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.

How wet was it? Charles Tillman of Bears tackles Joseph Adai of the Colts as Chris Harris of the Bears gets blocked and the water files in Super Bowl XLI. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

“I wanted to see what it looked liked, because I obviously don’t know what it feels like. I have a completely different feeling inside. Disappointment is my personal trainer.”

—Chicago Bears cornerback Charles “Peanut” Tillman on why he stayed out on the field to watch the Colts celebrate winning Super Bowl XLI

There are a good deal of telling statistics from Super Bowl XLI that give you the story of the game in a nutshell. The Bears: 4 fumbles, 3 lost. Total first downs: the Colts 24, the Bears 11. Net yards rushing: the Colts 191, the Bears 111. Gross yards passing: the Colts 247, the Bears 165. Time of possession: the Colts 38:04, the Bears 21:56. But the statistic that we heard after the game is one that was hard to believe: it had NEVER rained at a Super Bowl game. Forty years and not one single, stinking shower.

Mother Nature made up for her delay at Super Bowl XLI. It rained. Buckets. A downpour the entire game.

An electric 92-yard kickoff return by Devin Hester of the Bears on the first play of the game gave Colts kicker Adam Vinatieri a taste of the wet turf. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

There are two natural enemies of a sports photographer. Soft drinks…and rain. Actually, I would venture to guess that soft drinks are EVERY photographers’ enemy. Once they spill on your gear or computer, you’re ruined….and so is the gear. Rain is truely the enemy of the sports photographer and unfortunately we all surrendered to the weather last Sunday. By the end of the first quarter, all of us were soaked. Our camera gear was soaked. The $600 worth of Gortex outerwear and boots were soaked. By half-time, our clothes under the Gortex were soaked. By the fourth quarter, my brain was soaked and we were all getting chilled as the temperture dropped. OK, it dropped into the lower 60’s probably, but that seems cold when you’re wet. Cameras shut down. Wet CF cards wouldn’t format. Water on our lenses kept pictures from being sharp and clear. I changed my mind about last years’ Super Bowl in Detroit, which I’ve often trashed. Indoor stadiums and Super Bowls. Even in Detroit, that was sounding great.

Once the final frames were taken on the field, photographers ambled into the stadium to try to dry off. What a joke. There was no hope of getting dried off…for days.

Now that I’ve been home a few days and can decompress from the weekend, I’ve decided a couple of things. First, this past Sunday has made it to my “Top Three Worst Days” to shoot. (A football game in Lincoln, Nebraska the day after Thanksgiving in the mid-90’s in rain, sleet and snow and a NFC playoff game between the Packers and the 49ers in Green Bay in 1996, also in the rain, lead my list. These games take 1 and 2 because in both locations, it was far colder.)

Secondly, going in, I had only “cautious optimism” that the Bears were actually going to win the game. The team had a great season and the playoff games in Chicago were exciting. I’ve shot enough Colt games over the years to know that Peyton Manning is indeed a Hall of Fame quarterback and this year, their rookie running back, Joseph Adai, really impressed me. After after a day like Sunday, I was more relieved that I got out of that weather than anything else. Monday evening, at home, warm and dry with my wife, son and the dogs, was the cure-all for a Bears Super Bowl loss. Plus, my wife had turned off the indoor “rain machine” we had installed when we moved in.

I’m going to coninue to support Mr. Split Personality, Rex Grossman. No Bear quarterback had ever started every game of an entire season. It was essentially Grossman’s first full year starting at quarterback. Peyton Manning, in his first full year at quarterback for the Colts, was 3-13. The Bears, thanks to Rex and in spite of Rex, were 13-3 this season. And Rex took more crap from Chicago fans than any athlete I can remember. Even more than…Dave Kingman. He just didn’t deserve it. The defense lost Super Bowl XLI, not Rex. When your team is behind, a good quarterback wants to try and make some big plays that get his team ahead. Sometimes the results are less than hoped for, like on Sunday.

Rex Grossman of the Bears recovers his own fumble before being sacked by the Colts defense. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) Super Bowl MVP Peyton Manning and coach Tony Dungy celebrate with the Vince Lombardi trophy….in the rain. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)Sorry, “Peanut.” My personal trainer is my 20-month old son. Disappoinment? Dude, ask any Cub fan about disappointment. Their litany is endless. And like the Cub fan, we’ll just say “wait until next year” for another Super Bowl, another six-months of Rex bashing and yet two more chances for Brett Favre to beat the Bears’ butts.

