Kobe and the Lakers visit Sacramento
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.
