Photographer Austin Bell photographed every outdoor basketball court in Hong Kong in an eye-catching new series titled “SHOOTING HOOPS.”
Bell has a unique eye for architectural perspectives. A self-proclaimed composition hunter and photo collector, his work comprises an astounding collection of thousands of landscape and architectural images. Frequently aerial in nature, his photographs show common subjects and places in unique ways. For such an accomplished photographer and world traveler, his subject of choice may surprise you: Austin Bell is an expert at photographing outdoor basketball courts.
With such a unique muse, one might wonder about the origin of seeing the mundane and wanting to share it in a novel way.
Growing up, both of Bell’s parents were avid photographers. He was accustomed to wielding the earliest digital cameras, a novel technology at the time. In his youth, he enjoyed the surprise of bringing a digital camera to school or camp and seeing the reaction of being able to share a picture instantly after taking it. The gimmick of a digital LCD screen is so common now with mirrorless cameras and smartphones; however, it was a fresh, eye-catching, and conversation starter back then.
That reaction, so rewarding, drove Bell’s passion not only for photography but also for creating something unique to shock and delight the viewer.
In his work today, Austin Bell seeks to use uncommon perspectives to photograph the everyday. His photographs highlight places that viewers are desensitized to and will therefore immediately identify and appreciate.
The basketball courts were perfect. By photographing a place that viewers are used to seeing from the ground, instead via the air, Austin Bell can recreate that shock and joy that he found in photography from his childhood. With so clear a concept, it might seem simple to execute. However, the scale and logistics were quite complex.
To find locations that would make beautiful aerial photographs, Austin Bell spends countless hours scouring Google Maps and tagging photos in Lightroom. Between the time online and scouting, he wants to make sure that everything is planned far in advance.
To create these compelling works, Bell’s gear of choice for aerials is, of course, a drone.
“Gear is both very important and not important depending on the type of shot,” he explains. “My aerial photography requires a drone — so it’s imperative to have that tool and something I couldn’t have dreamed of say, 15 years ago.”
When photographing from the air he prefers the DJI Mavic and continuously updates to the latest high-end compact model. On the ground, he uses a Nikon D500 with a variety of lenses including a 200-500mm depending on the desired results.
Austin Bell’s love for photographing outdoor basketball courts began in Hong Kong in 2019. He was attracted to their color, designs, ubiquity, and contrast with the city’s extreme vertical density. He noticed how drastically different and geometric the courts looked from above. Their shapes and lines reminded him of an artificial concrete crop circle.
As such a common cultural and anchor-point subject with cross-cultural appeal, he set off on a large-scale project. He decided to photograph every outdoor basketball court in Hong Kong. So he did so, all 2,549 of them. The process took him 140 days in the field. Then, as the pandemic developed, he ventured to other places with an unusual number of courts, such as New York City and Puerto Rico. In the years since, he has photographed over 4,500 outdoor basketball courts in 16 countries and 18 U.S. States.
For their part, the outdoor basketball courts exist almost outside of time. As Bell describes, “they’re immobile, easy to find, rely on no other people, and are always able to be shot via aerial perspective.”
Although that simplicity sounds easy, there were still challenges: weather, people, and access. The weather and how it affects light was the most significant challenge. Bell’s specific style necessitates a diffused light that can only be achieved on a cloudy day. In particular, with the Hong Kong images, between the tall buildings and notoriously fickle cloud cover of the city, there were times that he would take the bus to his destination only to not be able to photograph at all. With a specific style and pre-visualized image, his work required persistence and patience.
Style is a key factor outside of the use of diffused light, and this is also evident in his choice of composition. Bell’s Hong Kong outdoor basketball courts have a uniformly similar top-down view. With this homogeneous set of images, Bell was able to create time-lapses and grids. This layer to the series shows both the similarities and differences of what makes each individual court special whether through design, color, or immediate surroundings.
Bell is particularly proud of his large grid showing the top down view of every court in Hong Kong. It’s the image that he used for the cover of his photo book and truly displays the scale and scope of his project as well as how dedicated he was to photographing each single one. The sheer amount of courts in one city is astounding, as well as their variety from color to design. The totality of the project makes it truly unique. Even basketball courts in the far reaches of the city, hidden gems from seaside to the foot of mountains, have amazing designs are highlighted in his project.
His favorite image, displayed above, shows the MTR Subway, which briefly goes above ground and over a set of three courts, in a breathtaking feat of engineering unique to Hong Kong. Almost like a love letter to the city, the entire project shows how one person can remind us that there is beauty all around us if we just look.
Austin Bell’s photo series and self-published book both aptly titled SHOOTING HOOPS, were just on display at the Blue Lotus Gallery from January 17 through February 23 in Hong Kong. Now that the exhibition has concluded, the works can be viewed on his website with books available direct from the gallery.
Image credits: Photographs by Austin Bell. Courtesy of Blue Lotus Gallery.
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