Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

The Olympics are over, and the sports event has generally been considered an entertainment triumph. What will quickly come back into sharp focus, however, is that China is a world power whose politics will continue to loom large. This communist nation is getting ever more powerful. Its political, economic and humanitarian actions—and inactions—will be a major factor in shaping our world.  This picture, by Donald Miralle, while acknowledging the sporting spectacle, also conjures up the uncertainty about what lies ahead.  For me, as Picture of the Day, it is an appropriately ominous image on which to close.  —Simon Barnett, Director Photography, NEWSWEEK

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 16 of the competition

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

For those of you that are just waking up in the U.S., The "Redeem Team" won gold today against Spain while you were sleeping.  It was the NBA's—I mean Team U.S.A.'s—first gold medal since the 2000 in Sydney. I must admit I wasn't expecting much action or reaction at the conclusion of this game,  but boy was I wrong.  It was a pretty good game, and I've rarely seen such excitement out of NBA players even at the end of an NBA Final.  Spain gave them a good run, and early on they were ahead, but at no point did I see Team U.S.A. break that much of a sweat—they just played solid basketball and had great performances from Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. It was a real treat to see those three and their teammates so genuinely excited at the conclusion of the game and when they received their medals.  I'm at the closing ceremonies and getting ready for that—so I'll just drop a few quick pictures in for now. 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

I had to rush back and pack last night after the men's finals.  There was nothing ground-breaking and given that I'm covering the U.S.A.'s basketball game immediately followed by the closing ceremonies tonight, I thought it best to pack every piece of gear and clothing that I could, so that I wouldn't need to rush that before running off to the airport in 14 hours. (Quick tip—the single best thing I did in packing for these Olympics was to use a point and shoot camera to take a picture of the inside of every bag and case that I packed on the way in, and print out an 8X10 color copy of each picture and tape it to the inside of the case before I left... this saved me so much time in packing everything up... no more guessing which lens goes in what case, etc...) 

I'm now on the floor of the bronze medal basketball match between Lithuania and Argentina—there's less than 34 seconds left as I type and you could hear a pin drop in this stadium.... ZERO energy here right now. hope that changes for the U.S.A. game... 

Here are a few more images from last night. The first two are of China's Liang Huo who was the Olympic favorite in the men's 10M diving final. He came in fourth, behind Australia's Matthew Mitcham in a stunning upset that prevented the Chinese from a gold sweep in diving. Given that I've shot diving from the overhead position, beneath the surface through a window, and from almost every possible side angle, I decided to take my last tilt-shift of the games, as well as to play with pans shot between 1/8th and 1/15th of a second.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

It’s the morning of the last day of the Olympics and I’m getting ready to hit the road and go home. As much as we’ve all looked forward to this moment there’s always a feeling that something important is over. Regardless of the trials and tribulations of the last two weeks, I’ve enjoyed the Beijing Games. Although it has felt like a rather sterile Games with the events and media being kept within the Olympic bubble I can’t fault the volunteers that have helped us do our jobs everyday and made us feel welcome.

I’ve put a selection of my work together here, it’s still too soon to do a proper edit and only time will tell if this work stands up. I’ve found I need a little space from the event to edit work without the emotion of the day. Thanks for following along and sending me e-mails with your comments. They were all appreciated.

Cheers,
Mike

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Vincent Laforet shot this image of China’s Liang Huo during the men's semifinal of the 10 meter diving competition using a 300mm at f2.8 (wide open) at 1/2000th of a second. Vince photographed this image on a clear, sunny day in Beijing with lots of light streaming through the translucent “Water Cube,” the venue housing the diving competition. He describes capturing this frame simply as being at the right location at the right time of day to utilize the light. The circle of water droplets streaming from Huo’s hair, frozen in time and accentuated by light, make this image my choice for Picture of the Day.
—Susanne Miklas, Deputy Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Big day for me, my last at the Beijing Games. When I was planning this with NEWSWEEK it was a magazine job and the mag closes Saturday night. I’ve been to enough of these to know that getting out of Dodge a day early can really help the exit strategy. So I’m off.

Got to shoot the men and women’s cross-country mountain biking today, had a lot of fun. It was one of the few events where they let the crowd get close to the athletes for once and that all added to the atmosphere but no cheerleaders today, my wife will be glad to know!

I spent most of the day humping through what felt like tropical jungle. It must have been 95% humidity and I was in full “Bridge on the River Kwai” mode. I know, wrong country and all, plus it’s probably just a little park but it felt like a full on jungle to me when I was bush whacking between course sections and walked straight into a giant cobweb which had a giant scary looking spider on it! I spun around to beat a hasty retreat only to walk smack into another one with an even bigger spider on it. What is this a set from Lord of the Rings or what? After extricating myself with only a few strands of web left dangling I decided to stay closer to the course and got on with shooting the race.

Most of what I shot today was on my 50mm f.2 shot at f2. I’ve been using this technique for much of the Games. It allows me to shoot a standard but still have a blown out background that just hints at what’s there rather than being more literal. Most of the photographers I met today are winding down and looking forward to getting home, some are complaining about how soon their agencies have then going on the next job. There’s not much down time when you work for the wires. When I was in Allsport many times I would come to the Games directly from one assignment, like the Tour de France and go off to another straight from the Games or shortly there after. Sounds exciting and it was but I am happy that I’ll be going home and spending some time with the family, the kids have one week left of school hols when I get back so I’ll try not to answer the phone.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

China's Liang Huo competes in the men's semifinal of the 10 meter diving competition. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Sometimes, the Olympics throws you a bone.  Today the sky was clear and the sun was beaming down on the translucent roof of the Water Cube venue where the 10 meter diving semi-finals were taking place. This made for a beautiful day of shooting, both from overhead and from the side.   The bone in this case, is not only the nice light but also the fact that the one guy who is favored to win the competition has the longest hair of the group and tends to keep it wet before he dives.  Therefore, when he does, water drops shoot out on an almost perfect black backdrop--a photographer's dream. There wasn't a single photographer worth his/her salt who wasn't looking to take advantage of this convergence of factors and make a nice frame. Here are two other versions of Liang Huo.

China's Liang Huo competes in the men's semifinal of the 10 meter diving competition. He was in first place and favored to win going into the final. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

The two frames above were shot with a 300mm 2.8 - at 10 frames per second on an EOS 1D MKIII--a 1/2000th of a second to freeze the water drops and at f 2.8 to blur out the background (and at 1000 ASA.)  The tighter frame below was shot with a 400mm 2.8 at the same settings--you lose body parts, but can appreciate more details, such as the water coming off of the fingers on right hand at the top of the frame.

So it was a good start to day fifteen of the Olympics for me--there's never anything better than when the elements line up for you just right. At that point you just have to recognize them, figure out where to shoot the picture from, with what lens and settings and just sit back and "spray and pray" as we say. This happens maybe 1% of the time--most of the time you really need to work much harder at "making" and image as opposed to just sitting back and "taking" one. What I mean by making is that while you in no way help to create what is happening in front of you (i.e. you can't set things up--you can't tell someone to go here in this spot of light, do this or that in a certain way that might make a better picture, or do something again--that is forbidden in U.S. photojournalism and any editorial work you'll see shot for NEWSWEEK. Portraits are the one exception.)  Therefore the only thing you can do is to get very involved in studying the smallest nuances of every movement in an athlete, backgrounds, lighting and every other details. You have to take them all as they are and work hard at getting that perfect image. If the light sucks, you need to find a way to shoot the image in a way that will not emphasize that. Same goes for the backgrounds, etc. Motion blur and shooting wide open with long lenses to minimize depth of field are two of the tricks photographers use to de-emphasize ugly backgrounds. Shooting from overhead is another common solution as well.

Back to diving. I got a few nice comments about the overhead shots that I made of the female divers yesterday. My wife, who I tend to listen to--she's a photographer and photo editor and we work very closely together--really took to those images and suggested that I consider making a series of "portraits" if you will (albeit of real action--nothing set up) and try to put a series together.   My first instinct was that I had already made one or two nice frames, and I didn't really look forward to going back up to the catwalk as it's extremely hot and humid up there and I tend not to like shooting the same thing two days in a row. But, as usual, I think she was right. When you look at these images, it's like looking at fighter pilots in their G-suits, training to fight the effects of the high velocity moves they perform in their jets, which put incredible gravity forces on their bodies. Or maybe it just looks like those images of people in wind tunnels. Either way, I've always wondered what it must feel like to be diver doing these routines. While I'll hopefully never find out what it feels like first hand,  these images will give you an idea of what it looks like. Without further ado--here is my series of portraits of the 10 meter divers of this 29th Olympiad. 

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 14 of the competition

A tilt shift view of the first ever BMX Olympic Competition.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Today, for the first time ever, a gold medal was handed out in BMX at the Olympics. It was also:

• The first time that I saw a perfectly clear sunset in Beijing.
• The first time that I was able to sit down for lunch at our hotel.
• The first time that I took a nice mid-day nap.
• The first time that I experienced a completely random act of kindness: a volunteer walked up to me out of the blue and gave me two Olympic bracelets.
• The first time that I've made it two weeks without the need of antibiotics to fight off a severe cold or flu at the Olympics.
• The first time that I did not have to run in a mad dash to catch the bus at the end of the day.
• The first time that a good friend of mine ate scorpion and centipede.
• And today was the first time that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  
  
  

Here is the stock shot that has the rings in the back - a photo that clearly places this sport at an Olympic venue. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

48 hours to go!  

We're in the home stretch--the key word here being HOME! This Olympics has been wonderful--very likely the one that I've enjoyed the most of my career in no small part to this blog and the type of photographs that we've been asked to produce for NEWSWEEK. But two weeks away from home is tough on anyone. And I'm starting to count the hours until I get to see my wife and son again.

The day started of as most days have these past two weeks--with less than 2 hours of sleep and a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call. I headed over to the BMX venue for the first time and despite everything that my body was telling me, I was very excited to photograph the inaugural medal event for the sport in the Olympics. I owe a big thanks to Mike Powell for letting me have a go at this sport--although we were both scheduled to cover BMX together, the rainout yesterday changed our schedules quite a bit and he was very gracious in giving me the nod to go ahead and take a crack at it.

A tight shot on the 3rd jump--full frame with a 500mm f4 lens. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Therefore I felt a bit of pressure to produce today. I showed up two hours prior to the start of the race to place my remotes on the field and to secure a head-on shot with the Olympic rings in the background. The venue is very tough to shoot, as there are very few good shooting positions.  No low angles to shoot from and make the athletes "fly."  The pool photographers were able to place remotes wherever they wanted--for some reason I was only offered one spot, which did not yield much. I knew this instantly when I was shown the "one" spot I could place a remote by the photo venue manager... and frankly would have called it then. But I was there anyway and you never know--some crash could have gone right toward the camera, and I would have killed myself if I hadn't gone through the trouble, especially since I knew my two teammates wanted to be here as well. Unfortunately nothing much happened in the one spot we were offered, so the remote did not lead to anything worth showing.

