MLB Postseason Gigapans!

In October 2011, I flew just over 9000 miles ... 

from New York/Orlando/Dallas/Milwaukee/Tampa/St Louis/Orlando to St Louis. 

That is easily the most travel that I have done in a one month period. 

St Louis Cardinals manager Tony Larussa speaks during the World Series Celebration

Shooting panoramic gigapan photos from the entire 2011 Major League Baseball playoff run was an amazing experience. My friend, David Bergman, a leader in the use of gigapan photography, brought me on board to help him tackle this MLB project. We were tasked to shoot gigapans of every MLB playoff game during the 2011 postseason. What an assignment!
For those who do not know, the gigapan is a device that helps you to take extremely detailed panoramics by stitching together hundreds of photos together. You just program the device with the scene you want to capture, and you let it go!

The St Louis Cardinals World Series Celebration

Most of the images that I made were comprised of about 300 to 400 images (each one, shot with a Nikon D700, a 12 megapixel file) and stitched together the file is easily in excess of a 4 gigabyte file.  The amazing thing is that online you will see the wide shot of the baseball game, but you are able to zoom in and see people in the stands and, if you connect with Facebook, you can also tag yourself and your Facebook friends. Of course, the art of the gigapan is subtle. Anyone can get a gigapan on and let it shoot, but are the players in the right spot? Are they duplicated somewhere else on the field? Is there a real moment on the field of play?

Fans at Game 6 

On October 27th, I witnessed World Series game 6. In addition to seeing one of the greatest postseason games ever, I was the first person to ever shoot a World Series gigapan from behind home plate. Normally, the position has to be in dead center field because the goal is to showcase as many fans as possible. I was able to shoot from behind home plate because for games 6 and 7, David and I produced "dueling" gigapans from opposite sides so that we could virtually photograph everyone in the stadium. 

World Series Game 6 - Texas Rangers at St Louis Cardinals . All the blue squares represent all the people who tagged themselves on Facebook. 

This web feature has been very popular with the fans who pop onto the MLB.com website. According to a recent USA Today newspaper story, the use of this technology has driven over 100,000 page views on MLB.com this season. Here is a link to the 2011 MLB Tagoramics that David and I produced this postseason. 

A photo of me from World Series Game 7.  This is from David Bergman's gigapan from home plate.

Photo shoot with Tampa Bay Ray's All Star Matt Joyce

Here is my first video blog about my recent Sporting News photo shoot with Tampa Bay Rays OF Matt Joyce.



Matt Joyce photo shoot - Preston Mack photo blog from Preston Mack on Vimeo.

Throwing footballs with an NFL QB

I was on a corporate photo assignment when an elderly gentleman looked over the two cameras I had slung over my shoulders and asked me “What is your favorite photo that you have taken and can you tell me about it?”
I have been asked variations of that questions many, many times but I never really have a clear way of explaining that I do not have a favorite. The joy I receive from this profession is from the actual process, not the finished product. My next photo shoot was the perfect example of this...

I got a call from USA Today to photograph college football great and current Denver Broncos QB Tim Tebow as he worked out near his Jacksonville home. The NFL owners locked out the players, so many of them are coordinating practices on their own. The access was worked out through his agent, not the team. 

In my almost 20 year career, I have shot over 350 NFL and NCAA "Division 1" football games and practices. I was interested to see what an NFL event with no PR handlers would be like. Of course, I had two factors in my favor. Tim is probably one of the nicest professional athletes that you could ever deal with and I have photographed him 5 times previously, putting him on four Sporting News covers. 

Tim Tebow stiff arms me after our first photo shoot

In each of those earlier photo shoots, it was vital to be as professional as possible. I would always arrive early with my assistant, set up the lights quickly, have an efficient plan and end early. When you schedule these high profile athletes, you will always have a set amount of time that the athlete will pose for you. It is a good goal to surprise them and finish before the subject wants to go. That will endear you in the eyes of the team and the player. I also made sure to bring 8x10 prints from each of the previous photo shoots so that he could give to friends and family.

When Tim pulled into the parking lot next to the grass field near his home, he quickly exited the car and gave me a warm welcome. Joining him were three Denver Bronco receivers who flew into town to run routes for him. Tim was first to have his shoes on and was ready to go as his receivers were still sitting on the ground, spike-less. 

I said “Tim, throw me the ball”. I backed up to about 20 yards and threw the football with him. Normally, I am not one to be starstruck, but throwing a football with an NFL QB is very cool - definitely a moment to remember. Now, judging by my friend's comments on my Facebook post regarding this, I will answer the most common questions:


1-Yes, Tim has fixed his throwing motion. There is no more hitch. 
2-Yes, he throws the ball very hard. (He is an NFL QB)
3-Yes, I threw tight spirals right back at him. 
4-Yes, it is weird catching a ball thrown by a lefty (it spins the wrong way)
5-No, it was not as cool as catching Roger Clemens but only because baseball was my favorite sport growing up.
6-Yes, I did manage to drop a few balls, but I refer you to #2.

