Where Basketball Begins

The Basketball Courts We Grew Up On

Before basketball became arenas, sneaker deals, and prime time, it was something smaller. More personal.

A hoop over the garage. A crooked rim at the end of a driveway. A backboard nailed to a barn. A court behind a school where the lines had nearly disappeared. A patch of asphalt in a city park where games continued until nobody could see the rim.

For a lot of people who grew up with the game, those places are basketball.

They aren't particularly important on a map. Most will never host an organized game. Some barely qualify as basketball courts at all. But they're where countless people first learned to shoot, competed against siblings, played one-on-one with their father, stayed outside until dark, or imagined taking the final shot with a championship on the line.

That's what makes them worth remembering.

At the edge of a rural field, the basketball hoop and seesaw sit beneath the setting sun.

Before There Was a Gym

Basketball doesn't require much.

A ball. A rim. Something resembling a backboard. Enough ground to take a few dribbles.

That's one of the things that has always made the game so accessible, and why basketball hoops appear in such unlikely places across America.

They stand beside barns and cornfields, behind churches, on telephone poles, in empty lots and at the ends of rural roads. Some are carefully installed. Others seem to have been assembled from whatever happened to be available.

The setting changes, but the invitation is always the same.

Pick up a ball and shoot.

The Hoop at Home

For many players, the most important basketball court they ever knew wasn't really a court.

It was the driveway.

That's where repetition happened. Ten free throws before dinner became fifty. Fifty became a hundred. Games of HORSE turned competitive. Brothers and sisters settled arguments with one-on-one. Parents rebounded while their kids shot.

The hoop became part of the house.

Years later, the house might be sold and the driveway might belong to somebody else, but people remember exactly where they stood to take those shots.

Beside a vintage car, the basketball hoop stands above a large woodpile in a working yard.

Across the open field, a lone basketball hoop stands with rock formations stretching across the horizon.

Basketball in Small-Town America

Drive through enough of America and basketball hoops begin to appear everywhere.

Small towns have their own versions of Madison Square Garden.

A faded court behind an elementary school. Two rims beside a community center. A hoop overlooking farmland. A backboard standing alone in a place where there doesn't seem to be another person for miles.

These courts aren't surrounded by thousands of spectators. Most of the time they're completely empty.

That's part of what makes them interesting.

Without players, uniforms or crowds, the hoop becomes something else. It becomes part of the landscape and a marker of the people who live there.

Beside a picnic table and rope swing, the basketball hoop stands beneath a changing sky.

Against an American flag, a worn backboard and rim stand strong as a symbol for the love of the game in America.

A weathered backboard and rim stand against a dark, changing sky.

Farm Ball

Some basketball hoops seem inseparable from where they stand.

A hoop beside a barn isn't simply a place to play basketball. It says something about the people who put it there.

Work and play occupy the same ground. Chores get finished and somebody starts shooting. A patch of dirt or concrete becomes a court because that's the space available.

There doesn't need to be a gym nearby.

There just needs to be a hoop.

Between weathered barns and a silo, a basketball hoop stands in an open patch of ground.

Inside the barn, a basketball hoop hangs above stacked hay bales where work and play share the same space.

Barn Ball — View the Fine Art Print

Every Court Has a Story

The longer you look at old basketball hoops, the more questions they create.

Who put it there?

Who played on it?

How many games happened underneath it?

Who left town and still thinks about that court?

The photographs can't answer those questions. That's part of their appeal.

An empty basketball court leaves room for the viewer's own memories.

Someone who grew up playing in Indiana may see something completely different from someone who learned the game on a playground in New York. A former player sees one thing. A coach sees another. A parent who spent years rebounding for a child sees something else entirely.

The photograph stays the same.

The story brought to it changes.

Using a railroad crossing sign as a backboard, this hoop stands in a dry landscape far from a traditional court.

After dark, basketball courts sit beneath the mountain with the surrounding lights visible beyond the fence.

American Backcourts

For more than 15 years, I've photographed basketball hoops and courts while traveling throughout the United States and beyond.

The project became American Backcourts.

It was never intended to document the best courts or the most famous places in basketball. The photographs are about the opposite: ordinary places where the game exists quietly as part of everyday life.

