I shot thousands of photos at 13 Major League Baseball playoff games last month including every World Series game. But in the end, I only had one image from each game.

Huh?

I was not shooting traditional images. I was producing GigaPans.

Since I made one at President Obama’s inauguration, I’ve worked on perfecting my technique for producing Gigapans at large events and have been commissioned by commercial clients like MLB.com and Bon Jovi (I’m the GigaMan?). This year, I had to figure out how to produce one in every postseason city (I needed a GigaPlan?).

It turned into one of the most demanding jobs of my career, but it was also a lot of fun.

The GigaPan hardware and software help you to shoot a series of overlapping photos and stitch them together afterwards to make a super-high resolution panoramic image. The post-processing takes a very long time because the file can be 5 gigabytes or more. Simply cropping off the edges takes 10 minutes to complete. It helps to have a fast computer (with lots of GigaRam?).

At each game, I put a Nikon D700 and 200-400 f/4 lens into the GigaPan Epic Pro and shot hundreds of photos. The biggest one (ALCS game 3: Rangers at Yankees) is made up of 364 photos (26 across by 14 down). The final file is 68,388 X 23,342 pixels or 1,596 megapixels. A normal digital camera file is about 10 megapixels.

When viewing the image, you can zoom in and see incredible detail all around the ballpark. You can see the players in the dugout, find celebrities in the crowd, and as a new feature this year, you can even tag yourself and your friends on Facebook if you were at the game (GigaFan?).

Here’s a 100% crop from the above image:

I logged 25,336 flight miles shooting games from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between. My normal schedule involved flying into a city in the morning, covering the game that day, doing all the stitching and post-processing overnight, uploading the massive image (on hotel Internet!), sleeping for 2 hours, then going back to the airport to fly to the next city.

I usually slept on the plane, but sometimes would abruptly wake up with the fear (in a GigaPanic?) that I captured the photos incorrectly or hadn’t finished uploading the file.

When the World Series ended, I went back to San Francisco to make two final images of the celebration parade before heading home. After four weeks on the road, this project is finally in the GigaCan.

You can see all of my World Series GigaPans on the MLB website.

Sorry for all the puns. Here are a few more that I couldn’t work into the post. How many more “GigaPuns” can you invent? Bonus points if you come up with a relevant definition.

GigaVan - vehicle used to transport large format photo gear
GigaPants - outerwear worn to stay comfortable while making GigaPans
GigaBand - multi-platinum selling artists like Bon Jovi

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Earlier this year, New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez helped me make a portrait of his teammate Tony Richardson for Sports Illustrated.

Richardson is one of the classiest guys in the league. At 38, he’s considered one of the game’s “elder statesmen” and is widely respected by his peers. As a fullback, he’s blocked for some great NFL running backs over the years including Marcus Allen, Adrian Peterson, and LaDainian Tomlinson. He also gives much of his time off the field to local charities.

Since we were outdoors at Jets camp in Cortland, NY, I used my 1000 w/s Dynalites to overpower the sun. The main light was in a large softbox on camera right. I set my camera to tungsten white balance to force the background into a darker shade of blue. A warming gel over the strobe brought Tony back to a normal, slightly warm color.

I added two more bare strobes in the back to create the rim lights around his face and body. I didn’t gel those, so the tungsten white balance turned them a cool shade of blue.

I was doing the shoot as the other Jets players were coming off the practice field. A few guys were giving him some good natured ribbing about his age, but when quarterback Mark Sanchez walked by (Richardson could almost be his father!), he made a comment that this shoot should be for AARP, the magazine for retired people.

That got a big smile out of Tony and I got my photo.

(Nikon D3, 24-70, ISO 100, 1/250, f/14)

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Last spring, I was commissioned to produce an action video for a high school lacrosse player. His parents wanted a professional video that they could send to college coaches along with his school application.

Most of the time, parents just use the existing school video footage and highlight their son or daughter with a circle or an arrow. I wanted to make something that was more “NFL Films” than “Public Access.”

I brought in two other photographers - Rob Tringali and Mike Ehrmann - and we covered 15 matches over the course of the season.

We shot with the Canon 7D hybrid HD-DSLR at 60 frames/second and then slowed it down to 24p in post to give it a cool slow-motion look. I bought a Canon-Nikon adapter so I could use my Nikon lenses - including a 400/2.8 for the action shots.

That also meant everything had to be shot using manual focus.

I occasionally shoot manual during a game these days, but it’s been a long time since I’ve had to follow-focus 100% of the time. It was not easy, but that muscle memory slowly came back, allowing me to get enough shots for the completed video.

The final piece for the client was three minutes long, but editor David Szarejko and I also produced the one-minute sample below.

The music is “King Louie” by Taddy Porter (off their new self-titled album) and is used with permission.

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I did a portrait shoot with the band We Came As Romans recently in the Detroit suburb of Troy for Kerrang Magazine. We found a location in the woods outside of a prep school near the band members’ homes.

The guys were normal and mild-mannered. That is, until we came across a shallow pit and I suggested that they act as if they were clawing their way out of hell. Then I got this:

(Nikon D3, 24-70, ISO 400, 1/250, f/8)

I’m using all Nikon SB-800 and SB-900 strobes. I placed two in the front on each side, two are on the sides a bit behind them for side/rim light (you can see a flare from the back left), and two are in the hole in the ground with warming gels to simulate fire (although you can’t see much of that light in this particular frame).

Everything is fired with Pocket Wizards and I used Nik’s Color Efex Pro inside Aperture for the post-processing.

These Romans could teach the Greeks a few things about conquering Troy.

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I’ve photographed the Barenaked Ladies in concert more than 50 times, but I made my new favorite photo of them during their show at Radio City Music Hall in New York last month.

It was the first time I had heard them play their hit “Brian Wilson” since Steven Page left the band last year. Steve and Ed always did a few jumps during the song, but I had no idea if Ed was going to jump solo.

It was the last song of the night, so I positioned myself on stage near Tyler’s drum kit and hoped for the best. The spotlights looked good and the smoke machines were working overtime.

Then Ed jumped.

(Nikon D3, 24-70, ISO 2500, 1/320, f/4)

You can purchase high quality prints of this photo, along with my other Barenaked Ladies pictures, Bon Jovi pictures, and Hanson pictures at TourPhotographer.com.

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Patrick Hall and Lee Morris from Fstoppers.com recently produced a cool video about me and my work with Bon Jovi.

I was able to get them backstage at the New Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey and they even got a few words from Jon Bon Jovi himself (watch all the way through to the end!).

You can read Patrick’s story about the making of the video on his site.

I suggest you turn up the volume and click the four arrows in the bottom right corner to watch full screen. Use headphones if you’re in the type of office environment that frowns upon loud music blasting from your desk.

(If you subscribe to my blog via email or RSS feed and don’t see the embedded video above, click the title of this post to open it in your browser.)

Big thanks to the band and management for allowing this video to be produced. Also to Patrick and Lee who did an amazing job!

You can see more of my Bon Jovi pictures and purchase prints at TourPhotographer.com.

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