Over the next hour or so, I shot Tim throwing curls, digs, slants and go patterns to his receivers. It was weird to be able to walk up next to them as they discussed the routes and then shoot the action with a 15mm lens. As someone who was annoyed with the media handling during games and practices, this was a once of a lifetime experience. I tried to deliver photos that were normally impossible to get. I doubt I will ever be able to feel the speed of the receivers running around or feel the quickness of the QB’s drop again. 

At the end of the day, you should always remember that shooting good photos is not all about photography skill. Much of the work is cultivating and developing a relationship with the photo subjects. You always strive to make a positive, lasting impression that you can build on for the next shoot. 
Preston Mack is a photographer based in Orlando, FL. He has shot photos from the Pace car at Daytona, caught Roger Clemens (while he was still juicing), played paintball with a Bee Gee, rode a roller coaster with Justin Bieber, hit fungo to Cal Ripken Jr, got punched by Sugar Ray Leonard and got a golf lesson from Tom Watson.  (I am currently looking for an NBA superstar to play me one on one....)

(This blog post originally appeared on the Sport Shooter website.
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2535) 

Graeme McDowell for ECCO Shoes

Graeme McDowell for ECCO Shoes

I have been working with ECCO shoes for over 3 years now. It has always been to shoot PGA Tour Pro Stuart Appleby at his home course at the Isleworth Country Club. Recently, they changed it up by asking me to photograph Graeme McDowell, the current US Open Champion.

Graeme recently signed a shoe contract with ECCO, and they were excited to welcome him to the brand.
They asked for some solid portraiture and action photos that they could use to promote the relationship. The art director provided some comps and we hashed out a plan. We would only have Graeme for 1 1/2  hours (from 10:30am to 12pm) . Immediately after the photo shoot, he was going to test some new Srixon golf balls, so we could not run over the time limit.

The shoot was going to happen at his home course in Orlando,  Lake Nona. We picked the photo location at the driving range. This way, we could squeeze every minute with him until he had to leave and hit golf balls. I brought along Cy Cyr, a local photographer and friend. Cy is an excellent golfer and it is always a plus to have knowledgeable people on your team.

My latest lighting fad is with the beauty dish. I just love directional light - so easy to control but not harsh like from a normal reflector. I always try to light as minimally as possible, and achieve the best overall exposure. The dish allows me to do that. I had previously used the Profoto beauty dish, and I was happy with it, but it costs $375.
Normally, if I need a piece of lighting equipment, I would just buy it. I never buy inferior gear, but I also don't want to waste money. I knew that the Speedotron Beauty Dish is of a similar design and finish, but costs only $139. I just bought the Speedotron and changed out the speed ring to a Profoto speedring.

We set up at the driving range and picked up all of the range loose balls. We picked out a nice background - nice trees and some pleasant rolling fairways. When Grame arrived, we got started. I feel that for nice portraits, you need to have the subject's face in shade. You don't want the person's face to have different and ugly patterns of light or shadow, so it is best to shoot backlit in this situation and make sure his face is completely in shade.  The exposure for the images was about 1/250th of a second and f/11, at 200ASA. As usual, I used a Profoto 7B on a boom. I also have a hand made diffuser sock over the beauty dish. The sock just makes the light a little bit softer, almost like a softbox light but with the directionality of the dish. The best of both worlds!
Graeme was easy to work with and the photos turned out great. I hope he has another championship year!

Reader's Digest Heroes

Dr. Michelle Henderson and her hero, John Ritter


I was fortunate enough to get two great Reader's Digest assignments in back to back months. The first story was about Dr. Michelle Henderson. This 51 year old orthopedic surgeon is a real athlete. She is an accomplished runner, biker, longboard surfer and diver. She tried out kiteboarding as the next adventure. She had met and became fast friends with expert kiteboarder John Ritter. On one fateful day in February, her new friend would save her life.

On a morning ride on the Banana River, Michelle became concerned with the high winds. She had already decided to quit for the day when a gust of wind carried her up into the air. She desperately tried to engage the safety release, but her lines started to get so tangled that she was unable to. Luckily, John who had been following, pounced into action. He caught up to her as she was bring tossed into the air and dragged under water. He was trying to get her cords released, when he lost his board. Not having the leverage, he left Michelle in the water. John left to track down his wife, who was nearby on a jet ski. John came back on the jet ski and performed a miracle save, jumping from the jet ski onto Michele's tangled kite line, dragging it under water and finally collapsing the kite. They counted over 200 turns in her line...

