One day done - Team GB Women start with a win
So - first day of games behind me at the Surrey Sports Park, how was it?
Saturday, start of a long weekend in Guildford, nice and late start to the day and an easy drive to Guildford. Arrive well in time for the opening game between Germany and Greece, set myself up on the Media Table - another benefit found for the use of a "Pelicase' - it's nice and hard and protects your laptop nicely from stray balls :-)
Plenty of familiar faces around the arena as well, so got to chat to people before the start. Team pictures of both teams before the tip-off, wish BBL teams were as organised when I take their pictures (hint for next season ;-) ). Game itself is quite one-sided but entertaining enough - and some decent action shots from it.
As the game finishes, I remember that for once I get to stay at the same venue for the whole three days - so as I've set my White Balance/Exposure/etc, I have my cameras set for the next three days.. brilliant! It almost makes things sounds a little too easy for me. Well, maybe that's being a bit too confident.. but it is nice to know that cameras are set for the whole long weekend.
Images from this game can wait until a bit later, so bit of time to catch my breath before the next game. Team GB vs Israel, always a nice question mark with these games, will the Israeli security guards want to ask for my passport. I'll always remember them asking me for it in a Women's handball game in Finland .. many moons ago. Since then - I've always smiled when I've known that an Israeli game is in my schedule.
No problems this time - team pictures once again, and a presentation to snap as well. For the game - I am going with both video and still images, with still images the main point. GB in control of the game and Stef Collins gives plenty of nice action shots, then again - she will get her 100th cap tomorrow.. so there must be a reason for her appearances in the squad.
Few pictures quickly shot off during half-time, more after the final whistle - this also while dashing for couple of minutes to do three post-game interviews for Team GB website. Couple of more specific requests from the Team GB media before heading out to find my hotel.
30 minute drive to the Hotel, check-in... and not sure what this means, but I've been given a disabled room, go and figure. Straight to work in - video still importing, call from Team GB to get a Stef Collins' video comments written down and sent to them. Video finally imported, edit the interviews - go through the game footage to insert scoring runs to the interviews. Feedback from fans has been that watching 'talking heads' for three minutes is quite tedious, so hopefully this livens the footage slightly.
After another hour of work - the video is rendering, ready to start uploading at 10.20pm - all uploaded around 11pm. Now time to look at the pictures, shift through the 100's of them - mark the ones to edit, ditch the poor ones. Then start editing - crop/straighten/contrast/rename.. crop/contrast/rename...repeat...repeat...repeat.. After this, still adding the keywords and player names to the images. 2am.. images edited.. renamed.. keyworded and uploading, time to have something to eat (first time that I have something since breakfast). Shower.. sleep..
All in a good days worth of work - really enjoyed it and hope that the next two days offer more of the same (with maybe a little break somewhere for dinner ;-) )
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