A shot with a 50mm set to f2 at 1/4000th of a second to isolate the busy background.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

This is a very dynamic sport. The crashes are amazing and a key part. Unfortunately none of the official non-pool spots had a good clean angle of the crashes. In fact, they happened underneath us--we were completely blocked, so the action ended up being pretty straightforward.

A shot of the second jump with a 500mm f4.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Given that I didn't really have a clear shot at the crashes, I decided to shoot with a tilt-shift lens and try for something completely different than what everyone else was shooting. Here is a second version--a little quieter than the first image in the blog. I can't decide which one I like the most just yet.  But I think the tilt-shift approach works particularly well with this sport: for one it gives a very miniature feel to the images--almost a doll-house effect. The venue looks pretty surreal to start with, and in many ways the bikes are so much smaller than most of the athletes, which adds to the effect that using this type of lens from a slightly elevated angle produces.

A slightly different moment shot with a tilt-shift lens. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Finally, I ended the day at Athletics (Track & Field), and I didn't really come up with anything that was all that special from within the venue itself.  The one image I did see took place while I walked into the venue, during the first clear-sky sunset I've seen over this two week period. I decided to focus on the fans, color and light and shadow, mixed in with a little geometry as I photographed them walking to their seats prior to the start of the evening session.

Fans at the Birds Nest.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

U.S.A. soccer pulls off the upset! Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

U.S.A. Softball gets upset. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

The last couple days I just feel it slipping. My interest in photos is fading, I’m finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning, and I just seem to be missing things or making mistakes. And when I’m not making mistakes my cameras are either backfocusing or not working all together. It’s like there is a little gremlin in my camera back that is sabotaging my Games. For example, today was the first time I was granted access to placing an underwater camera in the pool (unfortunately for me it was for women’s synchro, not Phelps) and I flooded a camera in one of my housings when I first jumped in the water. In 10 years, and hundreds of times in the water, I have only ruined one camera. But this time I just didn’t check everything twice before hopping in, and next thing I know the housing is filled like an aquarium. To top it all off, the camera that was ruined was not mine. I luckily packed two housings, so after dropping some f-bombs on the pool deck, I placed the back-up system in the water.

I’m not sure if it’s that I’m just worn down from shooting, editing, and blogging everyday, or if I’m just missing home, but I just feel like I can’t get it going. I feel that I’ve made a strong set of photos to this point and would love to finish it off strong, but the last couple of days I’ve been down and out. It’s been a great assignment for NEWSWEEK, with much of the creative control and scheduling of this assignment left in our hands. Kudos to Simon Barnett and the photo staff at NEWSWEEK for giving us this opportunity and placing us in this position. Nevertheless, I feel a bit depressed and in a funk, and one of my close friends commented, “don’t go to that dark place” when he saw me yesterday. The truth is the Olympics is a very long and stressful few weeks for any photographer, especially if you are leaving family back at home. I feel like every Games I do shaves a couple years off the back-end of my life. But for me it is the pinnacle of sports photography, where the finest sports photographers in the world congregate to shoot the top athletes in an arena that transcends sports. I just want to get this thing wrapped up on a good note and get back to the comforts of home and family.

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Photographers don't generally relish shooting podium pictures because they so rarely yield a good image. Typically, they reluctantly shoot the ceremony so they can say they "have it" should their bosses back at the office ask for it later. But on occasion, a picture of real quality presents itself, as it does here. In my selection for Picture of the Day, by Vincent Laforet, you see a wonderful version of the podium picture, showing the American beach volleyball duo of Misty May-Treanor (right) and Kerri Walsh as they enjoy their moment of gold-medal glory. Adding to the dramatic quality of the picture is the wonderfully dense color palate, which is the result of the heavily overcast cloud conditions of the day. It's perhaps not the most technically challenging picture Vince has made, but it is a moving and memorable photograph of athletic accomplishment nonetheless.—Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

I don't smoke but it just sounds cooler than "coffee and Powerbars."

So coffee has stopped working sometime in the last couple of days. I can’t seem to get a buzz off a large coffee with a double red eye. Or whatever it’s supposed to be called. All I know is this would normally get me running up the walls, but now, not so much…the net effect is that when I shot a half a game of handball on my way over to the track I was a step behind the players and didn’t make a single snap. Fortunately when I got to the more familiar ground of the track things improved.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

What a day--I'm amazed that not only I, but also my cameras and lenses survived. At 6 a.m., after only two hours of sleep, I got a call from Simon Barnett to strategize on the remaining four days of the Olympics. Little did Simon know he was cutting into 1/3 of my bedtime for the night. But it was time to go anyway--even though I would have bet a healthy sum of money that there was absolutely no way that the gold medal match of women's beach volleyball was going to be played in the conditions I was seeing out of my hotel window. The rain was torrential.

There's only one thing that a photographer dreads more than going hours early to a game/event that s/he knows will most definitely be rained out--and that's getting up ridiculously early to do just that! You get there 2-4 hours early and sit and wait forever--never quite getting a chance to make up for that lost sleep. And there's just nothing more miserable than having to go out to make a "rain feature." You get wet, cold and if you have them--your glasses completely fog up. Every time you pull out a lens cloth to dry something--you're never really sure if you're going to help things or end up making things much worse by smudging goo all over your lenses.

This morning, every bone in my body told me there was absolutely no way they would play beach volleyball in these horrid conditions--let alone a gold medal match. Nonetheless, I called the venue manager for the site--and he insisted that the games would go on. The communication over the phone was far from perfect as usual--but it wasn't the fear of things lost being lost in translation that caused me to second-guess him and to call a second time--I just didn't want to believe that they could possibly play in these conditions! "We play in much bigger bigger storm few days ago" he told me--and so I headed onto the early bus--RELUCTANTLY. You just don't want to be "that guy" that missed the gold medal win because he chose to hit the snooze button and adhere to common sense.

The image above was made with a fisheye lens. It's a shot I thought of making early in the morning before I left the hotel because I knew how unusual it seemed to me to have such an important contest fought in such adverse conditions. Hey--its' BEACH volleyball!!!   I set the lens to f22 and used the hyperfocal to get the drops in focus as much as possible... one Italian photographer just didn't understand that I was purposely allowing the waterdrops to fall on my lens... he kept screaming at me to cover the front element of my lens with my towel... that was actually the last thing I wanted to do.

As I arrived at the venue the rain was actually dying down. Suddenly I felt so relieved not to have followed my instincts to bag this assignment and go back to sleep. But as the match was about to start, the sky turned a much darker shade of gray and within minutes we were all absolutely completely and utterly soaked. Two photographers were better prepared than I was:  Robert Beck of Sports Illustrated and Erich Schlegel of the Dallas Morning News were smart enough to show up in their swimming trunks--now that's being prepared!

One of the reasons that photographers hate shooting in the rain is the rain covers we use. I own three brands, and none of them work 100%. In fact, they're a total nightmare.  They're designed to keep your camera and lens dry, but they make it impossible to quickly change lenses (doing so  exponentially increases your change of shorting a contact point or getting the rear lens element of your lens wet anyway) and shooting can be close to impossible at times. If you hold you camera upright for even a second, you now have rain drops on the front of your lens, decreasing image quality to a good degree. Hold it downward and you have raindrops--or in this case, sand--in your rear eye-cup. On more than one occasion I couldn't even reach the zoom ring on my lenses, as I was fighting the elastics on the rain covers for control. It's frankly a total disaster to shoot with these things and toward the final point I just ripped everything off. Problem was: most of the covers had the camera straps put through them, so I couldn't get them off and out of the way, and then the covers got in the way of the lenses etc. Total, total disaster...I'm very lucky that I did not miss more shots than I did today...

Here is the initial reaction of the U.S.A. duo:

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK 

Walking through any part of the Olympic green it’s hard not to walk through someone’s snap shot. It seems to be a national pastime, taking pictures in front of all the stadiums. Tonight on the way to track I finally made a pic of something that wasn’t running, throwing or riding.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Usain Bolt of Jamaica breaks the World Record in the Men's 200M. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

After dumping off my remote gear and bags at the track, I rushed over to the men’s handball to check out the quarterfinal competition. Having never shot this sport before, I was a bit excited to check it out. I guess it’s pretty huge in Europe with professional leagues and such but I’ve never seen a game played in the U.S. before and never had a chance to witness it firsthand. Man, it is a fast moving sport with lots of goals, and it seems that whoever ends up with the ball in the end wins. I shot a couple of games and waited until the last minute to head back to the track to catch the men’s 200M final. Myself and about 4 other photographers caught the 9:15 bus to the MPC, and after a little connection in a golf cart were at the stadium with about 30 minutes to spare before the start.

Handball is fast and furious. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

GV of goal. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Diving and throwing seems to be the norm. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

It's like volleyball and water polo meets dodgeball. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Showing some love after the win. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Yulis Gabriel Mercedes of the Dominican Republic scores a point against Mu-Yen Chu of Taipei during the men's 58kg Taekwondo quarterfinal. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I had a tough time being creative today. The venues just seemed to have too many obstacles in the way of unique photographs. Things just didn't seem to open up--and some days that's just the way it is.  You accept it and move on, hoping you'll have better luck the next day.

I was really excited to go cover Taekwondo for the first time. I must admit that I felt a bit let down by the quality of the action. The kick above is one of the few I saw all afternoon--and the one doing the kicking, Yulis Gabriel, lost the match believe it or not. Although he sure looked good in terms of producing good photographs!  It seems that the technique of the day was to play it very conservatively and tactically. Acrobatics were far and few between.  These were not scenes from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon by any means, and in fact, as with most Olympic sports, when anything got interesting the bout was inevitably stopped.

One of the few unique moments of the day was seeing  U.S.A.'s Charlotte Craig sharply chewed out by her coach, Jimmy Kim.  Whatever he tried to get through to her apparently didn't help--she lost the women's 59kg  quarterfinal. 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 
I then shifted over to track and that's where I really struck out, but not for a lack of trying  There's one picture that I've really been looking forward to producing here at the Athletics venue--a side pan of the runners (moving left to right and following the runners with the camera set at a slow shutter speed. This freezes them somewhat, but adds a lot of motion blur to the background).

Unfortunately, TV has two cameras that parallel the racers for the entire distance of the race. Without exception, every time a nice photograph presented itself I was blocked by one or both of the cameras. I was blocked four times in a row (each time you wait 15-20 minutes for the next try so it's quite a bit of an investment in time...) and I eventually had to give up trying for the pan on the big race of the night.  Had I gotten one good frame out of the four attempts it would have been enough for me to give it a go for the final race. But when you're zero for four, I think it's time to go to plan B.

