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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Trave/Photo Blog: Final Four 2013

2013 FINAL FOUR (ATLANTA)

By Andy Lopusnak, AndysPictures.com
April 15, 2013

The 2013 Final Four marked my third straight year covering college basketball’s top event. It was my second photographing the four teams in a studio setting and my first as the main-truck statistician.

Just like in Houston (2011) and New Orleans (2012), the Atlanta Final Four was in the NFL stadium and in a city that I’ve photographed numerous times. Unlike the previous years, the game and all the events as well as my hotel were all in a short walking distance.

The first two days in Atlanta were rainy and quite dreary, but the rest of the week was near perfect weather with fantastic clouds.

TEAM PHOTO SHOOTS

I previously photographed three of the Final Four teams (Louisville, Michigan and Syracuse) during the season and would get to shoot them again as well as Wichita State on the Thursday before the Final Four.

The images were used for the games as well as in pre-game features like one about Louisville’s Kevin Ware who suffered a horrible and graphic injury the previous week. Here's a photo collage for each of the four teams.

BEHIND THE SCENES
In addition to my images, CBS had numerous specialty video shoots for the Final Four. I took some behind the scenes photos of these that you can see below.

REECE’S ALL-STAR TIME LAPSE

On Friday, the college basketball all-star game took place at the dome and like the previous two years at the Final Four, I took a time lapse of the event.

CONCERT PHOTOS

Like last year when I photographed KISS and Jimmy Buffett from the pit, I had the chance to do the same for three concerts over the weekend – the Zac Brown Band, Sting and the Dave Matthews Band. The first was on Friday night, while the other two were Sunday evening.

POST-CONCERT FIREWORKS

After Zac Brown on Friday and Dave Matthews on Sunday, there were fireworks in Olympic Centennial Park. For Friday, I photographed the fireworks from the 13^th floor of the Omni where I was staying to get some of downtown Atlanta and the colorful Ferris wheel. Then I did close up shots on Sunday. that didn't come out as nice as the Friday images.

NATIONAL ANTHEMS
Using my multiple cameras set up for time lapses, I got some great shots of the national anthem for the semifinals game (bottom left) and the title game (the other three).

NATIONAL SEMIFINALS TIME LAPSE

I was going to do multiple time lapses from various locations, but when I was setting up found out that two of my super clamps were broken and just did one.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME TIME LAPSES

With all of Atlanta’s pro camera stores closed on Sunday (I guess because Georgia’s in the Bible Belt), I had to wait until Monday to get new super clamps. I set up four different time lapses using my 20D, 40D, GoPro 2 and GoPro 3.

POST-TITLE PHOTOS

After the game and my job was done, I went to the court and got a few photos of the Cardinals' cutting down the nets. Some of the shots are wide shots from my four time lapses as well.

-- AndysPictures.com -

Friday, January 25, 2013

Travel/Photo Blog: Austin (Kansas at Texas)

TRAVEL/PHOTO BLOG: Austin (Kansas at Texas)
By Andy Lopusnak, AndysPictures.com
January 17-19, 2013

It’s déjà vu all over again. On this same weekend a year ago, I was in Austin doing the Kansas-Texas game and I’m back for round two. Last year, I took lots of great shots of the Lone Star capital and the city. One of my favorite places to shoot is along Lady Bird Lake, which flows more like a lazy river through downtown. Its slow current is awesome for near mirror-like reflections of the skyline.

My first two days in Austin, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky (much like last year). However, on game day the sky was outstanding and I nabbed a lot of great shots with the beautiful sky and great reflections. I didn’t get the chance, but wanted to visit the Museum of the Weird. Maybe next time.

CATHEDRAL OF JUNK

Vince Hannemann began building his temple to trash in 1988 and he believes that it has more the 60 tons of junk. This is actually located in Vince’s backyard in a residential neighborhood.

It’s nearly invisible from the road and you could easily just drive by without noticing. When I arrived, Vince welcomed me into his scrap shrine. He even offered me a beer. Well worth a stop if you’re in Austin. Hopefully Vince’s home if you stop by or else you can’t see it.

FOODIE JAUNTS

Austin is a foodie paradise. It has more food trucks per capita than any city in the world and has some awesome BBQ and burgers. I had one of my best burgers and absolutely the best fries ever at the Counter Café. This place is only up from 7am-4pm. I had lunch my first day in Austin there and had a cheese burger with fries. Simple, but OMG tasty. Cooked perfectly medium rare.

For dinner my second night, three other CBS crew members and I drove 20 miles outside of Austin to The Salt Lick. It’s in the middle of nowhere, but the BBQ is delicious and all you can eat for $20. On Sunday morning at the airport, there’s a smaller Salt Lick and the biscuits & gravy with the brisket mixed in is awesome.

LBJ MUSEUM

On the UT campus is the presidential library and museum for Lyndon Johnson, the 36^th US President. It’s free, though they just started taking donations. Included inside the three stories of exhibits are a 1/8^th scale replica of what the Oval Office looked like under LBJ, a joke-cracking animatronic LBJ, a presidential limo and artifacts from the time of the LBJ administration.

GHOST TOWN

After the game, I drove about half an hour outside of Austin to snap some shots of the J. Lorraine Ghost Town in Manor. It’s a revision of an Old West neutral territory for outlaws and lawmen. The owner, George who I met, built it in the 1980s and it’s now essentially a bar & grill with a pretty good burger. It has free movies on a big screen on the weekends. I grabbed a burger and stayed for some night shots of the empty town.

The story goes that George bought the land to do some farming and unearthed some old wood planks and other artifacts just a few feet underground. A small stack of stuff became a larger one and he stopped everything to find out what all of it was from.

After some research, he found out that in the late 19^th century there was a small town of less than 500 named J. Lorraine. There are some different stories of how J. Lorraine met its end. One says that it was destroyed by a hurricane and another claims that an angry mob of nearby citizens burnt it to the ground. Anyway, George decided to rebuild the old town with all the wood he found.

KANSAS 64, TEXAS 59

The fourth ranked Jayhawks, winners of 14 straight entering the game, trailed for most of the game and erased an 11-point second-half points to beat the slumping Longhorns 64-59. Kansas freshman phenom Ben McLemore led the Jayhawks with 16 points, including 11 in the second half. This marked the third straight season that I’ve done a Kansas-Texas matchup and the road team has won all three (the first in Lawrence and the last two in Austin).

TIME LAPSE: LOW CORNER

Using the GoPro Hero 2, I shot from where CBS had a low camera in one of the corners. It’s the same corner only lower that I shot my first Frank Erwin Center time lapse on the same weekend a year ago for this game (click here to view that one). It’s the not greatest of angles for a wide shot as you can’t see a lot of the game action, but here it is.