CaryEdmondson.com

Last night was by far the most entertaining Kings game I’ve had a chance to shoot all year. Unfortunately for the Kings… they came up on the losing end of things… falling to the Bucks 114-108 in double overtime. I might as well call this the Brandon Jennings blog because the rookie put on a show last night because most of the pictures are of him. He scored 35 points in the contest and played fearlessly. The best shot of the night for me actually came on a missed shot attempt by Jennings. With under a second remaining in the fourth quarter Jennings heaved a shot well beyond half-court that almost went in. His reaction to the miss was great for photos… but I really wish he would’ve made the shot because then I imagine his reaction would’ve been even better! Though I wish the Kings could’ve pulled this one out it was really fun to watch.

Kobe and the Lakers rolled into town last night to take on the Kings in Sacramento. A part of me was hoping that I’d get a repeat performance of the game they played in December when they went to double overtime (I missed that game because I had to shoot the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco… agh!… wish I could’ve shot that game!) But the Kings had me sitting right next to the Lakers bench located on the left side of the hoop. Before the game I kept trying to get an interesting shot of Kobe sitting on the bench but all he would do is stare back at me almost motionless. It was pretty funny actually because at one point I was just going to tell him to stop staring at me because he was making me uncomfortable (jk).

When the game started little did I know what I was in for. If you read my post from the Raptors-Kings game on March 10 I mentioned how there was a photographer with a giant lens who seemed to get his lens in a few of my photos. Well… as luck would have it… he was sitting right next to me on my biggest Kings game of the year. I don’t know if he is scared to sit a little further behind the line because he doesn’t want to get too close to the fans in the front row, but whatever the reason it wasn’t helping me as I tried to take pictures. Every time I turned to my right I felt like I was staring at the side of his lens. After a few minutes I asked him to at least take the lens hood off to shorten the lens a bit. It helped somewhat… but then I noticed he shoots with his elbows locked into his knees so he leans onto the court… making matters even worse. He was so far onto the court that the referees ran over his foot twice… and he still didn’t move back! I wanted to scream but really there wasn’t much else I could do. It’s a shame that my first memory from last night’s game… but nothing ever seems to go that smooth when it’s a big game… you just have to learn to expect it after awhile.

Well I had a chance to shoot the Raptors again in Oakland a few days after having shot their game in Sacramento. I was trying to focus more on their all-star forward Chris Bosh since there is better lighting at Oracle Arena. One of my favorite shots of the night came before the start of the game when Bosh made a funny face to a teammate before going out to center court for the opening tipoff. After that it was a pretty fun game to shoot and I got one picture to run on CBS Sportsline which had Bosh and the Warriors Monte Ellis fighting for a rebound in the second quarter. Still wish I could shoot some more Warriors games because the lighting is just so good over there!

It’s a tight squeeze when shooting in Arco Arena. I think I’ve already complained about the lighting situation which is no better than shooting at a high school gymnasium… but I’ve also never sat so close to the fans either. Fans who sit on the baseline are basically sitting right on the backs of the photographers, … so quite often I’ll find a foot or knee shoving into back, but for the most part the fans have been pretty good about giving me some room, … except for one time when a guy started hitting me in the back several times… but I think he was just trying to act like a tough guy in front of his date for the night… hopefully that worked out for him. Back to the shooting conditions though. I can’t blame it completely on the photographer because we all have to sit closer to the baseline because of the fans, but last night I couldn’t avoid getting the lens of a fellow photographer in my photos. He was a little slow in his rotation from one play to the next to say the least… the one play I remember in particular is when a Raptors player launched a pass halfway down the court to another teammate who had to jump up in the air to save the ball from going out of bounds (… you can see the end result below). Now… any photographer knows that when a long pass is thrown you have plenty of time to follow the ball and take a shot… but I guess this guy must just be starting out…. ugh… oh well… as long as nobody’s lens get in the way when I’m trying to shoot a player diving for the ball I guess I’ll be arlight.