Here is one of those photographs. I even caught a strobe in the background but to no avail.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

To be honest, it's not like I didn't see this coming--everyone knows that camera is there--but I was just stubborn anyway as I really wanted to give it a go.  Eventually I made a last-minute decision and went back to the head on spot as I did in the 100M race that Usain Bolt also won. This time he gave a much better reaction when he set yet another world record as he won the 200M event.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I was sad to see and photograph Andrew Wheating of the U.S.A. failing to qualify by two spots in the men's 800M.  Seems like I wasn't the only one with a rough day at it.  

Another day is done and we're all three looking to start very, very early morning tomorrow. It's supposed to rain for most of the day so that's playing a bit of havoc with our schedules. The forecast predicts 100% humidity at 9 a.m. and an 80% chance of rain--just when most of the events are scheduled to start--and thunderstorms.Wish us luck!

6 hours of bus time today. An early trip out to the men’s triathlon, then back to the MPC, out to the Velodrome then back to the MPC. Finally out to Workers Stadium for Brazil vs Argentina football. A pretty packed day but I managed to pick some of the venues that are farthest away from each other. Another thing, normally I do work and write on the buses. Today for some reason every bus I got on I made by the skin of my teeth, and usually involved me sprinting across the bus depot with all my kit only to find that the bus was packed. I either had to stand, or didn’t have any wiggle room to work. This is a sign that we’re getting close to the end, more people are going to less events.

The start of the men's triathlon.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Matty Reed of the United States exits the water during the men's triathlon.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK 

 

The men's triathlon cycling.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 

Tsuboi Gustavo of Brazil (bottom) and Peter-Paul Pradeeban of Canada playing table tennis in this long exposure from overhead. Photo by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I think that I was followed by the secret police in an unmarked car today outside of Beijing...but you'll have to read through to the end to get to that part of the story. Instead I'm going to take you through my day in chronological order.  

The day started rather uneventfully as I did my due diligence and covered at least one sporting event--but I was itching the entire time to get out of the Olympic venues to see a little bit of China and to share that angle of this Olympic story with you. Little did I know that it might have been a better idea to stay "clean" and inside the bubble--the artificial barrier that keeps the journalists well contained within its boundaries and away from the real world and any potential trouble.

I began the day by spending 3-4 hours at the table tennis venue, and almost immediately I wanted to run out of there. The sport is incredibly quick, difficult to follow, and once again the backgrounds were incredibly cluttered. Not to mention that I had never covered table tennis, and my desire to learn yet another new sport was significantly hampered by the dark lines under my eyes. I'm finally starting to hit a bit of a wall here-as most others are. No matter how much sleep I try to fit in, I just can't quite feel altogether rested.  It's not uncommon to see half or two-thirds of the bus asleep on any given ride, or volunteers passed out on the lunch tables at most of the venues. That's something I'm going to keep more of an eye out for in the upcoming days.

My first image involved going overhead for a long exposure with a 300mm. Of course this was a broadcast position, and we weren't allow to be there even though there wasn't a single video camera present. But I've learned how to work the system to my favor now by using China's bureaucracy against itself. When the BOB (Beijing Olympic Broadcaster) official came to ask me to leave, I asked to speak to a photo volunteer as they technically have no authority to ask me to move. That took 10 minutes. Then, when the volunteer came up, I escalated it to the assistant photo venue manager, all the while being cordial and polite. That took a good 5 minutes. When the assistant photo venue manager arrived, she did not ask me to move, but instead asked if I had all of the proper remote paperwork and releases from the overall photo manager. I responded that I did and that in turn took them 15 minutes to confirm with the main photo desk via the phone (they were trying to get me to move on a technicality themselves--this is all a big game of chess--in hopes that I did not have the proper paperwork and requests filed...but to their chagrin I did have everything in order.) I must admit that at this point, I was having a little internal triumphal moment, seeing how the endless paperwork jam could for once work in my favor.  And when the venue photo manager arrived to confirm that I was approved to mount a remote--but just not on this BOB spot, which happened to be the only head on spot of the main table tennis of course--I very professionally agreed to move, even though he agreed that it was ridiculous for me not to be able to shoot from an empty position, simply because BOB had "paid" to reserve the position.

The point is, I had gotten a full 30 minutes of shooting in, without breaking a single rule (well, technically I did by standing there) but I also never upset anyone or acted in any way impolitely to anyone--there were smiles all around throughout the entire process--and I got my picture.  What could be better?

When I got back to shooting from ground level, I discovered that photographing table tennis was similar to covering real tennis--it's incredibly difficult at first, quite frustrating, but once you learn to study and dissect the sport it actually starts to become rather predictable. The athletes tend to line up at the exact same spot after each rotation and you can adjust your shooting accordingly. Just as you try to frame the perfect serve, the same can be done for these guys on a smaller scale--it's almost literally a miniature version of the big game.  Below is France's Patrick Chila--the entire time I was studying his sever trying to get the ball positioned just right. I finally got my clown face picture, and pretty much full frame with a 400m at 2.8. Once I did, I knew I had carte blanche to go out and explore the world outside of sports for a bit.

The first picture I took outdoors was just adjacent to the Main Press Center--not quite out of the bubble yet, but I very much like the graphic nature of this simple photograph. Here are two volunteers playing a game of badminton in front of a large air conditioning vent. I like the way that all of the lines work together, and that they too--like all of us here--are fenced in.

Photo by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Below is a quick shot of the typical bubble street scene. These are fans walking past the gymnastics venue, right outside of the MPC.

This of course naturally lead me to ponder things a bit—as I tend to do—and it made me realize that there's a reason that we have Simon and other photo editors out there:  a good photographer does not always equal a good photo editor, especially when the photographer is editing his or her own work.  When you add to that formula day after day of action-packed Olympic sports and a solid mix of sleep deprivation, it's quite possible that we become our own worst editors.  In retrospect, I'm quite happy with what the three of us produced during Michael Phelps's 8th Gold Medal win At the time, however, we collectively felt underwhelmed by the pictures from that day. 

So Simon—you're probably (and hopefully) absolutely right.  

That being said, I should point out that what has likely gotten Mike Powell, Donald Miralle, and myself to these Olympics is a constant desire to produce the best images out there—images that we've never before seen.  It's one thing to try to reproduce some of the best images that we've seen produced by others over time, but trying to create new and original images that we've never seen before can be daunting, as Mike mentioned in a previous post. Searching for that "perfect" image is one thing—and can all too often lead to a far too predictable result—but searching for that elusive image is an entirely different challenge, especially when you consider that we are chasing the unknown—an image that we have never seen before in an event that has yet to produce a definitive result, one that we cannot necessarily predict or anticipate.  And that to me is the magic of photography: trying to freeze a moment in time out of the chaos of the unknown in a sport that is lost or won within a matter of milliseconds.  After all, would we watch these sporting events if we knew in advance what the results would be?  Perhaps some of you would, and I'm sure many of you do, given the twelve-hour difference between Beijing and what is re-broadcast on your local TV in the U.S. for example. I for one will never watch a game if I already know of the outcome. To me the thrill is in the anticipation of the unknown—it always has been.
 

Mike Powell made today’s Picture of the Day, using a technique to create an impression of the action from the Laoshan velodrome. Using a very wide angle lens, a 14mm, he set the shutter to 1/15th of a second with an aperture of f7.1.  He picks up the solo cyclist and moves the camera to follow him, making a single focal point of near-focus, while the rest of the scene becomes a pastiche of color. The result is a stunning image that you would be unlikely to see in your daily newspaper—more one that you might hang on your wall.—Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

 
 See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 10 of the competition

The Olympic race consists of a 1500 m swim, a 40 km bike, followed by a 10 km run, and some of the top ladies today finished it under 2 hours. The course was a set in scenic hills at the Ming Tomb Reservoir near the spot where 13 emperors of the Ming dynasty were laid to rest in elaborate mausoleums. The athletes and spectators couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day to hold the race. The men may not be so lucky tomorrow . Unfortunately I was on the 2nd day of about 3.5 hours of sleep and it’s starting to catch up with me. After taking a 6:40 bus from my hotel and the first bus from the MPC to the course (it’s about an hour away) I was ready to get the race on. The course wasn’t the most photogenic or easy to get around, and I didn’t have the luxury of water access or motorcycles like I’ve had in past races. So I just focused on a couple different shots, specifically a water exit and a couple different graphic bike shots. My initial plan was to rig the smaller of my two SPL housings for a 5D on a pole cam with a ball head and trigger release, but I went with a shot with a remote camera clamped to a rail which was approved 30 minutes prior to the race (thanks to Ray the photo marshal and Bob Martin of SI lending me a magic arm).

Sometimes you have to have a little luck.  And in making this picture, Donald Miralle certainly got some. After Michael Phelps won his historic 8th gold, he clambered through the photo positions to hug and kiss his sisters and mother.  Shooting the scene on a hand-held 300mm, at 1/60th of second wide open, Donald had a challenge to keep it sharp. Then, a flash of good fortune intervened—another photographer’s flash went off during Donald’s exposure, freezing Phelps and his family in the center of the frame while all around is a blur of activity.  The resulting image beautifully captures the chaos and excitement of the moment, and, with a flash of luck, is my choice as Picture of the Day. —Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 9 of the competition

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Going to bed last night at 2.30 a.m. and getting up this morning at 6 on top of the cumulative sleep deficit left me a little worse for wear today. It also left me with a severe dose of writers block. I’ve started this blog several times today and didn’t get far each time. Usually something sparks an idea during the day and leads to me being able to knock out a few para’s on something that at least interests me.
 

Phelps got his eighth gold medal but we’re all a bit jaded now and quite frankly except for yesterdays near miss on #7 it all felt a bit pedestrian. How jaded can you get! I’m sure I’ll look back and be glad I was there for at least some of it. Anyhoo, that didn’t spark anything in the old noggin.

So I waited ‘til the end of the day to see if anything at the track got me going and was standing in another photographers moat trying to figure out what to do next when I over heard another snapper talking about how he was going to try and do “something different” tonight.

“Something different.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that one. From editors and photographers. I guess it’s the holy grail of snappers. I got thinking about it and tried to put my finger on what “something different” actually is. Well of course it’s lots of things.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Simon Barnett, the DOP at NEWSWEEK has given us a very free rein to go shoot “something different”, but sometimes it hamstrings you. You see a very nice picture that on most days you would eagerly shoot. But being at the Olympics there are 300 shooters already trying to shoot it and the pool guys have better access and 200 remotes under it, over it and probably on it! So your shrug you shoulders and wonder off in search of the illusive “something different”. Or you shoot it anyway and hope for a unique moment. It’s amazing how different images can be even when your all shooting the same thing.

