Eagles vs. Falcons - My NFL Sidelines Experience
Well this is a really fun blog post. And one where I don't know where to begin! Let me break this down into three areas: 1) How I got onto the sidelines of an NFL game, 2) My gear, 3) My experience at the game
1. The Background:
JTWO Films - Can't say enough. Justin and Travis have become good friends and business partners of mine. They have a great thing going right now - http://jtwofilms.com/. These guys have done some serious work in the last few years. The main project they were working on was a sports documentary on Kurt Coleman, the Eagles Safety. JTWO teamed up with James Brown, yes the JB of sports lure on Showtime and various other media outlets. JB hooked them up with Kurt and the ball got rolling. Here is the full feature documentary:
Coming Home Complete Show from Kurt Coleman on Vimeo.
So after doing this with Kurt, Trav and Justin wanted to do some more work with the Eagles. They asked the NFL and the Eagles if they could do some filming from the sidelines of a game this season. The NFL said no video, but we can give you a pass to shoot still. Unfortunately for these guys, they are not photographers like they are filmmakers. So I got one of the greatest phone calls of my life. It went like this:
Justin - "Yo dude, good news and bad news. The bad is we can't film from the sidelines."
Me - "Oh that sucks man."
Justin - "Yeah, but the good news is we got one media pass to shoot stills only. They will let us take pictures. And since we are not as skilled as you, we figured you should be the one to go."
Me (babbling at this point) - "I think I might have a family shoot that day. Ummm, well. So wait, I can take pictures from the sidelines of the Eagles vs. Falcons game?!"
Justin - "You got it boss. Full media credential."
Me - "Oh my god. Sersiously?! Oh crap, my sister's wedding is the night before!"
Haha. So that is basically how it went. And from there, well it was all history. Luckily, I stayed in good enough shape to get to bed at a decent hour the night before and wake up feeling good.
2. The Gear:
This is when it got real, as they say! After I hung up and the initial shock wore off, I went to work. Researching that is. I knew I needed the proper gear. You can't show up to a gun fight with a bee bee gun and expect things to work out well for you. Sure I had the camera that was plenty capable - my Canon 7d is a great camera that shoots 8fps and has one of the best autofocus systems in a camera to date. So that front was good.
The lens situation was much different. I had just upgraded my Canon 70-200 2.8IS lens so I was very happy with that. This 70-200mm lens was going to be on my 2nd body (I borrowed from JTWO - told you they rock!) So this lens was perfect once the action got close to the sideline/end zone.
But I needed something big. Like real big. As in rocket launcher big. Enter the Canon 400mm 2.8 IS lens:
I told you it was big ( I will refrain from saying "that's what she said...") This thing is Ginourmous. It was close to 20lbs and makes my 70-200 look like a small 50mm prime lens! This is one of the most coveted lenses of any sports shooter and one of the best lenses ever made. Now they make a MarkII version of this lens. I just had the 1st version, but trust me it's still amazing. Oh and the cost - take a guess? If you said a nice used car you would be right! Valued at $8,000! Nope, didn't make that up to make you think I was cool. The new one is around $12,000!!! So now you are thinking, wow, Nick is a serious baller buying an $8,000 lens. I am a teacher folks - I rented! That's the best thing about renting gear. You can shoot with an $8,000 super lens for just about $300 for a weekend. And for this occasion, it had to be done in order to get the best shots.
Now, let me tell you my horror story with getting this lens. I was going to rent from a local camera shop, but my business insurance doesn't cover as much as this lens costs in terms of my gear. So I couldn't get it from my local place. Instead, I rented from Lensrentals.com - they had an option for damage insurance for a great price and so I went with them. What was nice was that it was going to get delivered to my doorstep on Friday before the game. My wife was home that day and I gave her the fun task of hanging around from 1-3pm and making sure she was home when my lens got delivered. Usually Fedex delivers around 1-3pm to my house. Well this time it came from a different location and showed up at 12:15.And thus I got the email stating they attempted delivery, failed and would return again on Monday. Let me put that into words again for you. The game is on Sunday, Fedex would re-attempt delivery on Monday... I nearly threw up. You know that feeling when you know things are bad? Yeah, this was that feeling. So long story short here, I called about 3-4 different Fedex reps and finally found out the lens was on a truck heading back to the warehouse - in Bethlehem! I am in Warrington, which is over an hour from there. You want to know the funny but cruel thing?! The night before I was in Bethlehem for my sisters wedding rehearsal. And I was heading there on Saturday for the wedding. So I would be heading back into Bethlehem for the 2nd time out of 3 that weekend. UGH. Well I was told the lens was already back there. So I went up and found out that the driver wasn't even back yet. Right. So now I had to wait 45min for the driver to come. But, thank god, I got the lens and back home I went, slightly smiling. All told, the $50 or so for delivery from lensrentals cost me almost 4 hours of travel time and about 2 years off my life due to anger. You can't win them all right?!
3. The Game:
So I woke up from a great day at my sister's wedding to see Hurricane Sandy starting her approach into the East Coast and it was already raining at 6:30am. Not good. So I slogged home, got showered up, put my gear into my truck and off I went.
I got down to Lincoln Financial Field around 10:10am. I was allowed in at 10am and after some back and forth at the windows trying to find my credentials, I finally found it. I went in through the media entrance and down into the photographer's room. This place was kind of like the Mecca for me - lot's of the best sports photographer's in the world, I would say hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gear (90% of it was Canon, because, well you know, Canon is the best!) and one of the nicer things - free food! The Eagles put out an awesome spread all day for the photographers. I thought that was really cool. Here is just a quick shot from my cell phone - this is only one half of the room and about 1/3 of the photogs that day - the room was packed!
