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!