A couple of weeks ago, I photographed the 2008 SEC championship football game on assignment for Sports Illustrated. The Florida Gators beat the Alabama Crimson Tide at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta to advance to the BCS title game in January.
I thought I’d steal a page from Chase Jarvis’ playbook (thanks, Chase!) and put together a video with most of my images from the shoot.
There are a total of 1,304 still photos used in this three-minute piece. I shot 1,859 frames at the game, but the video is edited down for time. A handful of the photos are repeated to work with the music.
It starts with pre-game shots of the coaches and goes all the way through the trophy presentation and Tim Tebow’s post-game lap around the field.
If you’re reading this via email or RSS, you may not see the embedded flash player above. Click here to view it on my blog. You can also download a higher resolution version on the vimeo site after creating a free account.
I shot the game with 3 Nikon cameras: a D3 with a 600 F/4, a D3 with a 200-400 F/4 (awesome lens!), and a D300 with a 24-70 F/2.8. At the end of the game, my assistant held my long lenses while I ran around the field using a D3 with the 24-70 and an SB-800 flash.
The SI cover was Bill Frakes’ great shot of Tebow celebrating. You’ll see that I chose to shoot that same sequence with the wide lens to show the packed stadium (2:22 and 2:34 in the video). It usually happens so fast that you just have to go with your gut (and whichever lens you can pick up first!).
Feel free to ask questions or let me know what you think in the comments.