Getty Images photographer Streeter Lecka wins his round.

During the NCAA men’s final four weekend there is always one off day between Saturdays’s semi-final and Monday’s final game.

Typically, the Getty Images crew heads to the local bowling alley for some afternoon bowling. However, after figuring out that there were two ping pong tables by the pool at the Marriott, it just seemed to perfect to pass up.

Getty Images photographer Streeter Lecka pays tribute to the Marriott ping pong table.

Myself, Brandon Lopez, Streeter Lecka and Jamie Squire (Getty Images staffer who was shooting for ESPN The Mag) headed down to the tables.

Brandon Lopez (director of photography at Getty Images) returns a serve.

Not one to lose a game of ping pong I send it back to Brandon.

Victory!

The consensus among the crew was none of us had played pong for years (beer pong not included) but we all knew what we were doing, so to speak.

Jamie Squire falls in defeat.

I think we were all trying to hustle each other. The play was quite stellar and we even got some passerby’s (I mean fans) stopping to watch us play.

Streeter Lecka celebrates his win.

Some six hours later after some amazing points, bruised egos and strong play we finally ended. We never did crown an official champion but there is always next year. What else are we going to be doing in Detroit?

Ronald Martinez/Getty Images

SAN ANTONIO - APRIL 07: The Kansas Jayhawks celebrate after defeating the Memphis Tigers 75-68 in overtime during the 2008 NCAA Men’s National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 7, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas.

Right before the tip-off for the first game of the NCAA men’s final four I looked over at Brandon Lopez and said, “Let’s just hope it’s not Memphis and Kansas in the final game. “I just felt like with what our coverage of this game could be that would be the worst scenario.

Of course I jinxed it and Memphis against Kansas it was. However, we ended up pleasantly surprised.

It turned out to be one of the top championship games of all time.

With Kansas down nine points with just about two minutes left, the Jayhawks were able to comeback and tie the game with a last second three-pointer to make the game go into overtime. In OT, KU was able to pull away for the shocking victory.

It marked a fantastic end to what was a month-long “journey” of coverage for Getty Images.

Throughout the month of March I traveled to Charlotte for the ACC Tournament, Little Rock, Ark. for the 1^st and 2^nd round, back to Charlotte for the East Regional and then finally in San Antonio for the Final Four. Lots of time spent in the south for a guy based on the west coast.

But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. March Madness has always been my favorite event as I remember being allowed to miss class while in junior high and high school to watch games. Now I get to watch the games live and in person. So it’s hard to complain about the travel.

In San Antonio for the Final Four our crew once again continued to amaze me. Our three photographers (Ronald Martinez, Jed Jacobsohn and Streeter Lecka) captured all the emotion and our photographs ran in newspapers/websites/publications all over the country. Thanks as always to Bob Covington , our IT guru, for enabling Brandon and I to get the photos out to those clients faster.

One photo from the championship game stands out to me. Streeter was able to capture the last second three-pointer by Mario Chalmers to bring the game into overtime.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

SAN ANTONIO - APRIL 07: Mario Chalmers #15 of the Kansas Jayhawks shoots and makes a three-pointer to tie the game to send it into overtime against the Memphis Tigers during the 2008 NCAA Men’s National Championship game at the Alamodome on April 7, 2008 in San Antonio, Texas.

Now that college is done, it’s off to cover the NBA playoffs which start next week. Check the blog page for our NBA basketball playoff coverage.

Team Getty Images

The Super Bowl is a thing of the past.

What used to be just a game and an event or two prior is now a weeklong barrage of press conferences, parties, charity events, planning, lots of late nights working and oh yeah a game. This season’s Super Bowl in Glendale, Arizona was no different than year’s past except our team was actually bigger this time around. With a crew of over 40 people (yes, you read that right) Getty/Wire/FilmMagic had every event covered with sometimes as many as 8 photographers, three editors and a four man video crew at one party. Overkill? Who knows, the material seems to sell and the clients are happy.

A team meeting before the game.

I was the first onsite editor to arrive in Arizona and flew in Monday straight from NHL All-Star weekend. I headed directly over to University of Phoenix Stadium (bad name for a pro-team’s stadium) and met with photographer Harry How who was setting up a remote from the catwalk. After a quick dinner, the few of us in town went to bed because we had an early Tuesday morning with media day.

I think the best way to see what media day is all about is to click here and watch this multimedia piece put together by Javier Salinas.

Tuesday night marked the only night that we had off with no events except for one thrown just for the media. The NFL put on a giant media party at Corona Ranch, a giant grass area with a real live rodeo ring. Food drinks and an hour and a half performance by the Gin Blossoms capped a pretty good night overall. With just a few of us in town on Tuesday, we were the lucky ones who actually got to have some fun at night.

The Gin Blossoms on stage.

