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.