Skip to content
News

Pre Post Game

Waiting for whatever happens after Super Bowl LII

    by Tom Gralish
    Published 

Just a few hours away from the end of Super Bowl LII.
I will be shooting the post-game crowds out on the streets in Philadelphia tonight; Eagles win or lose.

We have seven staff photographers in Minneapolis, so make sure you go to philly.com tonight to see our galleries. Or check back here tomorrow, and I will have links.

The photo above is my favorite contribution to the two weeks of shooting green pizzas, beards, puppies, fingernails, 2nd grade classrooms, and more. It’s a real curd. Mozzarella cheese molded into shape. When I posted it on my Facebook page, it brought out the puns… some are real crowd cheesers (hey, if you don’t like them, go buy your own, on Brie-Bay):

Fry Eagles Fry!
You still have a whey with the camera.
No whey!
Sorry, I didn't know you were laugh-tose intolerant.
In the Middle East, I am sure you would let the Kurds have their whey.
I cannot dis a-brie.
I had such Grate Expectations
Stop with the cheesy comments
No whey! When you gouda go, you gouda go.
What a friend we have in Cheeses.
Sweet Cheeses.
Ricotta get outta this place, quit the daily rind.

Want more? Cheese, not puns, that is. Look up the Cheese Shop sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. They have 40+ cheeses in Michael Palin’s “Ye National Cheese Emporium.”

So, that brief intermission is just me trying not to peak too soon.

This is actually my third Eagles Super Bowl now. I was there in New Orleans for XV, as a staffer with United Press International, when the Eagles lost to the Raiders in 1981.
That’s Eagles Hall of Famer and four-time All-Pro linebacker Bill Bergey in the saltwater immersion tank he brought to the team's hotel. Part of the daily ritual he maintained during the week of practice leading up to game. The fiberglas tank had a builtin music system, and Bergey would lie inside in the dark with the lid closed for an hour. The other photo is him and his two sons, Jason (left, then 9) and Jake (then six).
Both boys are now retired from professional lacrosse. Jake played ten seasons for the Philadelphia Wings, wearing his dad’s #66.

In 2005, I was shooting fans before XXXIX, at a rally at City Hall (before it was cleaned up).  

So, looking forward to covering the post-game tonight.

My fiction writing professor in college told us we were totally responsible for inventing the characters, the point of view, the setting, the dialogue and basically everything in a story or novel, starting with blank sheet of paper.

I tried to draw creative parallels to my photography, but back then I decided those concepts were more akin to studio photography, when the photographer had to place the person or object, pick the background, chose which lists to turn on and where to put them. That, I figured was not for me. That was not photojournalism.

Of course I was wrong. Years of newspaper photography since have proven my writing teacher’s words apply directly to what I do, in the photographs I take. In photographing real people doing real things, you don’t have to ever even think about “setting up” photos. While you observe the world unfolding in front of you.

Even photojournalists control the photos they make. Even Eagles fans celebrating their team’s NFC Divison Championship. Before I even push the shutter release I’ve already made dozens of choices and decisions. I am not making it up as I go, but I am are using my experience, training and even “street smarts” to understand how my subjects will react to the whatever is naturally happening around them. I decide where to stand. Or if I take a knee, climb up on a chair (or concrete planter), or whether I use a long or a wide angle lens. Do I use a flash? A fast or slow shutter speed? Do I want lots of depth of field or do you want a really narrow field of focus? Really high ISO, or not? Every photographer or Iphone user shooting the same scene I see will see it completely different, and we will all come up with completely different photos.

For the Eagles fans on South Broad Street two weeks ago, I normally eschew photos with landmarks in them. I always figure with Mummers Parades, snow storms and such our readers know they’re in the philadelphia. But after looking at the archival photos we published recently from previous Sixers, Flyers and Phillies championship celebrations, I decided that for the sake of future stories I should include some clues as to when and where the photos were taken. So along with other photos I took, I did want to include the Wawa. Or, yes, City Hall.

For my City Hall photo, I wanted more than just the building. So I decided which side of the street to get on, and that I wanted to get up just a few feet higher than the crowd (concrete planter) - not four or five stories up in a building. I also wanted a figure, or sign or something else the viewer could focus on. The Nick Foles sign provided that. I just had to wait for the holder to wave it in the right direction - facing me. And, I wanted just one more element - thank you guy waving in foreground (but why couldn’t you be just a little bit off to my right?). Finally, that one other detail that made all the difference: all the traffic lights had to be cycled on green.


    TG
    Tom Gralish