Desert Warfare
Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Four Getty Images photographers traveled to Tucson to cover the WGC – Accenture Match Play Championships. We had heard rumors that the course at Dove Mountain was going to be quite a challenge as far as shooting conditions go, only to find that our fears were totally justified. Jumping cact, sandy walkways and a very non-user friendly course lay-out made our week grim, not to mention that the first round had 32 matches with 64 players from all over the world.
Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Our mission on the first day was to work on shooting most of the top European players first to make deadlines and keep an eye on the top four seeds. We also decided to transmit on the course, which we rarely do. The course set-up forced us to find an area near the fifth hole to send our early batch of pictures using our wireless cards. This went pretty smoothly and our European Tour client on site was impressed with the speed and volume we delivered each morning.
Scott Halleran/Getty Images
Each day got a bit easier as players were eliminated in the rounds. Tiger Woords was upset once again by Nick O’Hern from Australia during the third round so we had to file the frames quickly. As a result, we got a lot of web and newspaper usage in the USA and down under. We saw O’Hearn at a steak house and offered to buy him a drink for making our weekend easier with Tiger being eliminated.
Two of our photographers, Steve Dunn and Jeff Gross left the event to start work at spring training (baseball) which left Andy Lyons and myself to cover the final two days. With many of the top players sent home in defeat, the weekend proved to be somewhat easy with smaller crowds and a bit less pressure. Saturday morning we shot the two English players and two Aussies in the morning session. I caught a ride back to the clubhouse with Trevor Immelman in his player shuttle after his match ended on the 14th green, avoiding a two mile hike back to the media center.
Sunday we covered almost every hole of the 36 hole final. The match between Henrik Stenson and Geoff Ogilvy swung back and forth with the young Swede winning on the 35th hole.
The week went well withour clients getting material on time each morning and us avoiding serious injury from the many cacti scattered over the course.
Scott Halleran/Getty Images
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February 28th, 2007 at 12:47 am
As always, you guys rock. I absolutely love to read your blog posts. However, one question regarding the last photo of this post – I think you did not use a flash for this one (the face is quite dark due to the strong shadow), and I wonder why? Wouldn’t it be better to use a flash in such extreme lighting conditions? The photo looks fine, but if I could see the eyes it would be better (just my opinion).
October 2nd, 2007 at 11:24 pm
it was harsh desert light and i did use a flash, but you are right. i needed more light under his cap.