Behind the Scenes at NHL and NBA Media Days

Even though I spend a lot of my time photographing beautiful landscape scenery, I still keep up on my sports photography as team photographer for the NHL San Jose Sharks and as a contract photographer for the NBA. Every fall both these leagues get into full-gear starting with the opening day of training camp and the much anticipated Media Day.

I thought it would be fun to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the 2010 camps of both the Sharks and the NBA Sacramento Kings. As team photographer for the Sharks, my duties involved capturing the official mug shots of each player, coach, scout, broadcaster, etc. A 4 am wakeup allowed me to get to our practice facility by 5:30 am. I was assisted by my oldest son Rob and friend/colleague Mike Hall Here is the standard league-required mug shot as we started-off capturing head coach Todd McLellan at 6:30 am. I also included a frame of our awesome radio broadcaster Dan Rusanowsky holding up his name tag. Each person (yes even the superstars) are required to hold a name tag prior to the sequence of images being captured so no mistakes are made by the person editing.

The League pretty much dictates the lighting pattern (two lights at 45 degrees bounced into umbrellas). I used a standard 2:1 lighting ratio and added a kicker light camera left from a 45 degree angle behind the subject fitted with a 10-degree grid. I custom balanced the skin tones with the help of the ExpoDisc.

These images will serve as the player's official mug shot for Media Guides, television broadcasts, and arena big screens. Here is an image of Mike working with star defenseman Dan Boyle.

Once the players finished with this station, it was off to the elaborate Comcast setup where the players and coaches were filmed for the cool openings used at the opening of the Sharks game broadcasts. Each year the directors allow me access behind their cameraman and I simply bump my ISO to 1200 and shoot with my 70-200 mmL at f2.8. The results look increible mixed with their elaborately lit sets. We periodically use these images on our Shark's Game Magazine cover and for some of the openers. Here is an image of Captain Joe Thornton being put through the paces.

After completing this set, the players were ushered to an adjoining set constructed by our in-house crew utilizing a green screen where graphics and a variety of video scenes can be added. Here is our director Steve Maroni going over instructions with defenseman Niclas Wallin prior to filming a promo for the team's opening season trip to Stockholm, Sweden.

Next it was star forward Dany Heatley's turn. I was blown away by how meticulously lit the set was - notice the beautiful rim light along Dany's face and hair. I made sure I thanked the the guys who lit the set as I was really stealing their artwork. They were very nice about it and said most photographers blast away without giving a second-thought to who lit the set - lighting is truly an art and these guys are two of the best (wish I would have gotten their names so I could give them credit).

It is an unwritten protocol around professional sports for the rookies to show up first and allow the veteran's the earned right to arrive later in the morning for their session. While waiting for some of our star players to emerge for their images, I noticed these wide-eyed rookies checking out some of the vets getting in their practice time on the ice.

Start to finish this session lasted 7 1/2 hours. A lot of images were captured and will be used throughout the season in a variety of ways.

With one training camp underway, it was time to turn my attention nine days later to the official opening of NBA training camps - specifically the Sacramento Kings. This was my 12th year photographing an NBA Media Day and this year I was representing both the League and the team itself shooting to a multitude of lists. Once again Mike accompanied me for the 2 1/2 hour drive and the two-hour setup of two sets. We were instructed to setup in the player's lounge at Arco Arena. Here is an image of Mike standing on one of our two sets.

The players started with our sets, which unfortunately caused quite a backup as each was to pose for mug shots and video game shots on the blue backdrop, then be moved to the white coved set for further poses. I also had to photograph five players in various poses against the blue backdrop for a billboard advertisement. Here is guard Francisco Garcia posing for his official mug shot. Unlike the NHL mug, I was restricted to just two strobes bounced into umbrellas for an overall even lighting pattern.

After the players completed their images on the blue backdrop, I simply turned around, changed the channel on my Pocket Wizard transceiver and shot them on this coved seamless. The light had to be very even on this set. I positioned two lights high up bounced into 36-inch white umbrellas at equal power to serve as the front light, then did a high/low X-pattern (basically criss-crossing the light) to allow the background to match. I taped some Black-Wrap to each of the background lights to prevent spill. I was pleased that the entire set was lit evenly allowing for white uniforms to show against white seamless with many dark-skinned athletes - kind of tricky but I think we nailed it after much tweaking of the lights.

Here are a few frames of Samuel Dalembert (dribbling) and Tyreke Evans (sitting).

Even some of the King's employees got into the act.

The League also requested that we do some close-ups of the player's tattoos, fortunately the guys were up for it.

My 2 1/2 hour 1200-plus frame session ended with some player group shots (left to right - DeMarcus Cousins, Hassan Whiteside and Eugene Jeter). 

It took Mike and I another hour to breakdown and pack, then the 2 1/2 hour trip back home (Mike had another hour drive after that).  Bottom line, Media Days are a lot of hard work with some stress thrown in (even after all these years).