Masters Week Photo Blog Final Part

One last update to the Masters behind the scenes blog with some interesting stats.

The entire staff shot 26,910 photos over the course of 7 days. Staffer Kendrick Brinson was the most lead-fingered with over 7,000 images while Chris Thelen was the most conservative with just over 2,000 clicks.

Below is the image that was used on the front page of Monday's paper. Shot with a 400mm on a Nikon D3 on crop mode. I filled the buffer twice during the entire sequence of Immelman hugging his caddie then walking off the No. 18 green doing his best impersonation of He-Man. Another Masters down. Thanks to everyone for looking and rendez-vous next year for egg salad sandwiches and ice-cold chocolate milk!

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 7

It's all over. Immelman the steady leader and Tiger who ran out of steam. We are waiting for the three computers to get back to the office today or tomorrow before updating with Sunday's final round!

In the meantime, below is our annual group photo in front of the Masters scoreboard.

Left to right, Sean Moores, Rainier Ehrhardt, Kendrick Brinson, Annette Drowlette, Mike Holahan, Chris Thelen and Michael Snyder.

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 6

As we gear up for Sunday's mad rush, here's a small update from yesterday's round and a little bit about putting a chair down on No. 18 at the crack of dawn this morning.

First off, it poured in the morning causing a 45 minute or so rain delay.  This means staying out in the rain shooting umbrellas and people trying to stay dry.  Below is a photo of a patron in sandals walking across No. 1 fairway in the stinky mud.  When it rains, the crosswalks (the parts where the beautiful grass gets stomped down to a greenish-brown pulp) start to smell like a landfill.  It must be the fertilizer...

Yesterday, we put our hole jumping plan into action for a dress rehearsal of sorts.  Below is an image of me at one of the three photo holes for photographers on 18.  For today however, in addition to the photo holes, I placed a chair on the front row of the green on No. 18.  I was here at 5:30 am and waited 10th in line under the big oak tree by the Clubhouse until 8 am when security allows us to rush (no running!) to our spots.  However, because they allowed members to get there first, by the time I got to the spot I wanted, there were already two rows.  It's a total mess, and this is the last year I do it.

That's me with the green hat, looking nice and desheveled, with AP's David J. Phillip on the left, and the AJC's Brant Sanderlin on the right.

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 5

With round two in the books, and the field cut in half (or so), the work will now get easier for the weekend. Instead of running around trying to catch up to players who are making a run in the last 5 holes, we now can concentrate on the last 10 or so groups for the next two days (it's most likely that the eventual winner will come from these groups.)

In order to cover every single hole and to guarantee that we will get every reaction shot (because that's what golf photography is really all about, especially on Sunday), we will leap-frog every green. For example, Photographer A starts at green No. 1 and shoots the last 10 groups that come through until they shoot the very last group. Then Photographer A goes to green No. 6 and picks up whoever is there and shoots every group until, again, they shoot the last group. Meanwhile, Photographer B starts on green No. 2 then on to No. 7 and so forth until everyone meets up at No. 18. This means Photographer A, who started at No. 1 gets to No. 18 first while everyone trickles in afterwards finishing with the poor bloke who has to shoot green No. 17 then rush ahead of the final group to No. 18. Hope that all made some sense, but it's a very solid strategy that was developed a few years back that has been very efficient and effective.

So with that, I leave you with a reaction shot of Tiger missing birdie on No. 9 and a "how it was done" shot of Augusta Chronicle staffer Michael Holahan's moon picture on Thursday evening.

Below is Holahan, right, with Director of Photography Michael Snyder looking oddly at the sky. Photogs will point cameras at anything.

And this is what he was shooting:

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 4

Well, Round 1 is over. About an hour and a half later than planned, but it's over. After a fog delay, golfers were finally teeing off from number 1 at about 9am or so.

The first day is always a crap shoot when it comes to determining who to follow and who might be the day's leader or who will have a string of 4 or 5 birdies early on only to choke later on the 16th.

Therefore, we go for the usual suspects (Tiger, Mickelson, Zach Johnson, Vijay Singh, Gary Player, Fred Couples) and hope that through good communication down the stretch, we can catch up to any different leaders (in today's case Rose and Immelman.)

This is where radios are an absolute necessity out on the course. They allow us to stay in constant communication with our editors, in case they need something in particular, with our runners, so we can direct them where to go (to reserve a spot at the next hole, since photographers are NOT allowed inside the ropes) and with the other staff photographers so we can coordinate hole coverage.

We rent Nextel/Sprint phones so that (in theory) they aren't affected by the terrain much as normal walkie-talkie radios are constantly losing signal when you're in a valley. Each photographer gets a phone, along with their runner and two for the editors so that makes a total of 12 phones.

Another usual occurence is what we call Tiger Watch. It's the phenomenon that happens whenever and wherever Tiger Woods is playing golf. Photographers, patrons, TV, everybody is following Tiger. It makes it difficult, mostly because you have to be sure to jump ahead, or send a runner ahead get the shot. Otherwise, you're likely to get to the hole where the people are 20 deep and you can't get a decent shot from any vantage point, long lens or not.

