For the past month, I’ve been lucky enough to spend some time on the court with the San Antonio Spurs during the NBA Playoffs in San Antonio for European Pressphoto Agency.
We’re in to Round 3 now, but I thought I’d take a moment to post a few of my favorite images from Round 1 & 2.
For both rounds I had a spot on the floor on the visitors’ side between the basket and the front row of fans. I sat in my little foldable camp chair with two Nikon D700 camera bodies, one with a 24-70mm f2.8 lens and one with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens. I also used a 300mm f2.8 lens on a couple of games. Simple setup – no remotes, no strobes.
The lighting on the court isn’t great, but it’s not horrible. For action, I set both of my cameras to ISO 4000, with a shutter of 1/1000 at f2.8, no matter the lens.
Generally, I’d shoot the first half, then edit a few photos with PhotoMechanic and Photoshop at half time, send them in through an FTP site, then shoot the second half and edit and transmit the rest after the game. That’s standard practice for most sporting events.
In the first round, the San Antonio Spurs played the Dallas Mavericks. The Spurs ended up winning the round in game 7 at home.
Here are a few of my favorite action shots.
The Spurs went on to Round 2, where they won against the Portland Trail Blazers in game 5.
Here are a few of my favorites from Round 3.
Over those seven games, I shot over 11,000 images and turned in about 250. They landed all over the world in publications like the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, Yahoo Sports, NBC News, Rappler, Vancouver Sun, Miami Herald, Washington Post and many others in countries like Germany, Argentina, the U.K., France, Spain and Mexico.
EPA is the first agency I worked for. Every time I work for an agency, especially EPA, I love to wake up the morning after an assignment and find where my pictures ended up. I’ll never get tired of seeing my work published, especially when it makes it’s way around the world!
Anyway, game 2 of round 3 is tonight! The Spurs take on the Oklahoma City Thunder at 7:30 p.m. CT. This round will determine who goes to the finals to take on either the Miami Heat or Indianapolis Pacers.
I’ll be back at the AT&T Center on Thurs. for game 5, or (if the Spurs win in 4) Mon., June 2 for game 1 of the finals!
To see more of my work for EPA, click here and search Ashley Landis.
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