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

At the Winter Olympics in Turino I shot a whole series on a 50mm lens shot almost wide open at f2. I really liked the feel of the images and wanted to try more of it here. It’s not so easy at the summer Games, I’ve found that I’m further away from the action. But every now and then I’ll get a shot and by the end of the Games I’ll have a handful that will show a style that I have been trying to build on for some time. I’ll put a gallery up near the end if it all comes together. Shooting this way means letting go of shots I know will work in favor of trying for an image that might not work and even if it does nobody else might like. Sometimes I can do it and other time I lose the courage and fall back on my sport shooting background. I’ll try and keep plugging away though. In an attempt to shoot “something different”, even if it’s the kind of work nobody else would want to shoot!!

Now comes the hard part.  With the two marquee events past us, the men’s 100M and Phelps’s 8th gold, the newsman in me tells me that the Olympics are pretty much over.  But the lensman in me knows better than to give up now. It’s time to start chasing photographs—not necessarily the news. Time to have fun and start to take even bigger risks from now on, especially since everyone has been seeing hundreds of Olympic photographs for more than a week now.

Michael Phelps and his teammates huddle for the last time prior to Phelps's historic 8th Gold Medal in the 4 X100m relay race.  I'd really love to hear what they were saying to one another.  This was a very long throw - this shot was made with a Canon 1D MKIII and an 800mm 5.6 at 1/640th of a second. 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I’m now sitting here typing away while the men’s gymnastics floor final is going on. There are so many obstructions and the backgrounds are so impossible that it’s just best to sit this one out for a while and wait for the next event in the rotation. I’m mentally exhausted—I got to sleep at around 3:45 a.m. this morning after returning from the men’s 100M final and my wake-up call went off at 5:45 a.m.  I jumped out of bed before I had a chance to start that dangerous debate of whether or not I should try to squeeze five or ten more minutes of sleep in. And no breakfast of champions for me or Mike this morning—"breakie," as he says, doesn't open 'til 7.  As I was pulling up to the Main Press center at 6:15 a.m., I called Doug Mills of The New York Times, my former colleague there, and asked if he wanted me to save him a spot. Ever the pro, he let out a soft chuckle and let me know that he was already in position and had marked me a spot... there’s never such as things a being too early for an event such as Michael Phelps’s historic 8th gold medal win. (The race didn't start until just past 11 a.m. but there were only a dozen head on positions available for all of the photographers covering the race.) 

Unfortunately, that photograph never really materialized, despite everyone’s best efforts. We came close, but I'm not sure anyone's got a "classic" shot per se. I walked around the Main Press Center to SI and a few other papers and wires after the race today, and the consensus is that unfortunately there really wasn’t a truly fantastic defining moment. It’s a shame, and every photographer seemed to know this as we departed like mummies from the venue. Ultimately, no matter how hard you prepare, now matter how much energy and effort you put into preparing a photograph, there's never a guarantee it will materialize. Sometimes it’s your fault—you might have chosen the wrong spot, or made some terrific blunder that someday, perhaps, you will learn to laugh off. Other times, like today, the moment itself fizzled. Phelps seemed more relieved than excited—clearly the best pictures from Phelps and these Olympics were taken yesterday, when he won his 7th medal by 1/100th of a second.  Mike’s photograph of Phelps splashing the water is a defining moment in my opinion. But today, well there are plenty of “good” or “solid” photographs—but no true keepers. And so we move on from here and continue to wish for other images that we haven’t yet previsualised in the upcoming seven days.

Phelps completed the sweep. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Michael did it. And now that it's done, he can rest, and we can all rest easy now because we probably won't see something like that again in our lifetime. I have to admit is was very cool to witness such an incredible feat where one individual has brought home more medals than many entire countries can muster. His final event was the men's 4x100m medley relay, a race which the Americans are the reigning world record holders and world champions. Backstroke world record holder Aaron Peirsol led off and gave the U.S. a slight lead just under the world record pace.  The second leg saw the U.S. slip to third as Brenden Hansen was outsplit by the Japanese and the Australian. Then came Phelps, in his final swim. He powered the Americans back with a smoking leg of 50.15, setting up the anchor man, Jason Lezak, to bring it home for Team USA. It was a perfect finish to Phelps' meet, culminating in 8 gold medals, 7 World Records, and 1 Olympic Record over the course of the last week. After the medal ceremony, I did notice as Phelps welled up a little, no doubt beginning to comprehend the magnitude of what he had achieved. He went to the opposite side of the pool and climbed up the stands through the swarming sea of photographers to hug and kiss his sisters Whitney and Hilary, and mother Debbie. It nice to see such an incredibly driven athlete remind you that family is always first. Everyone at pool felt warm and fuzzy for a couple minutes.  And I thought of my wife and two kids at home waiting for me to get back from the Olympics.

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 8 of the competition

Tonight in my head Bolt was going to win with a new world record. He would come screaming across the line looking at me with his hands raised in victory and the new WR time will be on the board behind him. Well tonight I got almost all I wish for except the arms up bit. OK jubo on the line but he didn’t hold it long and just kept running. Pics are OK, but the 100m’s is always crazy.

It’s amazing how many people get so excited over a race that takes less than 10 seconds to run. The lead-up of the showdown of Asafa Powell, Usain Bolt, and Tyson Gay was second only to the sea of photographers and their remote cameras that descended on the National Stadium tonight for the men’s 100m final. There were a wide spectrum of experience present; from snappers who cover Athletics religiously, to those who cover it only at the Olympics, to those who witnessed their first 100m tonight. I fall somewhere in the middle of that pack, but can never get too excited for this race. Case in point, Peter Reid Miller of Sports Illustrated posed the question to me tonight before the start of the finals, “Do you even remember who won the 100 in Athens?” I was there, I shot it, I remember taking an OK frame of it, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember who won [It was Justin Gatlin of the U.S.--ED]. And you know why, after tonight NOBODY CARES. The athlete, whether it’s one of the Jamaicans or the American, will be on the front cover of every newspaper and Website for the next 24 hours. You won’t see them again in the headlines for another four years. Unless, that is, one of them tests positive for doping...

Testing my finish line remote on the Men's 20km Walk Final. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

This was my riser position where I sat for the race. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

A view of the main finish line moat with about 100 remote cameras and SI's Bill Frakes in charge (half of the cameras are his!!)

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Infield remotes facing back to finish line. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Photographers sit and wait for the 100m. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Nevertheless, photographers and media come in droves to set-up shop, some of them scoping out positions and setting up remote days before the event actually starts. Most are on edge, scrambling to get their cameras in position, knocking over cameras, yelling at their assistants or even at other photographers. Is it really worth getting all hot and heavy over a little foot race? The spectacle that surrounds the race that decides the fastest man on the planet every four years is one to behold and one that I would sometimes like to miss. But you have to go and cover it, and we did. Between the three of us, with Mike having the most experience under his belt, and specializing in Track and Field for years, he took the head-on moat position. Vince was going to do the pan position on the front stretch, good for a low-percentage, but a very nice photo of the athletes in full sprint at a slow shutter, but he opted out after the BOB camera appeared to block his view. I did this shot in Athens '04 and it was good for one really nice frame and nothing else. So Vince went to the moat position around the bend, which is usually solid for the follow-through react. That left me in the elevated head-on safe position, which was fine by me, especially since I could surf the internet and start writing this blog in the five hours we had to wait for the 10:30 p.m. start. My stress levels were also alleviated by the fact that I dropped off my gear and set up a couple remotes before I went to Aquatics this morning to cover Phelps. I placed one remote wide almost parallel with the finish line framed with eight lanes and the Olympic Flame in the background. The second remote was head on with 4 lanes, repositioned to lanes 4-7 after the semifinal split Bolt and Powell in lanes 4 and 7 respectively. Amazingly (but not really) Tyson Gay did not make the final.

And after a bunch of unfortunately insignificant races that no one cared about, it was go time....

A NEW WORLD RECORD OF 9.69!!!!!  

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Big day today....Michael Phelps going for gold #7 and the 100m final. Against my better judgment, I’m down at the pool at 7 a.m. to make sure I get the position I want for Phelps. Tying Mark Spitz’s record medal count is a great story and one of the few long time Olympic records left. Just days before coming to Beijing I was in a restaurant in Los Angeles and Spitz came in for breakie. I photographed him for a Swatch watch portrait series prior to the Atlanta Games, maybe seeing him that day was an omen. 

At past Olympics I would have been at the track by now fussing over the upcoming 100m finals, discussing the various merits of each athlete in with a chance and going over positions for the day. The 100m is one of those blue ribbon events that create a lot pressure on photographers. Rightly so; it is all over in 10 secs or less, and sometimes it’s hard to see who’s going to win until the very last 100th of a second. If you're going to shoot tight you better be confident in your lane choice, or be ready for a quick change. I’m still torn between shooting the final on a long lens or going for a wider shot that shows the atmosphere again.

The morning at the pool paid off with a nice snap of Phelps. Since the relay he’s been quiet after winning medals, but today he really celebrated after he tied Mark Spitz for 7 golds in one Olympics—an amazing feat. I was shooting from a balcony at the opposite end of the pool on a Canon 800mm f5.6. He reacted straight up at the scoreboard above my head. Nice start to the day. Now I get to head over to the track and see if I can do as well on the men’s 100m finals tonight.
 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

It was awesome today, being here, documenting history in the making at the Water Cube. Once again, Michael Phelps continued his seemingly unstoppable run to greatness. He came from behind to beat out Milorad Cavic of Serbia by one one-hundredth of a second with the final stroke of the 100m butterfly to tie Mark Spitz’s seven gold medals from the 1972 Games by the closest margin. Phelps, who was seventh at the 50M turn and seemingly out of the race, whittled away at the field and had a magical touch to the wall. It was an amazing finish for someone who has to be feeling the fatigue from swimming 5 individual events and 3 relays, many of which have been swum three times in Prelims, Semifinals, and Finals. Tomorrow Phelps will have the chance to become the only athlete to ever win 8 gold medals in one Olympics. At 23 years of age he now has 13 golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games. With the U.S.A. men’s team holding the World Record in the 4X100m freestyle relay, his final swim of the Olympics, it seems like a lock that he will achieve his 8. Tomorrow will no doubt be a fantastic finale to an unbelievable week at the H20 Cube.