Some courts were found deliberately. Most weren't.

They appeared along highways, behind buildings, in neighborhoods and small towns, beside farms and in places where stopping the car seemed mandatory.

Over time, the collection became less about basketball itself and more about place, ingenuity, community and the peculiar ways people make the game their own.

American Backcourts has been featured by ESPN, NBA TV, SLAM and in fine art photography books, among others, but the subject of the photographs has remained remarkably simple.

A hoop.

A place.

And evidence that somebody, at some point, wanted to play.

A makeshift backboard and rim are attached to a wooden utility pole beside the road.

The Places We Remember

Basketball changes as people get older.

The games become less frequent. The knees hurt a little more. The driveway where you learned to shoot might not belong to your family anymore.

But certain places stay remarkably clear.

You remember the sound of the ball.

You remember where the cracks were in the pavement.

You remember the spot you weren't supposed to shoot from.

You remember playing until it was too dark to see.

Maybe that's why an old basketball hoop can carry so much weight.

It's an ordinary object capable of bringing back an entire part of someone's life.

And somewhere in America, there's probably still a ball bouncing underneath one.

The basketball hoop appears in the reflection of standing water beneath the cloudy sky.

American Backcourts Fine Art Prints

A selection of photographs from American Backcourts is available as signed fine art prints.

Created from more than 15 years of photographing basketball hoops and courts across America, the collection includes rural backboards, backyard hoops, small-town courts and other places where the game becomes part of the landscape.

Explore American Backcourts Fine Art Prints

More American Basketball Photography

Basketball in Europe

Vietnam Hoops

Snow covers the ground around a weathered barn where a small basketball hoop remains in place through winter.

A folding chair faces the lone hoop across an open landscape, with no court, crowd or scoreboard in sight.

Vietnamese Basketball Photographs

Vietnam Basketball Hoops

Street Courts, Local Culture, and Basketball Photography from Vietnam

Basketball is often thought of as an American export — born in a Massachusetts gymnasium in 1891 and carried outward through schools, cities, and eventually professional leagues around the world. While traveling through Vietnam, I was struck by how naturally the game has taken root there, not as a spectacle, but as part of everyday life.

Across cities, towns, and quieter neighborhoods, basketball hoops appear in unexpected places: schoolyards, narrow streets, open courtyards, and community spaces where the game feels woven into the rhythm of daily life. This series documents basketball hoops in Vietnam as quiet markers of a global sport adapting to a local landscape.

Basketball Culture in Vietnam

Basketball in Vietnam doesn’t announce itself loudly. It exists alongside scooters, street vendors, and the constant motion of city life. In larger cities like Ha Noi, formal courts sit beside improvised spaces where a single hoop is enough to gather players at dusk. The game is played casually — pickup runs, after-school games, and neighborhood meetups — less about structure and more about presence.

What stood out most was how accessible basketball felt. You didn’t need a gym or a polished court. A hoop mounted to a wall or standing alone on cracked pavement was enough. These small courts and informal hoops reflect how basketball culture adapts when it travels — shaped by space, environment, and community rather than uniform design.

Vietnam Basketball Hoops as Photographic Subjects

As a photographer, basketball hoops have long fascinated me as cultural objects. In Vietnam, they become especially compelling. The hoops themselves often show signs of wear — rusted rims, faded backboards, uneven surfaces — but they feel purposeful, still actively used and cared for.

Photographing these hoops wasn’t about action or athletic performance. Instead, it was about the spaces around them: the architecture, the light, the way people move through the frame even when they aren’t playing. These images sit somewhere between travel photography, documentary work, and fine art basketball photography.

Each hoop tells a quiet story about place. They suggest where kids gather after school, where communities overlap, and how a global sport finds a local expression far from its origins.

Street Basketball Courts in Ha Noi and Beyond

Many of the basketball hoops in this series were photographed in and around Ha Noi, where dense urban neighborhoods create intimate court environments. Others were found while traveling through smaller towns and less-touristed areas, where hoops feel more isolated — standing alone in open spaces, waiting for players to return.

These locations reveal a side of Vietnam that isn’t always highlighted in travel photography. Basketball courts become landmarks, offering insight into daily routines rather than postcard views. They act as subtle entry points into understanding local culture through sport.

