Dressing For The Deep Freeze -Packers NFC Championship Part I
This is the first of two posts by my friend and former co-worker Corey Wilson who is now a staff photojournalist for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Corey shot and survived the Packer’s NFC Championship game in Green Bay last Sunday with temps dipping to -4 degrees with a wind chill in the -25 degree range. Corey shares his experience of surviving then shooting in extreme cold. Enjoy!
On January 20th I had the opportunity to photograph the NFC Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants here in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In my fifth year as a staff photographer for the Green Bay Press-Gazette I cover the Packers as my beat. I’m at all home games and I share half of the road game duties with my co-worker Evan Siegle. The Packers are our franchise topic to say the least. Unfortunately, this big game didn’t go very well for the young Packers team. The Giants won 23-20 in overtime and man was it cold. REAL cold. Like third coldest game in NFL history cold. Like minus-five degrees air temperature and minus-twenty-five wind chill cold!
These adverse conditions present a lot of problems for a photographer. Not the least of which is, “How am I going to survive this cold?” Frostbite can take hold in just a couple minutes to exposed skin. My wardrobe planning began several days in advance. I’ll admit I was a bit nervous. However, I photographed a game in Chicago on Dec. 23rd where 40 m.p.h. winds drove the wind chill to 20-below zero. Anyway, layers are what you dress in when you live in the extreme north. It seems I wore clothing (in weight) than I actually weigh (in body)! The key is to stay 100% away from cotton. It doesn’t insulate as well as polyester and other fibers and it doesn’t wick away moisture if you sweat a bit under all those layers! Here’s a rundown of what I wore.
Top:
Long Johns
Polyester long sleeve tight athletic shirt
Wool sweater
North Face wind breaker hooded shell
Down-stuffed winter coat
Bottom:
Long Johns
(2) pairs of athletic wind pants (jeans get too tight)
Ski pants with a liner
Feet:
Knee-high nylons (for wicking)
Thick wool socks
Heavy Columbia-brand winter boots.
Head:
Bomber-style hat with rabbit fur in the front, ears and down the side panels.
Hands:
Columbia brand arctic gloves I found at Dick’s for $35.
(I had to wear a thinner wool glove on my right shooting hand so I could feel the shutter release.)
WHEW! I think that’s about it. Oh yeah! And let’s don’t forget I had foot warmers in those boots and 8 hand warmers in my pockets to relieve my hands after EVERY single play.
Much like the players, it’s easy to let the preparation for the cold be a distraction. You actually think more about the survival and lose focus on being a photojournalist and the opportunity that is before you.
Fortunately I have been through this dozens of times and it is less traumatizing each time.
Strangely, there’s little preparation to do for your cameras and gear. There is really no danger of “wet” precipitation at those frigid temperatures. Even if snow falls, your cameras and lenses are already at the same temperature so nothing melts on them.
Now with all that taken care of, let’s go kneel down for 3 ½ hours on the frozen ice chunks along the sidelines at legendary Lambeau Field!!
Photos copyright Corey Wilson, the Green Bay Press Gazette. The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of The Decatur Daily or The Green Bay Press Gazette.
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.
Tom Stanley
Tom Stanley
January 24, 2008 at 4:56 am
[...] sixteenfeet wrote a fantastic post today on “Dressing For The Deep Freeze -Packers NFC Championship Part I”Here’s ONLY a quick extractOn January 20th I had the opportunity to photograph the NFC Championship game between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants here in Green Bay, Wisconsin. In my fifth year as a staff photographer for the Green Bay Press-Gazette I … [...]
Football » Dressing For The Deep Freeze -Packers NFC Championship Part I
January 24, 2008 at 5:09 am
What did you do about batteries? That’s a long time and very cold to keep batteries alive…
Sean Phillips
January 24, 2008 at 7:41 am
He, batteries I wanted to ask about, too. And maybe if there are other technical problems possible, like AF freezing in or something
Sam
January 24, 2008 at 7:57 am
In your intro you say “Corey Wilson who is not a staff photojournalist for the Green Bay Press-Gazette” I think you have either a typo or a freudian slip going there.
Having shoveled snow when the wind chill was -65 (just so I could say I did it) I can confirm that the advice to layer is absolutely the best advice for cold weather survival.
Living in Florida now!!!!!!!!
George
January 24, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Yes, I actually DO work for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Sorry for the typo. Some of my equipment failures will be discussed in Part II of my guest blog entry. But as a preview I will say that the batteries fail rapidly. A runner kept bringing me fresh ones. But the cameras were not doing well besides. The autofocus was ok but the shutter, pieces and parts kept locking up. As well, several bursts of images would not even record to the compact flash card. It was so cold that both of my Nikon D3’s flashed “err” messages at me right at kickoff. What a night!
Corey Wilson
January 24, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I was curious how well the camera performs at that temperature. Back from my engineering school days, I know transistors perform differently at extreme temperatures and since the sensor is just a huge array of transistors, I wondered if it performs differently.
Derek
January 24, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Sorry, I wrote the intro and meant to say “now” not “not.” I have corrected the entry. I will never be lauded for my typing skills so please bear, not bare, with me. GC
sixteenfeet
January 24, 2008 at 2:57 pm
PS. Corey is still skinny even with all the layers! I have often figured he would simply freeze in place someday if living in the land of the cheese heads did not help him pack on some pounds!
sixteenfeet
January 24, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Hey Corey, great story. I though I’d share a tid bit from my proffesor at UGA and Atlanta Journal Constitution Photographer, Jonny Crawford. He says when he has shot is freezing temps, mainly the winter Olympics one year if I remember correctly, they taped hand warmers to their camera bodies to keep them moving. I could see this working but you try it out.
Richard Hamm
January 25, 2008 at 2:02 am
[...] Dressing For The Deep Freeze -Packers NFC Championship Part I [...]
Nfl History
January 25, 2008 at 5:18 am