Hell Yes

The sky looked ominous as I climbed up the escalator at the Stadium-Armory stop about an hour before kick off last night. It started raining not 2 minutes after I got to RFK. I was a bit down that the field access my photo pass gave me would all be for naught, but the skies eventually cleared up about 10 minutes into the game. Before that I was walking around with one hand holding my umbrella up and the other desperately trying to snap photos (fearing they may not even get the game in) with a hamburger bun sack wrapped around my camera as a barrier to the weather. It was pretty funny.

I'm sure the other photographers thought it was hilarious. Ever go somewhere knowing that everyone else there knows you don't belong? That was me last night, standing on the endline of the pitch at RFK with all the other photographers. They all had these very expensive cameras with humongous lenses while I stood there with my little pea shooter wrapped in a hamburger bun sack. Everyone was else was fully weather proofed. Parkas, shields for the cameras, the whole nine. It makes sense the Scottish media in attendance (there was alot of them) would be prepared for this, as would the AP and other national press there. Little ol' me? Not so much.

The equipment the other guys down there had was truly incredible. This guy's setup was bananas. He had three different cameras each with a different lense (all of them huge) and a little station for his Powerbook so he could upload his pics to his laptop while he was taking other shots. All of this in the rain. I was bit intimidated.

Honestly though, I did alright all theings considered. I still can't find my battery charger since the move and my memory card had about 300 photos from the Futureheads show last week, so I was a bit judicious in my snapping. Not so for the professionals there. They would snap off about 8 to 10 shots each time they hit the shutter button. It sounded like a machine gun fight down there on press row.

The game itself was great. United dominated from start to finish and wound up winning 4-0. Check out the write-up from the Scottish Herald. Good stuff. Freddy Adu was the best player on the field by far. He was slicing and dicing the Celtic defense all night. Watching the game from the end line of the pitch was great thrill. I could hear the players talk to each other during play and see blades of grass fly up with each slide tackle. United scored three times in the second half and all of those were right in front of me. I know it's "only" MLS, but see see professional athletes doing there thing as close as five feet in front of you is pretty cool. I saw DaMarcus Beasley and John Harkes milling about after the game. An no, I didn't say anything nasty to Beasely, although I wanted to.

Thanks much to the fine folk in the DC United front office. I'm going to approach them again and see if I can't do this a few more times before the season is out. I will, however, have to buy a lens with better reach than my current 28-75mm.

See all my pics from last night here.