A Global Game, Seen Through Travel Photography

Basketball’s global reach is often discussed in terms of professional leagues and international competition. What interests me more are these quieter expressions — the places where the game exists without spectacle.

This project fits within my larger body of work documenting basketball hoops across different regions, from small towns in the United States to international locations like Vietnam. In each place, the hoop remains recognizable, but the environment reshapes its meaning.

Vietnam basketball hoops feel rooted, practical, and alive. They are not nostalgic relics, but active participants in daily life.

Prints and Licensing

These photographs are part of an ongoing documentary and fine art series exploring basketball culture through place.
Fine art prints of select images from this Vietnam basketball hoops series are available for collectors, and the work is also available for editorial and commercial licensing.

If you’re interested in prints, licensing, or learning more about this project, feel free to get in touch.

More Basketball Stories From Around The World

European Basketball - Basketball hoops photographed across European cities and small towns, showing how the game lives far beyond its American roots.

American Basketball - A long-term photography project documenting old and handmade basketball hoops found throughout the United States.

Hoop Prints - Select basketball hoop photographs available as fine art prints for collectors and interior spaces.

Vietnamese basketball hoop

Basketball hoop in Ha Noi, Vietnam

Hoi An, Vietnam basketball hoop

Basketball court in Vietnam

Colorful basketball court at a school in Vietnam

Black and white photograph of a Vietnamese basketball hoop

Photograph of an old basketball hoop at a school in a small Vietnamese town

Basketball In Winter

Winter Basketball Hoops in America

Winter changes everything.

Courts disappear under snow. Lines fade. Backboards freeze over. In most places, the game moves indoors.

But not everywhere.

Across small towns, backyards, and open spaces, basketball hoops remain standing through the winter—unused at times, but never gone. The photographs in this post are part of my ongoing American Backcourts series, documenting the places where the game continues to exist, even in the coldest months of the year.

A winter storm covers a basketball hoop in front of a mountain cabin

Basketball in the Off-Season

Winter reveals something different about these courts.

Without players, without movement, the focus shifts to the environment. Snow collects around the base of the hoop. Ice forms on the backboard. The court becomes quiet, almost suspended.

But the structure remains.

A basketball rim buried in a massive pile of snow in the Eastern Serra

When the Court Disappears

In many of these places, the court itself is no longer visible.

A driveway becomes a sheet of ice.
A dirt court turns to frozen ground.
A painted surface is buried under snow.

The only thing left is the hoop—marking where the game returns when the season changes.

A basketball hoops sits quietly above a pile of snow as a snowboarder shovels out his car

Why Winter Changes the Photograph

Photographing these hoops in winter isn’t just about weather—it’s about absence.

Without people, the images become more about space, stillness, and time. The hoop is no longer part of an active game. It becomes a marker of one.

A worn hoop standing in front of a red brick building, the court quiet and frozen until the season changes.

Part of the American Backcourts Project

These winter photographs are part of American Backcourts, a long-term series documenting basketball hoops across the United States that has been exhibited in fine art galleries/museums and published in iconic magazines like SLAM as well as fine art books about basketball culture.

→ View the full American Backcourts basketball photography gallery
→ Explore available basketball photography prints

View more basketball stories from small town America

A snow-covered court at sunset in a small town, where the hoop remains even as winter takes over the landscape.

American Basketball Culture

Basketball and American Culture

Basketball is woven into the American landscape. Hoops appear beside barns and houses, on school playgrounds and city streets, in small towns, empty lots, driveways and gyms. Some are carefully maintained. Others have been patched together, weathered by decades outside, or left behind long after the games stopped.

For more than fifteen years, American Backcourts has documented these places across the country. The photographs aren't really about basketball courts alone. They're about the communities, landscapes and people surrounding the game, and the different ways basketball becomes part of a place.

A hoop can reveal a surprising amount without a player ever appearing in the frame.