For the photo shoot, I wanted to make a beautiful portrait of the two during sunrise. Sounds simple, but everything on the beach is more complicated...
When you shoot on the water, you always need to be careful of sea spray on both your cameras and your lights. I took my usually assistant Jorge to man the Profoto light and the beauty dish and a new assistant, Jeff,  to just hold the cameras. You need to make sure you bring lots of extra towels and clean water. You need to wipe off the sand and sea spray immediately. All the extra gear you normally take with you you leave in the car. It is too hard to manage all the gear with the constant threat of salt water and sand.

We arrived about 30 minutes before the sun rise, and proceeded to the beach. It helps that her condo was right on Cocoa Beach, so there was no travel time from her place to the water. I tried to underexpose the clouds for the exposure. This exposure would change constantly as the sun rose. It gets brighter and brighter very quickly, so it always helps to shoot RAW. I used the Nikon D3 camera body with a 24-70 2.8 lens. The final exposure for the image they used was 1/250th of a second at F/11, 200ASA,

We tried many different variations with the kite, but in the end it was just too large, it took away from the people.  The photo of the two of them with the boards were enough to convey the idea of kiteboarding without being too dominant. Many times, the photo is really an easy thing to capture. You just have to place the subjects in beautiful light and just wait for the sun to rise!

As always, special thanks to my wonderful agents at Redux Pictures and to the wonderful people at Reader's Digest.

Dwight Howard photo shoot

Dwight Howard, Orlando Magic Center

"We have a chance to shoot a portrait of Dwight Howard next week. Going to try for the Clark Kent turning into Superman".

When I got that assignment email, I was stoked. I don't watch that much NBA, but I do remember Dwight Howard soaring to the basket with a Superman shirt and cape on... and winning the Slam Dunk Contest last year. I knew I wanted to shoot this.
When you shoot professional athletes, you really need to have all the details worked out. Their time is limited, and since they have their picture made so often, you may only get a few quality minutes to get your image. You need to know exactly what you want. Sean and I both looked over old Superman images, and tried to pick the ones that would translate best to a photo. My first move was to get a new Superman shirt. I know of a few local places that have shirts, but I wanted a nice one, with a sewn in "S" logo. Unfortunately, all the Internet costume shops I called could not find a deluxe Superman shirt large enough to fit the 6'11'' 275 pound Howard. I had to settle for a screened "S" logo on a 3XL shirt.


Of course, I wanted to find a phone booth for him to change in. I looked all around downtown during my scout day, but no luck. A few of the locations I looked at included the Church Street Station in downtown Orlando. I like the train, and maybe we could've worked it in, but I felt it may be too busy. We finally settled on an alley on Orange Avenue, in Downtown Orlando. It was really the only alley we could shoot in and it was an area fairly easy to control. I made sure to speak to the two owners of the adjacent bars, and they were more than happy to let us shoot Dwight there.

The plan was pretty simple. I would have my assistant, Jorge, set up early in the alley with the 2 portable Profoto packs. I would go to the Magic practice facility and escort Dwight back to the location.

We planned the lighting scheme on the scout trip, so Jorge knew how to prepare the site.

A cold front blew into town and the weather wound up being much colder than I expected. With the wind-chill factor, it was below 45 degrees. Jorge bundled up and waited for my call.

The original plan was to meet up with Dwight at 1:30pm, and bring him to the location. However, his meeting at practice ran late, and we weren't able to leave till 3:30pm. I kept calling Jorge throughout the delay, making sure he didn't freeze out there. He really wasn't able to go inside since all the lighting gear was with him. When we finally left the practice facility, I called Jorge again, and told him to position the lights.

Once we arrived, it was a pretty simple set up. A main light, with a 5' Octobank shot with the Profoto 7B at 1/2 power. The rim light was a Profoto 600B with a softbox set at 1/4 power. The alley was in full shade, so no scrim was needed. I wanted Dwight to do the classic Clark Kent pose, but I varied the look by shooting both high and low angle shots with a 6 foot ladder I brought. One of the problems I had was since we were shooting at 4pm, not 2pm like we had planned, the sun was in a different position and the alley was no longer lit. If I had a bigger budget, it would've been possible to light the entire alley, but it would've required 2 more Profoto 7B packs. The alley got a little dark in the back, but that was the compromise I had to make.

Since it was so cold, I broke up the shots into three different "takes". I would try one idea, then have Dwight warm up and come out again after I reset the lights. I think the entire shoot was probably 15 minutes, including his warming breaks. Dwight was probably one of the nicest guys I have ever shot. His only "issue" is that he likes to have fun, so he doesn't like to do serious poses too much. I want to try and get a full range of facial expressions, so the editors have a choice. I knew the shoot was over once Dwight started to get cold. The last thing I want is him to get sick on my shoot...

(A reprint from the sportsshooter.com website, originally published on 3-10-2009)