Here are some photographs, some as yet unseen, from the day at Super Bowl XLI:

In the transmitting trailer before the game, contributing photographers (from L) Eliot Schechter and Brian Bahr go over shooting positions with Brandon Lopez, sports director of photography, while staff photographer Donald Miralle (far right) chats with editors Chris “I missed the flight” Chambers (middle) and Christian Peterson. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) In the bowels of Dolphin Stadium, Getty Images employees (from L to R) Bob Covington, Michael Heiman and Scott Halleran oversee the ingesting of CF cards after the game. (Doug Benc/Getty Images) Hey, Prince…you might have fooled the NFL during rehearsals for your half-time show, but you didn’t fool any of US with this see-through panel. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) Head coach Tony Dungy of the Colts is carried by fellow coaches and players following the Super Bowl victory. (Donald Miralle/Getty Images) Offensive lineman Roberto Garza of the Bears walks off the field past the confetti after the Bears lost to the Colts in Super Bowl XLI. (Nick Laham/Getty Images) Robert Mathis of the Colts goes airborne for a shot at Bears quarterback Rex Grossman. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) Muhsin Muhammad (L) hugs Cedric Benson, who injured his knee late in the 1st quarter, in the closing moments of the game. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) Members of the Indianapolis Colts reach to touch the Vince Lombardi trophy following their win at Super Bowl XLI. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) Getty Images staff photographer Doug Pensinger littered his hotel room with wet clothes and camera gear following Super Bowl XLI. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Scott Halleran stands on the field during 2007 Media Day. (Photo by Michael Heiman)

Marvin Harrison #88 and Dwight Freeney #93 of the Indianapolis Colts answer questions during Media Day. (Photo by Michael Heiman)
Tuesday at the Super Bowl is media day where both teams are offered up to hundreds of TV crews, still photographers and reporters. The top 10-12 players are placed into podiums on the field with the rest of the players looking bored and doing radio interviews. A large mob of media surrounds the head coach and the quarter back from each team and pepper them with questions and photograph them from every angle.

The group of four of us left the hotel at 8 AM to make our way to Dolphin Stadium for the 10 AM start. Two photographers, Doug Benc and myself joined editor Michael Heiman and our hard-working logistic person Deborah Dadlani for the 30 minute trip north to Miami Gardens. Deborah might have the toughest week of anyone in our group. She will spend the week juggling editors, sponsors, photographers, clients and NFL requests.

A member of the latin press interviews a member of the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Halleran)

The Chicago Bears take the field first at 10 AM. Doug and I leave our field level workroom to make frames of Tank Johnson, Rex Grossman and the coach Lovie Smith first and then roam around looking for features and fun pics of the other players. Thirty minutes in, Mike picks up cards and starts sending pictures around the world. The last play-off games were several days ago, so websites and newspapers are eager for fresh images. We take frames of big name players on podiums, puppets, back-up players using handy-cams, pretty anchors flirting with players and the crew preparing the field. We have a quick break for food and get ready for the team in white and blue at 12:15.

Grounds crew members put the finishing touches on the Indianapolis Colts end zone during Media Day (Photo by Scott Halleran)

The Indianapolis Colts walk onto the field and we leap into place to get Peyton Manning and their coach Tony Dungy to start. This is the first time two African American head coaches will face each other in the Super Bowl, so they are a very big part of the game story. We get a nice set of pictures and head onto the field to take a team picture for the Colts. On the way out we get a few nice snaps of the key players and the owner and I even help Peyton out with a few pictures on his own camera. We drop by the trailer compound and work on a few last minute communication issues, then back to the beach to rest a bit before a night on Ocean Ave. We had a good first day and our week is off to a solid start.

Scott Halleran takes a team photo of the Indianapolis Colts during Media Day. (Photo by Doug Benc)

Streamers and confetti fly around members of the Chicago Bears during the NFC Championship trophy presentation at Soldier Field. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

“This is the blueprint of the Chicago Bears. Great defense, run the ball well, make a few plays in the passing game. We ran it down their throat in the second quarter. This was typical, traditional Chicago Bears football.”

—Quarterback Rex Grossman following the Bears win over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship game.

You are so right, “good Rex” breath. An unbelievable win in the NFC Championship game. In Chicago. In the cold and snow, over the “favored” New Orleans Saints. It was a great game to cover and to watch. The Indianapolis Colts victory over the New England Patriots was equally exciting, putting Peyton Manning in his first Super Bowl. And for the first time in NFL history, not one, but two African-American coaches will be on the sidelines leading their teams.

Rex Grossman and head coach Lovie Smith of the Chicago Bears bask in the glory of their NFC Championship win. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Much will be written and spoken, ad nauseam, about the upcoming Super Bowl between the NFL’s pride of the Midwest, the Colts and the Bears. Between the NFL Network, ESPN, local television stations, newspapers and sports radio stations, the sheer volume of information about the teams and the game will be…well…ridiculous. Rather than rehash the obvious, I’d like to share some of my favorite photographs from the NFC Championship game and give readers a bit of insight on how we cover a game like this for Getty Images.

Our group in Chicago last Sunday included four photographers: myself, Jamie Squire from Kansas City as well as Al Bello and Nick Laham, both from New York. Squire, the 2006 Getty Images Sport Photographer of the Year, is an outstanding photographer with a keen eye. Bello, a several time winner of the same award, is our Sports chief photographer and one of the best boxing photographers on the planet. Laham, a transplanted Australian, has taken to covering American sports with tremendous success since he came to America a couple of years ago. Our editors were Chris Chambers, a New Jersey native and New York Jets fan who moved to Chicago a few months ago after working in our Los Angeles office and Michael Heiman, a great “Borat” impersonator from New York. The guys with the tough jobs, our runners, were Mike Shayotovich, Media Sales Manager and Jeff Meister, a member of the Sales Ops team, both from the Getty Images Chicago office. I say “tough jobs” because the runners are responsible for getting the photographers’ CF cards from the field to the editors, who are located in the media/photo transmit room inside the stadium, whenever anything important happens during the game. Or, simply when the photographers tell them to run a disk in if they feel they have good or important pictures. They run (or at least walk fast) back and forth from the field to the transmit room throughout the game.