Primm, Nevada

Minden, Nevada

Santa Rosa, New Mexico

Olancha, California

Basketball As A Global Language

Basketball Hoops in Europe

Street Basketball and Public Hoops Across European Countries

Basketball is often thought of as an American game, but travel quickly proves otherwise. While moving through cities and small towns across Europe, I began noticing basketball hoops tucked into courtyards, alleys, schoolyards, and public spaces—quietly integrated into daily life. These photographs document street basketball as it exists beyond professional arenas: worn backboards, improvised courts, and places where the game is played simply because space allows for it. What stood out was both the differences from home and the familiarity—evidence that basketball has become a shared, global language spoken in cities far from where the game began.

Basketball Culture Beyond the United States

By the time these photographs were made, I had already spent years documenting basketball hoops across the United States. That long-term work shaped how I saw the game elsewhere. In Europe, basketball didn’t announce itself with signage or formal courts; it appeared quietly—behind apartment buildings, beside schools, along the edges of public parks. The hoops were often worn, sometimes improvised, and clearly used. These weren’t destinations. They were part of the landscape.

Basketball as a Global Game

Basketball’s simplicity is what allows it to travel. A single hoop can turn almost any space into a court. In Europe, that adaptability felt especially apparent. Courts were smaller, surfaces uneven, and surroundings shaped by centuries of architecture rather than modern planning. Yet the game persisted, fitting itself into whatever space was available.

These photographs aren’t about organized play or competition. They focus instead on the presence of the game itself—how basketball exists even when no one is on the court. In that way, the hoops become markers of cultural exchange, evidence of how a game invented in one country has embedded itself into everyday life far beyond its origins.

What These European Hoops Reveal About Basketball in America

Seeing basketball in Europe reinforced something I had already been observing at home: the game belongs as much to ordinary places as it does to arenas. The same visual patterns repeat—bent rims, weathered backboards, courts shaped by their surroundings rather than by regulation. Basketball adapts to place, but it never loses its identity.

That realization continues to inform my ongoing work documenting basketball hoops across the United States. While the landscapes differ, the impulse behind the game feels universal. Basketball shows up wherever people live their lives, and the hoop often remains long after the players have gone—quiet, functional, and waiting.

An Ongoing Documentary Approach

This body of work exists alongside my long-term project photographing basketball hoops in America, where I continue to focus on rural towns, backyards, alleys, and overlooked spaces. Together, the images form a broader visual study of basketball as part of everyday life—one that crosses borders without losing its meaning.

Rather than treating these European photographs as a separate series, they function as context. They reinforce the idea that basketball isn’t confined to a single country or culture. It’s a shared language, expressed through place, architecture, and the simple presence of a hoop.

View More Global Basketball Hoop Photographs

American Backcourts - A long-term photography project documenting old, handmade, and overlooked basketball hoops found in small towns, rural yards, and quiet neighborhoods across the United States.

Vietnam Hoops - A photographic exploration of basketball hoops across Europe, where the game blends into historic streets, housing blocks, and everyday public spaces.

Venice Beach - A vibrant look at basketball culture in Venice Beach, California, where color, creativity, and public courts collide in one of the most iconic basketball environments in the world.

A basketball hoop stands in a small courtyard, framed by handmade brick and stone mosaics that blend public art and everyday basketball culture

A lone basketball hoop in a residential setting, photographed in black and white, highlighting the quieter side of European basketball culture.

A chain-net basketball hoop centered against a brick backdrop, highlighting durability and utility in European public courts.

A brightly colored basketball net hangs from an outdoor hoop, emphasizing the visual details that define everyday basketball culture in European cities.

Detail of a basketball hoop’s base, where metal, stone, and moss reveal the slow passage of time on an outdoor European court.

A straightforward view of an outdoor basketball hoop, photographed in black and white to focus on form, structure, and balance.

A red basketball backboard stands out against brick architecture, showing how outdoor courts are embedded within everyday European neighborhoods.

Seen through the rim of a basketball hoop, a church steeple rises in the background, placing the game within the architectural fabric of a European town.

A metal basketball backboard seen through fencing, reflecting the layered infrastructure common to many public courts across Europe.

Viewed through layers of fencing, an outdoor basketball hoop emphasizes access, separation, and the realities of shared public space.

A handmade wooden backboard with a bright orange rim highlights the improvised, personal nature of informal basketball spaces.