I equally enjoyed the men’s 50m freestyle today, the equivalent to the 100m in athletics, with a drag race between world record holder Eamon Sullivan of Australia, 100m Gold Medalist Alain Bernard of France, and Brazilian sensation Cielo Filho Cesar. Cielo, who smashed all the sprint records in the NCAA competition this past spring, including being the first man to go under 19 seconds in the 50 yard freestyle, led from start to finish and gushed with emotion afterward. He went from screaming and beating the water, to crying and hiding his face. I made a sequence of the emotional reaction—I think every photographer got a decent frame out of that race. 

Photographs by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Today was one of those days. I jumped out of bed at 8:30 a.m., two hours after my alarm was supposed to wake me up. I was supposed to be at the Gymnastics venue hanging a remote for the Women’s Individual All-Around. It took a lot of work on my end to get that access, and my opportunity was wasted. Not a good start. After barely making the 9 a.m. bus, I arrived in our office in the media center to gather myself and my gear, and try to sort out what was going to be a very long day. Gymnastics, followed by Badminton, and finally Athletics. After skipping breakfast (or “breakie” as Mike Powell calls it) I headed over to the gym just 15 minutes before the start. I was behind the ball from the beginning of this day and once you start from that point it’s hard to get back in front. Lucky for me, all the best gymnasts where in the first group, so I really just tried to focus on them. I saw that Mike has positioned himself in the down the barrel position for the rotation, so I scrambled to get upstairs to shoot the first rotation on the vault from a clean one, and congregated on a nearly empty handicapped seating area with about 5 other photographers and lots of leg-room.

As soon as we all got comfortable, about four BOCOG blue bibs and one red bib came over instructing us we had to leave as the athletes were a couple of minutes from the start of competition, even though there was all the room in the world and there were photographers below us blocking an aisle. I am quickly learning the best thing you can do in this situation at the Olympics is postpone the inevitable by telling them that you have permission to be there and then giving them a nice pin. This bought about 10 minutes, which was just enough time to get the first rotation in.

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Floor is always hard to shoot as gymnasts run, tumble and flip in every direction, usually against crap backgrounds. So after my quick sugar pit-stop I decided to stay upstairs to shoot the floor and hopefully get something a little cleaner and graphic. It ended up just being pretty boring for photos other than the American Girls, Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson, nailed their routines and in a clutch performance won gold and silver respectively. Knowing that there was probably going to be some kind of reaction, I sprinted back downstairs with my three cameras bouncing off my hips to get there in time. The moment I jumped up on the far photo platform, I saw Luikin raising her arms up after posting her winning score and I managed to get frame out of it. Next, I shuffled over to the opposite side of the floor to line up for the medal ceremony, and found myself doing the big wave with the free arm to get eye contact for a picture. Not my favorite thing to do, but I just felt like the entire event and day was slipping through my fingers and I wasn’t getting any frames out of it. I usually like figuring out my position in advance and letting the action come to me, but today I was chasing the action and one step behind. I packed up my kit and walked out the Gym hanging my head low looking for my next bus.

Here is another remote camera photograph. I went very early to the swimming venue this morning to make sure I could get on the catwalk--and also to mount a side remote. The idea is that I would trigger it from above (while shooting with a 400mm lens) and have this camera mounted to the right with a 200mm lens on a high resolution body. Here you can see U.S.A.'s Ryan Lochte pushing off to win the gold medal in the men's 200-meter backstroke with teammate Aaron Peirsol just above him. The arch in these guys bodies never ceases to amaze me. This is a standard remote angle--but one that always yields good results. Speaking of which ...

7.30 a.m. National Stadium Photo workroom.

I’m loath to admit this, but this mornings’ photo meeting at the track stung a little. Getting infield access at the Olympics is a prized trophy. For many of the Olympics I covered that was my domain and I guarded it jealously. To be able to shoot with that kind of freedom and only having to share the space with a select group of very professional colleagues is an honor that I enjoyed immensely. I knew many of the athletes competing, some on a personal level; the in-field group was family, maybe a little competitive at times but brothers in arms nonetheless.

When I left Getty Images to work on my own, my career had taken a turn away from event coverage and more toward feature and commercial sport work. I don’t for a moment question that choice but I was a little apprehensive about how I would feel not being Johnny on the spot on the in field. As the photo chief handed out the in-field bibs to the agencies I did indeed feel a pang for the old days.  Walking back to the MPC (main press center) I was feeling a little melancholy and needed a pick up. A kick in the pants more like. The Games can get emotional and keeping it all together is part of the trick making it through the 16 days of Glory….

Game on, off to the Gymnastics, woman’s individual all–around  and I think I’ll try and give the Canoe/Kayak another crack, the sun's out today.  It’s payback time.

After a few days of gymnastics you start getting that déjà vu feeling. The performances start looking familiar—they should be, the gymnasts are doing pretty much the same routine for all the events. The trick for me is to move around and shoot them in different ways and angles so your photography doesn’t have that same feel. Again trying to capture a feeling of place and action I chose to use shorter lenses when I started out today, then switched to a more traditional look on the beam later.

Here's a picture that I think you'll want to keep looking at. These airborne combatants were captured by Vincent Laforet in the Greco-Roman 84kg class wrestling competition. The match featured Andrea Minguzzi of Italy  (in red) who defeated Hungary's Zoltan Fodor for the gold medal. Shot from up high to give a pleasingly graphic background on a 300mm lens, set at a 1000th second at f3.5, it is a perfectly timed moment that makes for an intriguing puzzle of athleticism.—Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 6 of the competition

Well. Yesterday's post turned out to be quite cathartic—it helped flush whatever was holding me back out. I felt calm and collected all day, and the photos just seems to keep coming my way. It's amazing how big of a role your state of mind plays in how you shoot.  In this case, I simply went to the venues with one goal: make one or two images from each—nothing more.  And magically, positions that I had not been looking for prior to this change in mindset opened up right in front of me. This is far from the first time this type of mental shift has happened, but I appreciate it every time it does. My stress level goes down 500% and the quality of the photography tends to go up as a result. I had a total blast today. The shot above is of U.S.A.'s Alexander Artemev. It was the first photograph I made of the day and got me off to a really good start. It was made full frame with a 300mm 2.8 and pre-focused.

Here is Yang Wei again on this final event.  Amazing form and grace. He made it look too easy, and you never saw him sweat.

France's Benoit Caranobe was a big surprise. Apparently, no one was more surprised than he was to receive the Bronze medal—he burst into tears when he found out, although I never got to see that—I was busy with Yang Wei.

It was time to go out and get in position so I donned my rain jacket and covered my gear in ponchos to try to keep the rain out. It was now darker at this outdoor event than inside at the gymnastics venue, so making award-winners probably wasn’t on the menu today. 30 minutes of action later and the event was delayed due to lighting. After hanging out at the media lounge drinking coffee for a while they canceled until tomorrow. I think this is the first time I came back from a water event wetter than the competitors. I’m used to these kinds of delays at the Winter Olympics where I usually cover the Alpine ski events. Often you go up the ski hill at the crack of dawn knowing that the event will probably be canceled or delayed due to poor conditions but you have to be in position and ready—weather changes quickly in the mountains. I remember spending 3 or 4 days doing this at the Nagano Olympics, which was plagued with bad weather in the early days. Up the hill every morning, early, find a spot stand there for a couple of hours shivering, delay, stand around for a couple more hours, cancel. Try again the next day. Funnily enough I prefer the Winter Olympics.

So at this point I’m sitting in a puddle coming back from the event thinking that I haven't got much to show for the day.  So I need to pull a picture out of the hat here and save my day. Guess I’ll squelch my way over to the fencing and see if that works. All in all a lot of time and effort spent for small rewards.

This of course has put me in a very introspective mood. Truth be told I’m not thrilled with any of the images I’ve taken so far, and as a result my head has been in the clouds for most of the day.  I’m trying to figure out how I can change my approach from this point on, in an effort to produce images that I will be proud of, and that hopefully this blog's readers will appreciate throughout the rest of the games.  

Trying to figure out what to do next has led me to asking one of the most basic questions that most sports photographers ask themselves on a regular basis:  How exactly do you define a great sports photograph?

I can tell you that in the 17 years that I’ve shot news and sports in this business, the answer to that question has changed radically many times, often in relation to the type of organization I was working for and what they expected of me. I’d like to go into that for a little bit.  Some of you may not have time, so please just go ahead and enjoy the photographs from today. For the others, please read on.

Pool photographers work all of the venues - not just the aquatic ones - and generally are members of the numerous wire services that cover the Olympic Games.   Since these wire photographers service numerous clients, they have successfully argued that they should get prime positions reserved for them at all venues - and they often (of course) pick the very best spots in each and every venue.  I have no problem with this (I've never liked it of course given that I've never been part of said pool) and it does make some sense to give these organizations preferential treatment given the number of clients they serve.

The problem is,  over the years the Pool has gotten more an more powerful - and in Beijing, some of the rights that they've been given are just ludicrous.  For example, if you want to shoot from underwater window from which the image above was made, you need to make a request 24 hours in advance in writing.  Once approved, you are escorted down to that position an hour before the event and get set up.  Yet if at any point a "pool" photographer decides to show up, they have the "right" to bump you out of the position without warning.  And given the small size of these windows - you're basically left with nothing to shoot.  So you can see why every time I'd hear the door open to this position - my heart would momentarily stop...   

Trying to step away from the crowd and shoot something different can hard some days. I felt I’ve shot my own pictures a few times this Games, Women’s beach volleyball and Women’s Gymnastics have produced a couple of frames that personified my ambitions to shoot action with atmosphere. Today I felt I got beaten into submission and fell back on my long lens sports shooting repertoire. I don’t think the pictures are horrible; I quite like them, only quite though. They just aren’t what I wanted to shoot. The wrestlers at the end of the day saved it for me, those guys are tough, I mean rocks.

The day started at the pool with several finals, one of which was Phelps going for another Gold (200m freestyle), which he did in a new world record. Only I think he’d used up all his emotions the night before and was keeping a lid on things so he could qualify a short time later in the butterfly. Which set the tone as other medalist kept it quiet. Session over the men’s team gymnastics was still on next door so popped in there for the last couple of rotations. After that I had planned on going over to the boxing again and trying for a ringside seat. Men’s bantamweight prelims, should be pretty quiet, nope all the pool shooters where there and as I explained yesterday, overhead boxing is one of my least favorite things to shoot. Although a friend of mine and very good boxing photographer, Al Bello, reminded me of a picture I took at the Seoul Olympics. Coming to Oscar De La Hoyas fight late I rushed into the stadium found the first photo spot in the stands I could find just in time to shoot a pic of Oscar on his knee praying and pointing skywards to a Stars and Stripes that was overhead. If I remember, he’d lost his mother not long before the Games. The picture told it all. So overhead boxing does work sometimes.