We actually counted and were shocked to know seven Gin Blossoms songs. “Hey Jealousy” never sounded so good with the band signing to literally 25 of us.

Good times at the media party! From l-r, field editor (me), assignments editor Deborah Dadlani, runner John Salmon and field editor Mike Heiman sitting down.

The rest of my week from noon to four a.m. or so was filled with news conferences and parties that I edited. Celebs were hitting all the parties around Phoenix/Scottsdale/Glendale and Tempe and our large team of entertainment photographers and editors were there to capture all the mayhem. I went onsite to most of the events that I had to work however, our team was so big this year we rented a house in Tempe to act as headquarters where we had 10 editors at a time working on photos and photographers constantly coming in day and night dropping off cards. It seemed to be a good call to get the house, despite everyone battling colds and bronchitis and having to spend all day together listening to everyone coughing.

I think for the majority of the team that works primarily on sport, Sunday couldn’t come fast enough. Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest sporting event of the year in the United States and you can argue that it’s the single biggest one day annual sporting event in the world. So for us there, we were pretty excited to see if the New England Patriots could make history and go undefeated (19-0).

Our team consisted of 16 photographers who shot the game spread between staff, stringers, entertainment and contributors. All in all, we transmitted 1,374 photos that night to gettyimages.com and our editorial clients all over the world. To do this, we had a trailer outside the stadium where we had all the images fed to the nine of us editors through our Getty Images system.

Editors in trailer

The system worked flawlessly as our team of eight runners (thanks again runners) were able to deliver the digital cards to our distribution center located under the stands in the stadium. Mike Heiman and Bob Covington would then send all the images to us editors in the trailer to work on.

The runners

The distribution center

The editing trailer

At times the game was stressful, especially in the final quarter, as the New York Giants were finding a way to hold on to their improbable win against the heavily favored Patriots but all in all the night went great. And now, a year to prepare for Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa, Florida.

Michael Heiman celebrating the end of the Super Bowl week.

That’s me in “the chair.”

My phone rings. On the other end of the phone is an Atlanta prop store owner calling to ask me where he can drop off “the chair.” Now, I had a heads up here. Getty Images staff photographer Jamie Squire, asked to shoot portraits for the NHL All-Star game in Atlanta, and he warned fellow editor Christian Petersen and I that a chair would be arriving. However, we weren’t expecting this kind of chair.

To our surprise and amusement the chair we would be using for portraits of NHL All-Stars and Youngstars would be a chair that resembles something Hugh Hefner would own and something you might find at a bad antique shop.

Would these NHL players really pose for a portrait in this thing? We felt, along with the people from NHL Images, that Jamie was taking a chance but only time would tell. Just in case the players wouldn’t go for it Jamie brought a bar stool in the studio.

Christian and I helped Jamie set up lights and after shooting some test frames on “the chair” against the black backdrop we felt confident the photos would be high quality and something memorable. All that was left was convincing the players.

Some of our test shots:

In the portrait studio we thought it might be good if we had a couple of female assistants to make the players feel comfortable in the chair. So with the help of some of the NHLI staff and fellow editor Rebecca Butala How, they were able to convince all the players except Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins that they would look fantastic in “the chair.”

It worked.

Jamie Squire at work with a NHL Allstar athlete.

50 plus All-Stars later Jamie accomplished a portrait shoot that some felt would not work. Many major newspaper outlets the next day even used the portraits on their front page of their sport sections and many other magazine requests have been put in for usage. And none of this would have been possible if it weren’t for The Chair.

Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

A special blogging post from John Wolfson - my father…

I received the call on Wednesday afternoon from my son Maxx (a field editor with Getty Images). “Dad, would you like to be a runner at the Packers game on Sunday?” Finally, after paying for college, buying cars, and raising a great kid, I was paid back in 4 quarters.

You have to understand where this was coming from. Maxx and I have been Packer fans since he was toddler. We have been traveling for years to Lambeau and other stadiums a couple of times a year to support our team and spend time together which has been difficult to do with out work schedules.

Although I have been to Lambeau numerous times, I was not prepared for the adrenaline rush when I walked out onto the field before the game. This is sacred turf to the Packer community and I felt honored to be there.

My first thought before the game was not to let Maxx and the photographers down. I was shown the way to the field thru the tunnel and up two flights of stairs, down a hall way, etc. No problem!!! Well after the first quarter, I pealed off my jacket, gloves and hat. Now keep in mind that it was snowing the whole game and the temperature was in the high 20’s. Not only was it a great experience to run the cards, but I lost 5 pounds at the same time and turned white from the snow in the process.

One of the most impressive things I learned was the hard work, dedication, professionalism and teamwork it takes to produce the photographs that Getty Images distributes.

I would like to thank Jamie, Matt, Jonathan Daniel, Maxx and Getty Images for a once in a lifetime experience.