A basketball hoop at dusk, surrounded by fencing, captures the subdued atmosphere of an outdoor European court after daylight fades.

A solitary basketball hoop sits on a moss-covered outdoor court, reflecting the quieter, weathered character of many European public playing spaces.

A chain-net hoop framed by city windows, underscoring how basketball courts exist within dense European urban environments.

Street Basketball Art - Venice Beach

The Hidden Hoops of Venice Beach: Basketball Art in the Alleyways

Just a few blocks away from the oceanfront courts of Venice Beach, a different kind of basketball exists. Tucked into alleyways and mounted to the sides of telephone poles and back walls, these hoops are built from scrap wood, bent metal, and whatever materials happen to be on hand. They aren’t part of any official court or league—they’re improvised, functional, and entirely rooted in the creativity of the neighborhood.

These photographs document a series of handmade basketball hoops throughout Venice—objects that blur the line between sport, necessity, and art.

Basketball Hoops Built from Junk: Functional Street Art

Nick Ansom is at the helm of the Venice Basketball League. He is responsible for all the creative energy and growth that happens locally as well as across the country and overseas. If you haven’t seen what he’s done with the Hoop Bus, check it out. Very impressive. I linked up with Nick a while back because of our obvious shared interest in basketball. Yet another example of personal projects leading to fun outcomes/relationships. COVID was a strange time for the VBL because it literally couldn’t happen. The city put a device on all the rims that prohibited play. As the saying goes though, Basketball Never Stops. Instead of sitting around crying about it, Nick put his energy into another creative endeavor - Survival Hoops. Along with another artist friend Lori Powers, they started creating hoops out of junk. It started small, but after a while they had built and hung 100+ beautifully weird hoops all over the alleys of Venice Beach. About a month ago we linked up and documented their work. I really enjoyed seeing what they had created and am honored to be part of a piece of basketball culture. It would be easy to write this project off as someone just being bored and having time to kill during a pandemic. You would be wrong though. What they created is much bigger than that. It’s well thought out, deliberate, and has brought a lot of happiness not just to the people who have played on them, but also to the locals in Venice that walk by these hoops every day. And hopefully now it will be preserved in some kind of document for people to see years from now.

A Different Side of Venice Beach Basketball

Most people associate Venice Beach Basketball Courts with loud rowdy games, eccentric locals, and a constant flow of tourist spectators looking for a show. But the game doesn’t stop at the edge of the courts.

It continues in quieter places—out of view, away from the crowds—where the structure of the game is stripped down to its simplest form: a hoop, a ball, and a small piece of space to play.

These alleyway hoops reflect that side of basketball. Informal, resourceful, and entirely local.

Part of the American Backcourts Project

These photographs are part of a long-term body of work documenting basketball hoops across the United States. Over the past 15 years, the project has focused on the overlooked places where the game exists—rural driveways, barns, small towns, and improvised courts like these in Venice.While the settings change, the idea remains the same: basketball shows up wherever people find a way to build a hoop.

View the American Backcourts series

Collecting Basketball Hoop Photography Prints

A selection of these photographs is available as fine art prints, produced on museum-grade paper for collectors, interior designers, and spaces looking to incorporate basketball culture in a more understated way.

View the full Basketball Hoop Photography collection here

See More Venice Beach Basketball

While these alleyway hoops offer a quieter perspective, the main courts of Venice Beach remain one of the most iconic places to watch and play the game.

View from Venice Beach basketball culture and courts here

Survival Hoops - Venice Beach, California by Nick Ansom

DIY Basketball Hoop - Golden Girls Mural

Creative basketball hoop hung on a telephone pole in Venice, CA

Basketball hoop with LA Dodgers logo made with a bucket and wood

Basketball Hoop Art - Venice Beach

Basketball hoop made from bike parts

Art Hoop - Venice, CA

Venice Beach Alley Basketball Hoop

Surfboard basketball hoop - Venice Beach

Junk art basketball hoop

Artistic basketball hoop

Artistic homemade basketball hoop

Area 52

Black Lives Matter - Venice Beach

Alley basketball hoop - Venice Beach, CA

Venice Beach basketball hoop

Youth Basketball - Venice Beach

Milk crate basketball hoop

Basketball hoop made from an old wheelchair

Basketball hoop made from a Weber Grill

Nick Ansom and Lori Powers - Creators of Survival Hoops in Venice Beach, CA

Basketball Never Stops

Basketball during Covid-19

It’s hard getting people to stop playing basketball. They will find a way. These image are from a court in south east San Diego during Covid that were shut down for obvious reasons. Still though, people wanted to ball and wouldn’t let anything stop them. Hard to get angry at that. They climbed the fences, went through the holes, whatever it took. So the city had to take further measures. No doubt they were only temporary solutions. Basketball never stops.

