was later in the evening after I got home and had some time to put things together.
LJ
Brian, this was awesome. I really appreciate you breaking everything down. If people want to follow you/your team’s work, where can they see it?
Brian
They can see all of our work @TheIowaHawkeyes and @IowaWBB for our women's basketball account. My personal tag is @HawkeyeBRay on Twitter and then my assistant director is @StephenMally
LJ
Thanks again for the time, and congratulations on such an incredible shot.
Brian
Thanks for having me, I appreciate it. It's always fun to talk to people about our work. I love your site - I don't know how you do it, comparing all of these images to art from history, but it is very fun to see. So I was personally very excited to see my work on your feed.
LJ
I was excited to feature you and hopefully again in the future, as I'm sure Caitlin and the team are going to have some pretty memorable moments as the rest of the season unfolds!