PARIS - MAY 27: Rain delays play on day three of the French Open at Roland Garros on May 27, 2008 in Paris, France. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Rain. Play was suspended again for most of the day with only an hour or so played in the afternoon.

Hey, you’re in Paris, so do a little sightseeing! Nope. When play is suspended, verses being cancelled outright, you cannot leave the venue. You try and find anything to do to kill time. Shoot a few weather features. Walk through the gift shop for the tenth time. Pester the editor. You get the idea. And there is absolutely no place comfortable to sit at a sporting event.

But I could be sitting in an office somewhere. Life is good.

PARIS - MAY 27: A lone fan waits in hope that the rain will stop and play will start on day three of the French Open at Roland Garros on May 27, 2008 in Paris, France. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

It was very flat light today. Overcast. Even worse it started to rain in the afternoon. Tournaments played on clay differ from their counterparts played on a hard surface or grass in that if is not raining too heavy, play will continue. In fact, in dry weather conditions, clay courts are watered between matches, sometimes between sets, to maintain their playability.

The world number one Roger Federer made it through to the next round at the expense of the young American Sam Querrey. I was there for Sam’s first career win in Las Vegas a few months ago and he is a really nice kid. Too bad he received such an unlucky draw in the tournament bracket. I was hoping he would make it further.

The rain finally became too much and play was cancelled later in the afternoon.

Three games down and who knows how many more to go. Detroit took the first two and then on to Pittsburgh where the home team triumphed. So we’re in Pittsburgh for games 3 and 4 and another 4-1/2 hour bus ride back to Detroit for game 5.

In this blog, I will dissect the coverage of game three in Pittsburgh. Besides the actual game, I assigned coverage for the pre-game fan scene outside as well as the post game press conference. Usually assigned to those events are the photographers who aren’t doing remote cameras as they need to be turned just prior to the game time and then pulled down afterwards.

Viewing the arena map, each number is delineated below:

1. From a TV booth, Dave Sandford had a 400mm trained on the north end net.

2. Jamie Sabau shot the whole ice from a spot on the concourse with a 300mm and an occasional 70-210.

3. Jim McIsaac had the honor of shooting through milky Plexiglas at ice level. A 70-210mm along with a 16-35 for grab shots covered the action did the job.

4. A camera in the net with a 15mm lens was triggered by Bruce Bennett from his position, #9.

5. Remote: A camera at the base of the boards with a 14mm lens was also triggered by Bruce as this cameras radio receiver was on the same frequency as the netcam enabling both to fire simultaneously.

6. Remote:Jamie Sabau fixed his camera up high on a TV camera pole behind the net to shoot through a 3” opening between glass sections behind the net.

7. Remote: On a high platform, Jim McIsaac placed a 300mm focused on the south end net. The platform also provided Christian Petersen a good vantage point for arena overview images in the opening moments of the game.

8. Dave Sanford took up a concourse position and could shoot the whole ice with a 300mm.

9. Bruce Bennett shot from the visiting runway with a 70-210 and a 16-35.

Anthony Jacobs and Bob Covington had arranged to have the arena ‘wired’ for us. The photographers at rink side had their laptops networked with the editors. At timeouts, digital cards were fed into laptops and sent back to editors to save time. Runners picked up digital cards from other photographers to transport by hand to the editing room, and AJ Messier helped out again at Stanley Cup this year by attending to remotes by pulling cards, changing batteries, and pulling remotes down.

In total, about 6,700 images hit the editors with over 220 making it up to our site within 24 hours of the event.

Images are all from remotes:

1. Dave Sandford’s 400mm from the opposite end of the ice

Dave Sandford/Getty Images

2. Bruce Bennett’s netcam

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

3. Bruce’s Dasher cam with a 14mm from behind the net

Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
4. Jamie Sabau’s TV pole cam

Jamie Sabau/Getty Images

5. Jim McIsaac with a 300mm from the opposite end of the ice

Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

PARIS - MAY 26: Roger Federer of Switzerland serves during the Men’s Singles first round match against Sam Querrey of USA on day two of the French Open at Roland Garros on May 26, 2008 in Paris, France. (Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)

Greetings my name is Matthew Stockman and I am a photographer for Getty Images based in Louisville, Kentucky. At present I am in Paris covering the French Open tennis event held at Roland Garros, the second of the four major Grand Slam tournaments. I will be blogging to you throughout the tournament.

There is no ‘I’ in team of course. I am joined my colleagues Mike Hewitt, Julian Finney and Justin Davies all from our London office. Fine bunch of lads as they say in their country and I have had the pleasure of working with them before at other international events.

Day 1, Sunday? Normally tournaments start play on Monday. The Sunday trend started a few years ago here and it has remained. It is my guess the eventually all the Grand Slams will start on the Sunday. There is a lot of tennis to be played over the next two weeks and to be honest we were all ready to get it underway. I’m sure the players are too.

I’ll catch up with you once things get started…

Photo (L-R): Bob Covington, Dave Sandford, Christian Petersen, Patrick Sutton, Jim McIsaac, Bruce Bennett

Yes, it’s another Memorial Day spent on the “Trail to the Stanley Cup.” A few days short of eight months time, and 1,300 games later, the NHL Stanley Cup Finals are set to begin. A classic confrontation between the Pittsburgh Penguins rising stars and the veteran laden Detroit Red Wings. Getty Images headed to Detroit well stocked with its veteran crew. Editors Patrick Sutton and Christian Petersen are joined by photographers Bruce Bennett and Jim McIsaac, along with freelancer Dave Sandford. Added in the mix is Claus Andersen in Detroit and Jamie Sabau for Penguin games.

The joy in this Cup journey is in the travel. A 285 mile trek between cities on an NHL chartered bus will be smooth sailing over the three previous final pairings: Tampa Bay and Calgary, Edmonton and North Carolina, Ottawa and Anaheim. It could only get worse if the NHL expands to Hawaii! No long flights, and no customs or immigration. Just sit back and leave the driving to…Patrick. Shhh. (I haven’t told him he’s driving the bus yet).

So Saturday, the day of game one, is reserved for the designation of our shooting positions, and for setting up net-cam, dasher-cam and rafter-cam. Bob Covington has spent time the previous week wiring the four possible Cup venues and will be on hand to hard wire the ice level shooters. Each photographer will have a laptop by his side to download digital cards which will network directly to the editors thereby saving an enormous amount of time. The NHL is providing runners to hand carry digital cards from shooters on the concourse level. And yes, some day soon the equipment will be available and the wireless will be fast enough to transmit wirelessly from our cameras directly to the editors. That day isn’t far away.

There will be about forty photographers from varied outlets and countries covering each game and the atmosphere provides for healthy and friendly competition to get the best shots. In fact, since the team photographer has his netcam in one net and we occupy the other, our netcam images are pooled with other major wire services.

Lastly, as with most best of seven series at this point in nine month season, media members including our staff will be taking sides. Whoever wins the first game will hopefully sweep.