Click here to pick up a copy of American Backcourts

Colina Del Sol - San Diego

Basketball hoop with a chained padlock on it - San Diego, CA

Project Backboard

PROJECT BACKBOARD

Community basketball court renovations

Been saying this for a while now, but personal projects are the best, especially when they connect you with other like minded people. Which is certainly the case with Dan Peterson of Project Backboard. He’s been doing amazing things with outdoor basketball courts all over the country. Taking broken down courts and turning them into beautiful works of art that locals are excited to play on. Recently we visited a few of his courts in Los Angeles together, and I was able to talk with him first hand about the process and how things have developed over the years. I really applaud this project and hope that it continues to grow. If you want to check out more of what PB has done, go to their WEBSITE or follow along on their INSTAGRAM PAGE.

If you recognize the bridge in the Watts Oasis images, that’s because it is the very bridge from those famous scenes in White Men Can’t Jump. I personally love that movie and was ecstatic when Dan told me what it was.

Click here to see more of my basketball photography from the American Backcourts series

1) Where are you from and what place has basketball taken in your life (prior to Project Backboard) ?

I grew up in suburban NY during the heyday of the great 1990s Knicks teams and ultimately played a year of basketball at Iona College before leaving my official playing days behind.

2) When did you come up with the idea for Project Backboard(PB)? 

Project Backboard wasn't really my idea! I started the work just by painting lines on public courts in Memphis that did not have any just because I loved outdoor basketball.

3) How long/what did it take to get things going for PB? 

I got my first large grant about a year after starting Project Backboard but it was another year before I did the court with William LaChance in St. Louis that really got a lot of attention and opened the door for Project Backboard to become what it is today. 

4) What was the initial reaction? How have reactions changed since you started? 

The initial reaction was overwhelmingly positive and that is the reaction I have continued to get. That said, this style of court has become surprisingly common over the past 12-18 months that the reaction now may be a bit more restrained than the early courts. No one had ever seen anything like the William LaChance court when we first painted it.

5) How have you gone about getting funding for these projects? 

A lot of the courts are funded either by community or corporate foundations.

6) What is the process like from the original idea for a court to the final execution? 

The painting process is different for each court depending on what the artist has in mind for the court artwork. Sometimes its a lot of measuring and straight lines or curves and other times we create a grid across the entire surface of the court and drawing the artwork box by box. 

7) PB has teamed up with some big name companies. How have those relationships come about? 

People reach out and I respond! I am always open to collaborating but the successful projects have been ones were the brands are able to be a little less “corporate” in their approach and allow the artist the freedom to create and lead the project vision. 

8) What is the overall goal for PB?

For every community to have a safe and inviting basketball court. I love outdoor basketball and want to share that with others but, from my perspective, the way that will happen is when individual community members step up to help care for public spaces and hold those charged with maintaining those spaces accountable.

9) Any big projects in the works that you want to share? 

Yes! Looking forward to a few courts in the Bay Area and a court in Puerto Rico along with a handful of others.

10) Random thoughts on PB......

I appreciate all the support and, as I said, always open to collaborating and helping others follow my example so don't hesitate to reach out!

Venice Beach Basketball Courts

Venice Beach Basketball Basketball Court designed by Project Backboard

Basketball Court -Crete Academy - Crenshaw

Nipsey Hussle Basketball Court -Crete Academy - Crenshaw

Watts Oasis Basketball Court

Watts Oasis Basketball Court

White Men Can't Jump - Basketball Court

Watts Oasis Basketball Court

Watts Oasis Basketball Court

Dan Peterson - Project Backboard