A year ago this week, was one of the busiest weeks I’ve ever worked at the newspaper doing one of the coolest things I never thought I’d ever do.  I was covering a Superbowl.  Superbowl XLVI specifically.  Thanks to a scheduling error I didn’t have a credential for inside the game causing me to be on features duty out in Superbowl Village while the game was played; but at the same time I spent a week doing what most of the world only saw on TV or the World Wide Web.  It was pretty bad ass.

Those are the hands (and rings) of Joe Theisman as seen at Radio Row here in Indianapolis at XLVI.  One of my big jobs was to photograph and shoot a video at the event where celebrities come to the media.  Any celebrity is welcome at radio row and they know that the press wont chase them.  If they want coverage, this is where they go.  It was a really neat event and I got not only to see quite a few Superbowl rings; but I also saw how tall Adam Sandler was.

Originally my assignment was to go with friend and coworker Michelle Pemberton to set up a video booth including that red background pictured above.  After we did all the work and got it set up, the blonde interviewer showed up with the now friend Guy Rhodes to do all the video work.  Without being said, this left Michelle and I in kind of a weird place as our assignment had been pulled away from us after a bunch of work by USA Today.  At the end of the day Michelle had been pulled away from the event, and I had been assigned for the rest of the week.  Partially as support for USA today, and otherwise to tell the story of what was going on at Radio Row in my own Stills and Video.

Even though there was a week hob nobbing playing paparazzi with celebrities, at Radio Row, that wasn’t the only place you could find celebrities during Superbowl week.  Right now in New Orleans people are preparing to party like there’s no tomorrow.  Millions have been spent to rent out and transform hotels and other venues into the ultimate Superbowl party.  Last year saw even more celebrities than I expected at Radio Row, but then I was assigned the Celebrity Basketball game followed by the MAXIM Superbowl party here at the fairgrounds.

  Various people that came through the party included Jim Irsay (above), Patrick Warburton, Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon from Nascar, several other actors, Rappers including Ludacris, and a few others.  Despite what seems like a decent starting list; the attendees were really somewhat disappointing.  I say that as who attended (which you can see here), not that I had an 8×10 inch sheet of paper to stand on at the red carpet, and for all intents and purposes was told not to move.  That was expected; honestly the number and caliber of Celebrities at the MAXIM party weren’t the same as apparently found at Rolling Stone that year.  What’s that you say?  First World problems?  yea you’re right, I’m just still tickled to have been there without having paid $1500 for a ticket to get into the MAXIM party in the first place.  There were a lot of other things done that week as well.  One of our most vocal and most followed writers went on the zipline constructed in downtown Indianapolis that week.  I was there to see, and shoot video of that as well.

That photo is admittedly not Bob Kravitz riding the zipline.  It is however absolutely Michelle Pemberton and Bob Scheer, who were also there shooting the event.  In retrospect, I should have stuck with them and ridden the zipline at the Superbowl, but saw something that I wanted to photograph and got lost and left behind.  The photo I took wasn’t even really worth it, but that’s ok.  Now I have a shot of them doing it, and I feel strangely good about that; just like helping cover the event as a whole but not being credentialed to shoot the game due to a scheduling error.

As of right now, still one of the coolest things I’ve ever done; inside or outside the newspaper.  I can only hope the future holds even cooler things; but until then.  Time to go take some photos of a realtor holding a sign.  After all; not everyday can be Superbowl Sunday.  More Soon.