So I put my gear down and found my way out to the field. Trust me, at least as a guy, there are very few people in this world who get to run out, or in this case walk out, onto a pro sports team field. This was an NFL field and I was on it! I walked out just to get my bearings, figure the field out and where I might want to stand, etc. I saw tons of tv hosts and ex football players plus a few of the players out warming up. It was awesome. I was right there and the game didn't even start yet!
I went back into the photo room, threw down a sandwich and got my gear ready. I was preparing for rain even though at that time it was not. I was not taking any chances. The insurance I had from lensrentals did not cover water damage - so I was taking no risks! I bought 2 rain lens/camera covers and had them with me and put a plastic bag over the 400mm. Yep, a plastic bag - I keep it real kids! Here is a shot of me out on the field during warm-ups.
So you can see the lens hood sticking out on the right. I put the plastic bag over the glass on the lens, snapped on the lens hood and pulled the bag back over the body of the lens. It was an awesome free tip I learned and man did it work really well. Notice the monopod too? It's a must have. I visit the gym fairly often but no way in hell can you hold that lens up for more than just a few minutes. It's just so heavy. But, affix it to a nice monopod and you have yourself an extremely well balanced set of gear that is actually comfortable to hold. It's meant to go onto a monopod - you just don't hand hold this thing!
Ok, so warm-ups was were I could nail down my settings and really get a hang of things out there. Not to mention it was windy. Normally that would not matter, but trust me, that lens blew me around like a big rig going down a mid-west highway! Here are some shots from warm-ups:
Right away you can see what this 400mm lens does. It is just remarkable. So sharp and it just obliterates the background. It's ability to isolate your subject is just crazy. But the hardest part when using this lens is finding your subject. It is such a long lens that when you look through the viewfinder it is actually difficult to find who you are looking for! You actually have to line up the lens and use your naked eye to navigate to your player, then go through the viewfinder and try to focus. It actually takes a little while to get the hang of it. But once you do, whew it's just amazing.
So the game gets started. Now, I did a lot of research and I had a pretty good understanding of how to shoot football. The main goal is to always be ahead of the ball (typically.) That means, you have to stay ahead of the play, anticipate what is happening next and be aware of the game play, time and downs. You really do need to understand football to help yourself be in the right spot and the right time. And if you don't know, you cannot stand within the 30 yard line to 30 yard line. That is where the bench is and the players are there. So you can't cross into the bench area. But you can move outside of that and into the corners of the endzone and even into the endzone by a few yards towards the field goal posts. So the hardest thing honestly is jockeying for position amongst the other photographers. So you really need to be ahead of the the others so to speak but still make sure you are close enough to get your shot.
The game happens so fast. You really do need to anticipate the gameplay. If you are going to be in any sort of good position during the game you must be on the move. You rarely are in one spot for more than 2 minutes. The only reason is because of a timeout or even injury. So it's quite the run around on the field all day long. But that makes it exciting. And I really felt as though I had a great feeling for the game. There were numerous times when I left where nearly all of the photogs were and moved way down field in anticipation of the action coming down that way. And there was numerous times when I got some great shots because of it. For example, this sequence with DeSean Jackson. I left the main area and ran down to the other endzone in hopes the Eagles would finally mount a drive (and trust me, they sucked that game and it was pathetic.) After I set my monopod down and looked through the lens, Mike Vick was throwing the ball outside to Jackson and I caught this sequence:
There were a few more shots in between these but I felt these were the best. I got an awesome, unblocked view of the play and it was perfect timing. One of the big rules of sports photography is to try and see the players face, the emotion. Here, I caught not only Jackson but Asante Samuel as he, of course, missed the tackle. It was a great sequence and one that I really nailed.
Earlier in the game I actually got my first prime time television spot! If you watched the first touchdown play you literally saw the Falcons WR go flying right past me. I was in the corner of the endzone and he was just about 2' from me. It was close and I had to stand up and get out of the way. Here are the two shots from that sequence:
The first shot there, you can see I missed focus. This is how fast it all happens. I was down on one knee shooting with the 400mm, Matt Ryan throws the pass and bam, Drew Davis the Falcons receiver is nearly on top of me! I had to jump up, and get out of the way. In the meantime, I reached down and grabbed my 2nd body with my 70-200 on it and started 'spraying and praying!' It nearly worked but you can see I missed focus and framing. The 2nd shot was after Davis bounces off the wall then starts pointing at the ref to call the TD. Its actually sharp but I just missed framing him. Its an ok shot and under the circumstances, pretty damn good! I am literally pressing the shutter button with the camera just above my hip. "Firing from the hip" as they say! Just shows you the speed of the game and how hard it is to get off that perfect shot.
During the rest of the game I moved around and just had a great time. Here are some of my favorite shots from the rest of the day:
Once the rain started it was a bit of a pain to deal with. But it wasn't terrible and the camera's and lenses held up just fine. I got a little wet but it was well worth it! What an incredible experience and something I will never forget. I would love to be able to do this every year and who knows, maybe I can! Cannot say thanks enough to my guys Justin and Travis at JTWO films. Those guys are the single reason I was able to shoot this game and they were so nice to give the opportunity. I think I made a lot out of it and really think I came away with some great images. And thanks to everyone who followed along and gave me well wishes.