Mike Shayotovich (L) and Jeff Meister of the Getty Images Chicago office seem pleased about the outcome of the game and their chance to “run” for the photographers during the NFC Championship game. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

The great thing about covering a game with two or more photographers, in theory, is that no play or moment important to the game is missed. For example, I missed a touchdown pass play from Rex Grossman of the Bears to Bernard Berrian because I was moving from one end of the field to the other behind the Bears bench when the play happened. Jamie and Al were in the end zone, on opposite sides of the field, to shoot the play. At the end of the game, we had specific assignments which we had discussed the night before. Al and Jamie were to follow the coaches, Nick was to shoot players and fans and I moved into the roped off area in the middle of the field, wearing my cute little orange vest, to shoot the trophy ceremony. We cover the field of play in “quadrants” which we do at any big game and which we will also do at the Super Bowl. Each photographer is responsible for his or her section of the field, the end zone and the bench closest to them. During the regular season, most of us cover games alone. This is more than challenging, as we do a great deal more running around the entire field to photograph game action, coaches, warm-ups, outstanding players and other special requests that our clients might require. At playoff games, we must also pay special attention to the fans, before and during games, and to any pre-game or half-time entertainment that might occur. Despite a smaller area to cover in a playoff game, our intensity is ramped up so that we cover anything and everything that happens in our area.

Bernard Berrian hops into the end zone after making a terrific catch for a touchdown against the Saints. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

For the photographers, a chance to cover a Championship game in our home towns involving teams that we grew up with, is always a special treat. In Chicago, the mood for this years’ Bears team and the playoff games was decidedly different than 21 years ago when the Bears last had a Super Bowl bound team. One writer on sports radio in Chicago talked about the “collective civic anxiety” that gripped the city before the playoff game a couple of weeks ago against the Seahawks. Another writer made an interesting point on the same show. In 1985, Chicago sports teams hadn’t won a damn thing since the Bears won the NFL title…in 1963. The city so embraced the ‘85 Bears that fans will be talking about them…until they die. This year just wasn’t the same. The writer mentioned that since the ‘85 Bears won the Championship, Chicago sports fans had the opportunity to celebrate 6 NBA titles by the Michael Jordan-led Bulls and, shock of shocks, an actual World Series title by the Chicago White Sox in 2005. The fans seemed to know what it took to win a title, especially considering Jordan’s consistant heroics throughout his career. The Bears just didn’t provide the same heroics this season as the team did in 1985. But Bear fans still loved their team and the team didn’t disappoint them. For once.

There was an awful lot of “man hugging” going on, as shown here by John Tait and Olin Kreutz, as the Bears finished off the Saints in the NFC Championship game. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Here are some of my favorite shots from our crew from the game last Sunday:

Adewale Ogunleye of the Bears celebrates a late sack against Drew Brees of the Saints. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Jon Stinchcomb, Terrence Melton and John Owens of the Saints have nothing to celebrate as the snow falls in Chicago. (Nick Laham/Getty Images) Chicago Bears matriarch, 83-year-old Virginia McCaskey, daughter of George Halas, enjoys the final moments of the NFC Championship game from a golf cart on the sidelines. Virginia attended her first NFL Championship at age 9 in 1932. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Running back Thomas Jones flys through Bears and Saints in the second half. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Running back Cedric Benson smiles at teammates after scoring a second-half touchdown. (Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

Ruben Brown lifts Rex Grossman after a TD pass against the Saints. (Nick Laham/Getty Images)

Adewale Ogunley dumps water on head coach Lovie Smith at the end of the game. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Brian Urlacher of the Bears breaks up a pass intended for Marques Colston of the Saints. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Reggie Bush of the Saints flips into the end zone for a touchdown after out-running the Bears defense. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

Desmond Clark of the Bears signals first down against the Saints. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

Photographers from Getty Images, including members of the news and entertainment divisions, will be working throughout the Super Bowl week to provide great coverage and images. We will have a larger group of editors and support staff working than at any other event outside of the Olympics or the World Cup, to bring our clients the best possible coverage. And I will continue to yack, ad nauseam, on this blog about the Bears, the Colts the game and how we cover the Super Bowl.

So, I will be in Miami in February. All sincere apologies to my wife and son who will be braving the Midwest cold while I’m in Florida working for a few days nex week. As I did last year when covering the Super Bowl in (sheesh!) Detroit, I will miss our wedding anniversary. I wouldn’t miss it again, for just any other team. But she knows, deep down in her Texas soul, that it’s the Bears in the Super Bowl and I just couldn’t miss it.

Who knows when, or if, it will ever happen again. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Jonathan Daniel wears the orange vest in snow following the game. Loser. (Photo by Mike Shayotovich)