One Extraordinary Photo: Las Vegas pool watch party of the Australia-US match

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — John Locher is a veteran photographer for The Associated Press. He has been based in Las Vegas the past 12 years. Locher's assignments include sports, breaking news, features and enterprise stories.

Whenever there are major sporting events happening around the world, we as AP photojournalists are positioned to show the scope of these events. We are able illustrate how far World Cup interest reaches beyond the stadiums where games are being played. With no matches in Las Vegas, Friday's Australia-US game was an opportunity to find watch parties to capture the excitement and interest of fans, even if they aren’t able to attend the match. Las Vegas is city where things are often done a bit differently — in this case, it was a pool watch party.

The Circa Resort and Casino has previously held watch parties for sporting events at its pool and broadcast them on a big screen. It was the first place i thought of to photograph people watching the Australia USA match. I knew I’d need an overall photo to show how it is an unusual place to watch a soccer game. After shooting tighter pictures of fan’s reactions I scoped out places that had a vantage from above. I used a wide angle lens to show the crowds in the pool and the some of the surrounding casino buildings to illustrate how this wasn't your regular World Cup watch party..

I like to show how Las Vegas can take things to another level. There were several bars and restaurants holding watch parties around the country for the big Australia-US match, but the photograph of a pool party shows fans watching at a venue you ordinarily would not see.

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AP World Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/fifa-world-cup