De La Hoya vs Pacquiao Fight Day!!!

Posted by alpowers on December 7, 2008

What can i say, im sooo happy i got to do this. I thanked Ed for letting me assist him on this major event. Got to meet some of my greatest sports photogs of all time. Jed Jacobson, Jae C Hong, NEIL LEIFER!!!!, Gene Blevins, Will Hart, Thom Hogan and sooo many others. And of course Ed Mulholland and Chris Farina.
I even got Ed to sign my video game, Fight Night Round 3 (he did the cover photo)

I arrive at the Grand Arena Press room at 12:00, get my credentials and walk over to the press room. Ed’s already there waiting for me, we chit chat a bit, and we decide to go check on teh remote camera, because both of us had a feeling we forgot to tape down the focus ring. While we were there we decide to make sure it fired. Low and behold it didnt… So scrambling we go talk to some officials and get a cherry picker crane to hoist Ed up there and double check everything. Turns out the PW II Transceiver we used to fire was not Transmitting and only receiving, so we had to change them. Also while up there Ed noticed that something happened to the zoom lens, it had be turned out and was OOF. Took about an hour to remedy the situation by checking focus, troubleshooting the wizard and gettign teh crane up… but crisis averted.

Sadly we were unable to get Ringside access this time, as Ed was shooting for HBO and they brought out Will Hart as well, so they wanted one up top in Auxiliary and one ringside, we got auxiliary. Ed was told that a 200mm was going to be fine, so he only brought his 300 2.8IS to make sure. Turns out the AUX position, while pretty close) still requires a 400 to get in nice and tight. Didnt have teh 400 on us, we were told we didnt need one. We were SOL…. he had to shoot with a converter, and well I was screwed.. I only had my 70-200 with 1.4 with me. Most of my fight images are cropped atleast 50-60%. And for the people who say the 70-200 with 1.4x is still just as good and sharp as without are retarded, its really soft.

It was a great time, the excitement from teh crowd really got you going. Every blow you can hear teh crowd just go nuts. I was only able to shoot some undercard, and 2 rounds of the Main event (security guard told me i couldnt shoot, because my pass didnt say shooter on it) i still controlled the overhead cam so no worries 🙂

Ok now my story is over, here are the pics, they are rather crappy, especially in comparison to the people i was with this week. Im still learning this fight game, and i hope to continue working with everyone and get better. Im no where near the level i want to be with this stuff, but i have my lifetime to keep trying.

1 From our AUX position