I had a bit of an Olympic moment on the bus back from wrestling today. Scored a great pin from a couple of Iranian journalists. They saw whom I worked for and where very keen to let me know that Iranian people love American people. We all agreed that people weren’t the problem, governments were.

The good thing about shooting the whole Games is if you don’t have a Gold medal performance one day you can come back the next and have a crack. Here’s to tomorrow, Gymnastics and Table Tennis. Good night.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

The word "Judo" is derived from the Japanese meaning of "the Gentle Way."  Relative to Chinese Throwing Stars and Nunchucks, sure the sport must look tame to the true hard core Bruce Lee fans. But word to the wise: should you cross any of these Judoka in a dark alley, drop everything and run like hell!  Just look at that Olympic move in the frame above—now that'll leave leave a mark on just about anybody I know!

Seriously, while the athletes I photographed today were incredibly disciplined and sportsmanlike, the last place you ever want to find yourself is in the death grip of any one of the Judokas. More to the point: avoid any close contact with them if at all possible—especially if it involves your face. I saw quite a few foreheads split open today.  So many in fact, that I became an expert on predicting just how long it would take for the blood to gush out. Once you witness the clear and painful contact that leads to the pro-forma halting of the bout, you may start your countdown: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, and just like clockwork, on 4, blood will squirt out onto the mat.  In spurts.  It's really quite a sight.

Ange Mercie Jean Baptiste  (ironically, her two first names when translated mean: Angel and thank you in French) of Haiti (below) was obviously a veteran at this. As soon as her forehead was split open and without missing a beat, she turned to the judge to pause the match so that she could do her thing in peace.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

I’m not one for walking around with ear buds plugged in my head all day, shutting the world off. But during the Games a little music helps things along and keeps you in a good mood. I go to my comfort foods at this time, flavours that have seen me through the last few Games. During the day Jamiroquai, I first heard him while in Nagano before the Winter Olympics and he saw me through some pretty awful weather standing on the side of mountains during delays. At night, during late night editing sessions, I go to Miles Davis. For some reason he helps me stay up at night, probably because 3am is only time you should be listening to jazz, it’s just the right time.

I started the day at Beach Volleyball as sport that grew up on the beaches of my adopted Southern California and made it’s way to the big show. These athletes are remarkable to photograph, as close to the grace of dancers you’ll find in any sport that isn’t judged. The height they get out of sand is beyond my comprehension. You can tell from the pics that I am enamored by the serve and you’d be right. I’ve seen so many spike and block in your face shots that they all start looking the same. Not that I won’t shoot them but tonight this is where my head was. The serve shot of Ana Paula is my favorite shot of the Games so far.

Lisbeth Trickett of Australia. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

 

 

 

Gold Medalist Rebecca Adlington and Bronze medalist Joanne Jackson of Great Britain. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

 

Garrett Weber-Gale and Michael Phelps freak out... Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

 

Phelps get another Gold with a Little Help from Some Friends

One of the most exciting swimming races I've witnessed at the Olympics was the Men's 4X100 Freestyle Relay at the Sydney Games in 2000, where after much hype the Australians with a back-half anchor leg from Ian Thorpe out-touched Gary Hall Jr. and the Americans and taunted them with air guitars to spite Gary Hall Jr.'s words that the Americans were going to "smash the Aussies like guitars". Then there was the Men's 4X200 Freestyle Relay, an event dominated by the middle-distance strong Australians for years, and at the Athens Olympics Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Peter Vanderkaay, and Klete Keller passed the Australians as the new kings of middle distance. But the BEST swimming race I've seen was today at the Water Cube in Beijing. After the Men's Team from the USA set a New World Record in Prelims with the "B" Team, the expectations were high and the stage was set for the fastest heat ever. The race started at lightning speed with Eamon Sullivan of Australia leading off with a new World Record in the 100M Freestyle in 47.24 and Michael Phelps of the USA leading off in a new American Record time of 47.51. Then it got interesting. Sprint sensation Garrett Weber-Gale of the USA brought the Americans back the lead in the second leg splitting under World Record time with a 47.02, touching the wall just .43 one-hundreths of a second ahead of France. The lead shifted again in the third leg when Frederick Bousquet of France spilt under WR time with a 46.63, passing Cullen Jones and giving the French just a .59 one-hundreths of a second lead over the USA. Sprinting veteran Jason Lezak of the USA entered a full body-length behind the ex-World Record Holder Alain Bernard of France going into the final turnand it looked like the French not only had the Gold Medal wrapped up but also a New World Record. What happened next was unbelievable. Lezak didn't give and and slowly started to reel in Bernhard, who started to spin and falter in the last 10 meters. With two strokes left to go into the wall, Bernhard made the cardinal mistake as a sprint freestyler in he looked over at Lezak inside the flags. With the entire Water Cube shaking like there was an earthquake, Lezak passed Bernhard and out-touched him to the wall by .08 one-hundreths of a second setting a New World Record at a 3:08.24. Phelps went into his ballistic relay jube with Garrett Weber-Gale right behind him flexing the guns. It was awesome.

Other notable swims in day that saw five World Records fall at the pool were Kosuke Kitajima's new World Record and Gold Medal in the Men's 100M Breaststroke, Lisbeth Trickett of Australia set a New World Record in the Women's 100M Butterfly en route to gold, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe set a New World Record in the Women's 100M Backstroke in the Semi-Finals, and Great Britain's scored it's the first British women’s swimming Olympic gold medal in 48 years when Rebecca Adlington passed a fading Katie Hoff of the USA in the final meters.

More Splashes at the Cube

The Chinese Men's Team took the Synchronized 10M Platform with Germany landing the silver in a brilliant display of diving prowess. Here are some photos:

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

I’m writing the first half of today’s blog from the media bus going to tonight’s USA vs China basketball game. The skies have just opened up and the mother of all thunder and lighting storms has just hit. Glad I’m on the bus and not schlepping across the parking lots getting soaked!

Usually when there’s an event that is going to create this much interest they issue tickets for the photographers, so even if you have a pass you can’t get in without the ticket. This just ensures that there’s room for people to work. For some reason that escapes me, they didn’t do that for tonight’s game. One of the most long-awaited match ups of the Olympics??? Beats me. Now I’m sure there are a few campaigners that have been courtside jealously guarding their bit of hardwood floor since the wee hours of this morning. However I like to think I’ve matured beyond that kind of behavior but more likely I’d just rather shoot all day then go see what’s up.

 
Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 
Grant Hackett of Australia. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Diver warming up for competition. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Divers Warm-up for competition. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Michael Phelps of the USA swims en route to a new World Record in the Men's 400M IM. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

I love swimming. I started competing when I was six years old, was a member of the last Men's team at UCLA, and I swim on a Masters Team three days a week when I'm not traveling. I've probably spent more time in the water than I have of land—well, probably not but definitely more time than I have in a classroom or taking pictures. And watching the Phelps phenom makes me want to hop in the pool right now and do some laps, because he makes it look so easy and has more natural swimming talent in his left toe than I do in my entire body.  I’ve been very fortunate to follow his career from when he won his first National Championship at 13 years of age, to this week in Beijing when he chases after history.

Michael Phelps of the U.S. reacts to his New World Record. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

                                                                                                                                

Michael Phelps of the U.S. places his goggles. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Michael Phelps of the U.S. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

I've got to confess something:  I slept through my first Olympic assignment yesterday.  Yep, IT happened.  I got done completing my first blog at 6 a.m. on Saturday morning, after a day that had lasted 22 hours. I knew I was in bad shape as soon as my head hit the pillow, because my wake-up call was set for 7 a.m. I never heard the alarm go off. Luckily I didn't miss anything terribly important.   I also knew that I had to photograph the women's fencing match that evening that the U.S. eventually swept all of the medals in, and I would have been pretty worthless on one hour of sleep anyway. At least that's my excuse.   Why am I telling you this?  Well, just to admit that IT does happen.  And because we're supposed to give you a peak "behind the curtain" in this blog. So far I've slept a total of 7 hours in the past two days, and that will be pretty consistent for the next two weeks.  That being said, you just better be able to count the amount of times IT happens on one hand during your entire career.

So I tried to make amends today by going back to the venue that I was supposed to go to yesterday and I photographed the Men's 56 Kg. preliminaries in weightlifting.   The problem is:  Donald is photographing the finals of weightlifting tonight, which means I should have headed to another venue this morning: ANY other venue (in the interest of providing you guys with a good variety of images.)   The problem is we decided to change from our carefully pre-planned schedule last night, and at 3:50 a.m. weight lifting looked pretty good to me on the schedule. I didn't see that Donald was already assigned to the finals in the evening, and covering this event would allow me to get almost 4 hours of sleep and make it to the venue in time.  So I'm having a bit of a rough start at these Olympics—but that's good because it can only go up from here.   Morale is still very high.

As you may know from my first blog posting, I'm a bit of a gear head.  Gear doesn't make the picture, but it can allow you to make a frame that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. To make the frame at the top of this blog (above,)  I was able to borrow an 800mm 5.6 lens from Canon (both Canon and Nikon set up shot at the main press center and loan equipment to photographers, as well as make repairs on site, which is priceless!)  The 800mm is a lens that's just been released by Canon and I really wanted to see what I could pull off with it.   One of the reasons that this lens is useful is that there are only 4-5 of them here at the Olympics—and what that means is that there are very few other photographers who will be shooting with it.  Why does this matter?  Because you can shoot from positions that others aren't in (because they are shooting with different (shorter) lenses...) and this gives you a little more breathing room, and a better chance of making a unique frame. The Olympics are all about trying to make frames that no one else is making—and that's something that's very difficult to pull off when you're competing with the best 1,500+ sports photographers in the world.  

The lens was a blast to use—it's incredibly sharp and it allowed me to push myself a bit and shoot the picture above full-frame. I was standing about 30 feet away from the weight lifters, which is ridiculously close for an 800mm. The picture is of Turkish weightlifter Sedat Artuc who made it through qualifications.  These guys are truly amazing to watch! 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

I had a total blast at the Fencing Hall today. What a beautiful stage for fantastic images.   Although I was a Junior Olympic fencer myself more than a decade ago (my discipline was foil—not sabre as you see here),  this was my first try at photographing fencing... I'm amazed that it took me this long!   The lighting couldn't have been better,  and made for a beautiful wide shot of Sada Jacobson (right) fencing against Sofiya Velikaya in their quarter-final match.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

When Becca Ward (right) took her turn against Velikaya for a chance at the bronze medal (she managed to win it!) I decided to take a different type of risk and drag the shutter a bit.   You shoot dozens and dozens of frames in the hopes of getting just one that somehow both freezes and demonstrates "motion" albeit in a "still" photograph.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

Opening ceremonies puts me on my heels for the first couple of days. Lots of pressure and always a very late night. Last night was no different. I finished work at 3.30 am grabbed a quick beer and some food with Vincent then headed up to repack for today’s Men’s cycling road race. It was 4.30 am by the time I got my head down and of course after thinking I’d dodged the jet lag bullet here it came. I basically lay there awake until my alarm went off at 7.30am and headed down for some breakie and onto the first bus of the day.

