Thon 2009 from Above

Feb 24 2009

This year, I covered THON in a unique way: from the catwalks. Last year, I got some really cool shots from going high up in the stands of the Bryce Jordan Center arena, but this year, I worked with some folks at the BJC to get some cameras up into the catwalks above. I’ve been placing remote cameras up there for basketball games, so this was not much different, other than the amount of cameras I used.

(Nikon D2Hs, 10.5 mm, 1/50, f/2.8, ISO 640)

In total, I covered THON with a total of 6 cameras, all doing totally different things. I had two cameras hooked up in the catwalks as straight remotes; one with a fisheye to cover the entire arena, and one with a 70-200 pointed directly down to get a tight overhead shot. I also had two handheld cameras that I used when I walked around the floor. The next two cameras are the cool ones.

The final sit down at the end of the 46 hours, shot with my overhead remote at 70mm.

(Canon EOS 40D, 70mm, 1/160, f/4, ISO 800)

On the Thursday before THON, I set up a camera connected to a borrowed friend’s laptop to record a timelapse of the entire thing, starting at the end of the basketball game that Thursday night to load out on Sunday evening. The computer was scheduled to take a photo every 30 seconds for the entire period to be later strung into a movie. The next day after the basketball game, on Friday before THON started, we were able to lower the scoreboard and attach a camera to the bottom with my 17mm lens. Since the scoreboard is directly centered in the arena, I figured it would get really cool shots from above with a wide angle lens. I couldn’t attach a laptop to the camera, so I used an intervalometer (TC-80N3) to record a photo every minute.

Both timelapse captures turned out extremely well and produced very entertaining videos. I am still working on the final cuts of the videos and will hopefully release them sometime this or next week.

I also photographed my friend Dan‘s band, Lowjack, who were lucky enough to play the opening set of the weekend.

(Nikon D300, 10mm, 1/125, f/4, ISO 1600)