The photo below is from Tuesday's Tiger Watch on hole 13 when the sun came out for 6 minutes on a very cloudy morning. That hole is probably one of my favorites, along with 16.

And finally, someone asked about how many photographers, or "competition" there is. Honestly, not quite as many as you'd think. As the local paper, we get 5 credentials. The Associated Press gets 5 as well, while Reuters and Getty Images have several, but I don't know the exact number. I've seen 3 SI guys, but there are probably more and several from regional papers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and the State from Columbia, S.C. There are several photographers from national and international golf magazines and that's about it. I don't want to venture a guess, but all I know is that credentials are very tightly regulated. With the Masters, it's all about preserving the tradition (hence not letting us inside the ropes, keeps the experience more natural for the patrons).

That's about it for Thursday. And tomorrow will likely be another 14 hour day. It's funny because at the beginning of the week, the course and event is new again, but by Friday morning, you start dreaming about the "beep beep" from the phone radios and your house starts looking unfamiliar because you're spending so much time at the course. But we love it all the same.

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 3

Wednesday at the Masters is the Par 3 competition. We split up and each photographer covers a hole (the five holes that are most likely to produce a hole-in-one so we can capture the reaction of the fans and the golfers.) Meanwhile, I'm the roamer, jumping from hole to hole getting crowd shots, big name golfers and anything else that's interesting.

The above shot of Gary Player about to tee off on 8 was taken on self timer on top of a monopod with a 17-35mm with the unbelievable Nikon D3.

Meanwhile, our runners showed up today. Each photographer gets a runner, to run disks, bring food, carry gear, anything we want. Below is a picture of Ed, my runner for the next 4 days. I like to make him carry the 500mm around and I dictate captions to him before sending him on his merry way back to the darkroom.

And here's just a leftover photo of Damian Brandon Player, 5, who is Gary Player's grandson. He was busy signing autographs while his grandpa was being interviewed by ESPN. Cute.

Next time, we'll go over the radios and Tiger watch. Along with anything else that's interesting on Thursday.

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 2

Today, we look at the editing process and how our editors sort the thousands of images a day to the 30 or 40 that will make it into the paper and online at http://www.augusta.com/masters/multimedia/

We have three desktop Dell computers that all serve an important function. Two desktops are used for editing while the other serves as a backup and DVD burner. They are connected directly to our photo server that allows all the editors back at the Chronicle newsroom to look through the photos to make selections. In addition, we send images to Morris News Service for our sister papers including the Jacksonville Times-Union, Savannah Morning News and Athens Banner-Herald.

Our editors, Michael Snyder, director of photography, and Sean Moores, lab manager take in compact flash cards from the photographers who have placed them in caption bags (envelopes with the photog's initials, date and pertinent info about who or what is on the card) and put in a Disks In box.

From there, the editors copy the photos and use Photo Mechanic to look through, sort, and tag photos that they think will are artsy, dramatic, or tell a good story. Then, they use Photoshop to crop the photos and do minor color corrections, never anything to change the integrity of the image and add captions to each image file using the notes on our caption bags and drop the final photos on our server.

The editors spend the entire day in the "bunker" and never get to see the course, except through our lenses. Sean, in particular has edited over 20 Masters but can count the number of times he's seen Amen Corner in person on one hand. The editors work hard and are an absolutely necessary part of covering an event of such magnitude.

Below is Michael Snyder, right, and Sean Moores, left, hard at work editing Monday's photos during the Masters. At right are the Disks In and Disks Out boxes.

Masters Week Photo Blog Part 1

As the excitement of the Masters starts up again, the Augusta Chronicle staff figured this would be a good opportunity to show people what it is we do, and how we do it during the long week that is about to unfold. During the rest of the year, when most of us meet new people, whether from Augusta or not, they are very often fascinated by what it's like to cover the Masters.

It's a lot of hard work, fun, and teamwork.

So every day of Masters week, we'll be updating our blog with behind the scenes photos and writings about what we're up to at the National.

Today, Michael Snyder, the director of photography, and I got our credentials and arrived at the press building to set up gear. We have what we call a darkroom (from the old film days, we are all digital now) where two editors will look at every single frame our staff of photographers take. Each photographer will be outfitted with two Nikon D3 and Nikon D2Xs camera bodies each with the usual wide angle and medium zoom lens (70-200mm f2.8). In addition we have several pool lenses available to the six staff photographers including one 600mm f4, one 500mm f4, four 400mm f2.8, two 300mm f2.8 and a couple 200-400mm f4. Yes we can shoot the moon with them, and yes, if we get close enough, we can shoot Tiger's nose hairs. But the things weigh a ton and by Sunday's final round our shoulders are very sore (the 600mm alone weighs in at 11.2 pounds).

Below are two images, one an overview of the darkroom, and another focusing on the lenses we have.

Stay tuned tomorrow to learn more about the editing process and where the photos go when we're done.