We had not secured one of the limited places on the small buses that would stop at Tiananmen Square so I was planning on shoot the start getting on a bus and heading the finish. As it happened, about a third of the photographers that had won the position lottery for the buses didn’t show so I just slid on and went to work. That made life much easier for the day.

On the bus over I got to catch up with Graham Watson a fellow Brit, gent and excellent cycling photographer. In fact he pretty much set the bar for quality work in the genre. It’s always nice catching up with some friends that I really only see every few years.

I’ll admit I’m a bit of a cycling fan/geek and any time you get the list of competitors together of this caliber I get pretty excited. Unfortunately the last thing you get to do when covering the events is actually enjoy them.

I managed to get around to a couple of spots on course then decided to shoot about 150 down from the finish as opposed to right at the line where everyone else was. Well the sprint didn’t fully open up in front of me but they were pushing hard and I didn’t have to bang bars with everyone at the finish. Bonus!

 

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

See Newsweek's gallery of Opening Ceremony pictures

Chinese Guard. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

The wait is over. With thousands of Chinese performers pounding illuminated drums counting down the final 60 seconds to the cheers of 95,000 eager fans, the Games of the XXIX Olympiad have begun. The highly anticipated Beijing Olympic Games, at times overshadowed by political, financial and environmental issues, was jump-started by an impressive yet long Opening Ceremonies. Highlighted by a celebration of Chinese culture with giant glowing 3-D scrolls, floating globes and performers, and Yao Ming as China's flagbearer, the ceremony was a cacophony of sights and sounds as well as a display of Chinese manpower.

Wow--what a night I just spent on the Great Wall of China.  I think the best way to tell this story is step by step, because it sure was a roller coaster day that ended in something that could have been spectacular but fell just short.

At 11 a.m., more than 12 hours before the fireworks for the end of the Opening Ceremonies were to be set off, I decided that I wanted to go cover the fireworks on the Ju Yong Pass of the Great Wall of China. I couldn't think of a more genuine place to make a symbolic photo of the start of these games.

First hurdle:  When the hotel calls to get me a car, they end up speaking with the police station and are informed that the Great Wall is closed to the public and the media.  Maybe it's open to the public, they say--but definitely closed to the media.  Hmmm.

I decide the only way to get to the Great Wall is on the official Media bus that leaves from the Main Press center in 25 minutes.  Bus MB29.  So I throw things into a bag and run out the door to head over to the Main Press Center.

Once I arrive, and after 30 minutes of walking from one volunteer to another (with 65 pounds of camera gear on my back in the sweltering humidity,)  I find out that bus MB29 does not exist. 

Time for Plan B.

I find out that a two of my friends from other organizations (who have cars w/ official Olympic Lane passes) are going out there.   I beg my way into one of their cars.  (Huge thanks to the person who allowed me to do this--you know who you are and I won't soon forget.)

We start to head out to the Great Wall, but as we leave the Main Press Center we're told by a member of the EPA  news agency that the wall will be closed down.  TV apparently has exclusivity on this event... still, undaunted and perhaps a bit stubborn, we decide to give it a try.  We're determined to make this photograph, exclusivity or not.

One hour later we are at the base of the Great Wall.  We pull up to a group of locals and ask where we should go to photograph the fireworks. 

"Fireworks? What fireworks?" is the answer we get from the local police officer.  

Are we at the right place?

With nowhere else to go, we make our way to the closest press center, a site near the finish line of cycling competition. 

The venue photo manager is apparently completely unaware of any fireworks taking place that night. It's news to him. This isn't looking good at all.  There is no sign of anyone from any TV station either.

Dozens of calls to everyone we know go by, and still no word.  We could be at the right place--or it could be at one of three other locations possibly. No one is sure.

It's been over an hour and we still have nothing.

Finally one volunteer informs us that there will be fireworks.  That they will either be at 8:08 p.m. or 11:28 p.m.; which exactly, he isn't sure.

OK--we're getting somewhere.

A few minutes later, and the next volunteer tells us the fireworks will take place to the east.

Then another points to the west. "Definitely there," he says.  "Well, possibly, to the east," he says confidently, making us anything but confident of anything at the moment.

Half an hour later a police officer points to the south--he knows of a secret road we can take to get a good vantage point he informs us. But we'll have to hike quite a bit, and in total darkness through the woods. Not really the best idea we decide. Too dangerous.

And then five minutes later, another person points to the north.

I'm not making this up.

The same volunteer pointing to the west. Then east. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Can't say I'm a huge fan of the opening and closing ceremonies, but I've been to quite a few. This time I wanted to change things up a little and try and get a bit more personal with my coverage. The thing is, that with all the big pictures available in the stadium and most of the great angles taken by the "Pool" (major wires services with special access) sometimes you need to look for another angle. So with this thought in mind I went to the streets, so to speak. To rub elbows with the people--we are in a communist country, after all!

Several hours of trolling the outside of the stadium later I was beginning to question this idea. Drab light and very little real Olympic atmosphere was getting me down. Where were all the Chinese fans? I was expecting a sea of red. Where were the Ozzies and Brits and Americans dressed in silly outfits waving flags? There were some and when they did show they were inevitably swarmed by media to have their pictures taken. But it was a bit forced.

As the sun dropped (I think--I haven't actually seen it yet), things started to come to life a bit. A glow in the stadium some interesting floodlights. OK this is starting to look better. The athletes started to line up and a crowd gathered along the route. Now this crowd weren't the folks that didn't get tickets and just came to enjoy the party outside, they were kept a long way away from the stadium. These guys were all credentialed as volunteers or some such. The crowd thickened and for a moment it started to feel like the Olympics out there. I was trying to get fans, athletes, stadium and fireworks all working together in the frame but just as I thought things were starting to work. BAM, the police decided all this good fun was a security threat a swept through the crowd 'til it was all pushed back to a respectable distance, DOH!

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

 Did I mention that the shutter on one of my bodies exploded early on in the process today? So this was strike two. The fans were still there just getting all the elements together in one frame was getting a bit harder. "Soldier on" as my mum would say.

Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

German team practices on the asymmetric bars

We've had very little time to prep once here but that really has been a blessing. Many of the major photo agencies have had guys here for a week or more already and they'll be ready to go home long before the Games are over. Don, Vinnie and myself had a walk around the MPC (Main Press Centre) and a few of the nearer stadiums yesterday. The stadiums are magnificent structures but more importantly the Chinese people have been amazing hosts so far. They really are going out of their way to make us feel welcome and try to help in any way they can. Sometimes it doesn't work out, like last night when we thought we where heading out to Beijing's hippest restaurant but ended up at a Tea house instead. Still had fun and you couldn't fault the hotel staff who where just trying to help us out. Funny though. As it turned out we where all enamored by our host's fluid hand movements while she poured tea....who'd have thought that pouring tea could hold your attention with such gravity?

It's a interesting experience walking around the MPC for me. Although I'm no stranger to the environment it's not my natural surroundings the way it was a few years ago and feel somewhat distanced from it all. Meeting up with old friends and campaigners is great, it seemed like I couldn't walk 5 yards without bumping into someone I knew back in the day. But everyone there had a familiar look of my old world. Already the tense, stooped, serious, unshaven look of the journalist or photographers reminds me of the a world that I lived in everyday. Maybe I feel a bit like an anthropologist observing his old tribe after having moved to the next valley.

This evening's the opening ceremonies and for the first time I'm not inside the stadium. By choice, I wanted to shoot from outside and try and capture what's happening with people outside the stadium. I'm hoping for a big party atmosphere but we'll see. When you go into a less controlled situation it can either be great or rubbish, that's the chance you take.

The second floor of the Lao She Tea House

With 24 hours before the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, the photo team from Newsweek ended up with a bit of tea and lots of culture at the Lao She Teahouse in the Qian Men neighborhood of Beijing. Named for Lao She, the writer of China's famous pre-revolutionary play Tea House, it is a multi-level structure that offers private tea rooms on one floor and a show with traditional song and instruments on another floor. Our trip to the teahouse was a bit of a fortunate accident when our concierge at our hotel had mistaken our request for dinner reservations at “Green T House”, an ultra-chic restaurant a colleague recommended, with the famous Lao She Teahouse. Our mistake became apparent after our hosts inability to find our reservation, but nevertheless was very accommodating to us after realizing we were in Beijing for the Olympics.  We walked into the main atrium which was a quaint indoor Chinese garden surrounded by private cubicles where parties could partake in a traditional Chinese tea experience. After we were seated in our plush room, a friendly hostess dressed in Chinese silk dresses offered us a tea menu ranging from lighter teas at reasonable prices to teas at Dom Perignon fare. We made an inexpensive choice of tea accompanied with some shrimp and vegetable dumplings.  Not only was the tea superb but also the presentation by the hostess was exquisite and a show within itself. The silence in our room while my colleagues and I were entranced by the beautiful hand motions and gestures during the tea presentation was occasionally broken by the sound of a aria-type singing in the background which Vincent said sounded like “a cat in heat.” We found ourselves all laughing, including our stoic yet charming tea hostess, while enjoying a bit of Chinese tea and culture heritage.

Check it out:

Lao She Teahouse
Famous Teahouse with Peking Opera
3 Qianmenxi Dajie
Beijing,
100051

Neighborhood: Qian Men

Nearest Train: Qian Men Station

Phone: +84 10 6303 6830

http://www.laosheteahouse.com/

The private tea-tasting room with a fusion

The boys mesmerized by the hostess' tea presentation

After 3 airplanes traveling more than 6,000 miles in nearly 24 hours with layovers, and four in flight movies including a great documentary on the birth of the Magnum photo agency, my colleagues and I arrived safely at the Beijing Airport. Mike Powell, Vincent Laforet, and myself dubbed “The Dream Team” by Newsweek Director of Photography Simon P. Barnett, looked anything but as we shuffled through the airport baggage claim and customs all in dire need of a shower and shave. After the long journey it was a pleasant surprise to first see not only all of our cases and bags arrive without delay, but also have a smooth transition through customs because of our pre-stamped gear list from the Chinese Embassy. Soon thereafter, we were quickly shuffled us onto a bus routed to our hotel, the Foreign Experts Building (yes, this is a hotel, and no you don’t have to be an expert to stay here) by an over-zealous volunteer who kept apologizing for her poor English. Again to our amazement, this went without any hitches and we found ourselves checking into our spacious rooms, grabbing a bite to eat in the convenient 24-hour hotel restaurant, and crashing out with the help of some Ambien.

At 5’7” and 160 lbs, I am a man of smaller than average stature (as the gangly Mike Powell continually likes to remind me) and even I found it hard to get comfortable in either of the mini-twin beds in my room sized for Jackie Chan. After waking up earlier than I wanted to, I decided that the best thing for me to do after sitting in a plane seat for the previous 24 hours was to go for a run. I am on a pretty religious workout regimen, and either run, swim, paddleboard or surf everyday, but usually can only run when I’m on the road if I’m not near a body of water. However, in the first mile of my jog, my heart rate monitor shot up to 170, and I found myself struggling for oxygen. The air was thick with humidity and the smell of exhaust, and I could only imagine how the endurance athletes competing in the marathon run, marathon swim, or triathlon were going to manage in these conditions. I thought all the articles I read about the Beijing air were negative hype, but even growing up in the Los Angeles smog didn’t prepare me for the atmosphere here. I felt like Ben Stiller in Zoolander after being in a coal mine for a day:

Derek Zoolander: [high-pitched cough] ... I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop. It's not very well ventilated down there.
Larry Zoolander: For Christ's sake, Derek, you've been down there one day. Talk to me in thirty years!!!

In the four other Olympics I have covered, I arrived on site 5-7 days before the Opening Ceremonies to shoot previews, acclimate, and prepare. With only 48 hours before the commencement, unlike other photographers we had little time to spare to go sightseeing and had to condense all of our prep into a couple of days. After my black-lung incident, I recovered with a decent breakfast in the hotel and went through the super convenient Mag and Bag in our hotel lobby which gets you onto a bus and negates the need to go through security check again and deal with the lines at the Main Press Center. Once again I was impressed with the Chinese making a possibly bad experience into an easy one. After our entry in the MPC, we quickly hit up the Kodak, Canon, and Nikon booths for our fair share of free swag from the Games. Next we went to the Newsweek office to check in with the team, get our Chinese cell phones and pins arranged by the great Al Pryzbylkowski, and get Wi-Fi cards from the communications office. Doing this alone took nearly four hours as it seemed that we would take four steps and run into another photographer, editor, or writer that you just saw last week or haven’t seen since the last Olympics. But that is the great thing about the Olympics, because you make friends with people who live on the other side of the world whom you only get to see every couple of years. After a bunch of hugs, kisses, and bro handshakes, we were feeling a bit peckish and decided to hit up the dining area in the MPC.

Mike Powell frowns upon the bad nutrition

August 7th, 2008, Beijing, China. Morning...

I met up with my two teammates, Donald Miralle and Vincent Laforet, in Los Angeles and Seoul and continued on to Beijing. It was the perfect place to transfer through as it gave me a chance to think back on my first ever Summer Games in Seoul 1988. You never quite experience the Olympics the way you do the first time, which could be said about many things but we’re sticking to the Olympics here. I’d grown up on on tails of photographic heroism whilst covering the Games and wanted to do my bit. Working all hours, being cast into the Olympic cauldron and coming back with “the goods” are all things I wanted to test myself at. Eleven Olympics later I still have a taste for that environment and I’m back for more.

We didn’t get the big “wow” effect of landing at the giant Beijing terminal; we must have come through a smaller satellite building. However, we were efficiently whisked off on our bus to the accommodations called “The foreign experts building”. Which kind of added a little more pressure to the expectations our DOP at Newsweek has been hoisting upon us already. “Experts”? That’s kind of assuming a lot without ever having met.

I opened the curtains this morning and stared at a grey/green wall of something. I’m not sure if this is the fabled smog of Beijing or just some morning mist, it looks like this most mornings from my house in Topanga, CA. But I tell you one thing this isn’t the Beijing I last visited 12 years ago covering the “Tour of China” bicycle race. That Beijing I could ride a bicycle around without fear of cars. This one's more “Blade Runner’ish”

Olympic snivel warning-

What is it with beds at the Olympics? Whoever makes the specs for the “Olympic media bed” must be 4’ tall and be numb from the neck down! I’ve slept on floors, camp cots and now a concrete block, here in China. No wonder everyone has such great posture, they sleep on the firmest mattresses in the world. The best one was at Sydney where we stayed at an old hospital, for midgets I assume, as the beds had metal head and foot boards and I’d wake up with my feet jammed between the railings of the foot board feeling like I’d had my feet handcuffed! Which isn’t always a bad thing I just wasn’t expecting it….. Anyhoo snivel over, in a couple of days I’ll be so tired I’ll hardly notice the bed, and think of all the money I’ll save on chiropractors.

I’ll let you know how our prep day goes later.

Cheers, 

Mike

I’m not sure there’s an event I ever cover that requires as muchadvance logistics planning as the Olympics. Travel plans start up to ayear before The Games, and from there on you continue to prepare untilthe games begin. In this post, I will discuss how I did my best toprepare for these games in advance, and how I packed all of myequipment for the Olympics—something that took well over a month on itsown in the end. (You can find a gallery of how I packed my equipment,and a detailed explanations of each step here.)

This is the gear I had to chose from. ©Vincent Laforet

Firstof all, you’ve got to understand that every Olympics is different. It’srun by a different host committee every two years, and the rulesnaturally tend to change with each Olympics. So most of the stress ofgetting ready comes from never being quite sure what you will—or willnot be—allowed to do: how many—if any—remote cameras you’ll be allowedto use and where you’ll be permitted to put them. (Not to mention whatthe venues will look like, what the lighting and background will be,and where you’ll be able to shoot from—all pretty key unknowns untilyou arrive.)

In the past - all of the Olympics have had “PhotoVenue Managers” these are volunteers who are in the photo business—andusually have many Olympics under their belts. They know who you are—youknow who they are and how to get in touch with them in advance—and youcan make special requests months in advance and work out any potentialconcerns that might arise. Basically they’re there to make sureeverything goes smoothly (no one trips on a camera or photographer onlive TV) and just as importantly to help you get the best imagespossible.

This Olympics, these veterans haven’t been invitedback. A group of local photo managers will be assigned to each venue.And truth be told—that’s nerve wrecking for all photographers headinginto Beijing—we have no idea what to expect. The rule book can bere-written, and there likely isn’t much we’ll be able to do about it. Ido hope we’ll get along just fine with the local Photo Venue Managers,even though most of them are said to be young adults detached from the“security” team with no prior photo experience. Add to that anylanguage barriers, and the fact that no advance planning waspossible—well... it could be rough (not sounding too good is it?) Soneedless to say, the stress level, and uncertainty of how successful ofan Olympics this will be is at an all time high.

Don’t forgetthat on top of all of this uncertainty. We still have to worry aboutthe following at each event we cover: We don’t know who will win/loseor become the news, where that will happen, when that will happen, orfrom where we can get the best picture from, or with what lens andexposure (nor when we can put our guard down or take a meal/bathroombreak) .... you never know this until the event happens—live—and inphotography there are no second chances; you are either the “hero orthe zero” with little in between. This is why photographers, who bynature are used to capturing what is a sometimes chaotic series ofevents, like to have at least the basics figured out before they get tothe venue, so that they only have to worry about making “the” picture.

Me... loading gear. ©Vincent Laforet

Thisis part of the Olympics the readers never see (and hopefully what theseblogs will help reveal)—and while it’s frankly not their problem, it’sours, in a big way. What we have to do on our end, is to plan on doingbusiness as usual, and come prepared with all of the necessary gear(even though we may not be able to use much of it!) and we’ll need tostay on our best behaviors and stay patient, no matter how bad thingsmay initially present themselves...

Another new development withthese Olympics: You have to decide what it is that you’re going tobring far ahead of time, because the Chinese government is requiring usto get an “Equipment Confirmation Letter” to bring gear into and out ofChina (I guess they’re afraid we’ll sell it??? Normally an Olympiccredential is sufficient for any host country) It’s quite strange, asno Olympics that I’ve covered prior to this has required such a form(although it’s always best to get a list (or Carnet) of anyprofessional equipment you’re carrying in and out of a foreign countrystamped by your local customs) but it was necessary this time, and itrequired a visit to the Chinese Embassy... just one more thing to do.It makes it more difficult because you can’t decide last minute tobring an extra lens or camera... once the list is stamped by theChinese Embassy, you’re done.

One of the biggest challenge for aphotographer is knowing what to bring. If we were covering just onesport, it would be easy. Most photographers could probably bring 2-3cameras, and 2-3 lenses, max. But given that we’ll have a few dozensports to chose from, and that the equipment needed to cover each sportcan vary widely, it’s a challenge to say the least. And don’t forget:we have to carry everything, so the more you bring, the more you breakyour back. I am easily bringing more than 200 lbs of equipment with me.

This is it! All packed. ©Vincent Laforet

Onecommon trick photographers use to make “exceptional” images is the useof remote cameras. There are many fantastic angles that you cannotphysically shoot from; however if you mount a remote camera there aheadof time, with a bit of luck you’ll get an amazing image. This of courserequires us to bring extra cameras, lenses, radio triggers and mountingequipment, doubling the amount of gear we bring. But the pictures arealmost always worth the effort. One key thing to realize: remotecameras have to be mounted far ahead of an event. Sometimes you have toleave a remote in a catwalk for the entire duration of an event (up toa week) because you won’t have access to it during the event (forsecurity and safety purposes.) That means you have to make intelligentdecisions on how you use that gear and where you put it. For the men’s100m final in Athens, I showed up at 5 a.m. to put up remotes—for arace that didn’t start until after 10 p.m. that evening—and the racelasted less than 10 seconds.... Hopefully you now have a better idea ofall of the work and time that goes into “getting the picture.” Multiplythat by 2 weeks and you realize that covering The Games is a LOT ofwork—and requires a lot of advance planning.

What I’ve gone ahead and done is to create a separate web gallery that shows each step of the packing processfor those that are interested. You’ll get an idea of what type ofequipment I’m bringing and how I pack it. Writing it out in this postwould make it a bit too long, so I think the gallery is the best way togo.

The next step will be to unpack everything once I arrive andto make the decision each evening (prior to the next day’s events) asto what I’ll need to bring with me to best pull off an image. The Gamesare challenging, exhausting and mentally trying. But it’s the“Olympics” for photographers if you will—part of “our” games—where youbring the world’s best photographers into one place and have acompetition to see who can come back with the best images.... but aphotographer must always keep the following in mind: it’s amarathon—not a sprint!

More to come in the upcoming days.

(Vincent Laforet is based in New York and one of threephotographers photographing and blogging the 2008 Beijing Olympics forNewsweek. You can see more of his images at: http://www.vincentlaforet.com/ and his personal blog http://www.laforetivsuals.com/blog)