Jamaica's Usain Bolt wins the gold medal in the men's 100-meter final followed by Marc Burns of Trinidad and Walter Dix of the U.S.A. This is from my lower remote on a 1Ds MKIII. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
Here is a tilt-shift version of the same finish from above—it was shot with a 45mm tilt-shift lens wide open on a 1Ds MKIII.
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
Here
is the handheld shot I made with the 400mm. Usain was so far ahead that the reaction was far from fantastic—all those remotes for this? I'm very happy to have decided on the wideangles for me remotes—the tight version would have yielded very little—but I could be wrong... will have to see what everyone else has.
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
One
of the big surprises during the night was Tyson Gay not qualifying for
the 100M Final... it changed everything. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
Well,
we're here—all of us—at the "National Stadium" or Birds Nest, waiting
for the start of one of the two big marquee events of the Olympic: The
men's 100m final. It's the biggest "hurry up and wait" of them all.
It's
shaping up to be a pretty amazing 24 hours—we'll all wrap up late
tonight, probably around midnight, catch a few hours of zzz's and head
to see if Phelps breaks Spitz's record in the morning. I think it's
safe to say that all eyes will be on the 100m meter track final tonight
to see the fastest man alive, and then tomorrow to see an epic record
being broken (hopefully.)
I'm writing this blog entry well before
the men's 100 meter race because we won't have much time to write later
tonight... those who know me know that I value my sleep—and I'd like to
feel somewhat functional for tomorrow's big race at the aquatics
center. So you're likely seeing photographs of the actual race,even
though I wrote most of this blog hours earlier... hope that's OK.
Seeing the photographers industriously setting up more than 100 remote cameras all at once is quite
comical. Photographers are pre-focusing their cameras, making fine
adjustments to get the framing down just PERFECT, and then another
photographer will invariably catch his foot one of the of the remote
rails by mistake, and two dozen remote cameras will have to be reset.
It's absolutely maddening, believe me...that's why I've forgone that
ritual today and set up a few wide angle lenses instead. The
photographers are actually setting up more than one camera because
they're trying to shoot tight action of each individual lane (in effect
guaranteeing a shot of the winning athlete). The first phalanx of
cameras are framed around lanes 7-9, the second on lanes 4-6 and the
3rd on lanes 1-3. You never really know what lane the winning runner
will be in until it's far too late, and the race is over. There is
often a remote that covers all lanes—but it's a bit loose. Then there
are side remotes, overhead remotes, and an entire second set of remotes
that are guessing on where the winning runner will "react" all
pre-focused of course—so it's a total shot in the dark. It's quite an
amazing process to witness.
One
of the neat setups is saw is the one for David J. Phillip of the Associated
Press with his 3 cameras on an OverXposed plate (with a fourth one
down a little further). It has a neat little trigger box that sets off
multiple cameras from one point (the 3 Canon 1D MKIII Cameras have a
wireless adapter on them) with a few hundred feet of ethernet cable
running from the camera back to the computer. That's a pretty amazing
set up—technology is constantly challenging us to try new things.
There's never anything as "fast enough..." You're either first—or
beat by another wire agency...
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
All
in all it feels relatively quiet today compared to past 100m races, not
that I've done that many, but Mike Powell confirms that it's the most
peaceful he's ever seen it. One of the theories we have worked out is
that everyone knows that the chances of getting blocked by television
crews are so high that, "what's the point of us showing up anyway?" Some still photographers here are clearly "broken." You can see it on
their faces or hear it in their voices. I've heard several
photographers ready to throw in the towel. Luckily I'm having my best
Olympics ever in terms of mood and rest—so no worries here! Even
better,the track field is partially covered from the hot sun, so we we
aren't getting cooked all day—plus, it isn't nearly as hot or humid as
Athens was, four years ago.
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
This
Olympics has been one of the hardest in terms of getting access to
positions to make original images. As Mike, Donald and I have mentioned
separately in previous blogs, the pool has gotten far too much
control—and in my opinion the situation is out of hand. They are
dominating the spots and excluding everyone else from them. Just today
at the Phelps race, Mike told me he got there three hours in advance to
hold the head-on overhead spot on Phelps (Great shot Mike!). Just
before one of the races started one of the pool photographers who shall
remain nameless had the gall to show up with a "pool position"
sticker—and put it in Mike's spot. Mike of course intervened (it's
completely against the rules for the pool photographer to do that—only the venue manager is supposed to assign spots) and then the pool
guy tried to do it to another photographer to Mike's left. And Mike
intervened again. Understand that the pool photographers already have
half of those positions reserved for them; they have the best positions
on the ground level AND underwater cameras, so these are the crumbs
that we peasant photographers are left with, maybe half a dozen head on
positions. To me, this just shows you how this has gotten completely
out of control.
I do have faith that Nick Didlick, the head of
Photo for the Vancouver Winter Olympics (who has been here in Beijing
and witnessed this first hand) will curtail these types of actions and
set things straight in time for the next Olympics. The pool was
invented to guarantee a few spots to the more important wire services,
not to monopolize all good shooting spots. And that's what seems to be
happening in China to an egregious degree never before seen. I'm sure
Nick who is a very fair and reasonable guy will be able to level the
playing field in Vancouver. Things like this truly make photographers
question why they should even try to come here, and question whether
they have a chance at all at remaining competitive. It costs a lot of
money to cover an Olympics and if you're being shut out from all of the
good positions it's hard to justify covering them. I suspect that this
is exactly what the wires/pool want. They don't want the other
photographers here, they'd be just as happy if all of the newspapers,
magazines and websites paid to use THEIR images. Were this to happen,
that would of course homogenize everything and not be good for
photography, or the Olympics.
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
Here's
a photograph that a reader requested we do. It shows you the venue and
how we are positioned to cover it: Mike is in "M" on the bottom left—in the main moat head on for the finish line photograph. Donald is in
"D" overhead—that's his back you see in this frame. And I'm in "V" on
the bottom right—looking for a reaction picture. Photo by Vincent
Laforet for NEWSWEEK
On a less serious note, I'll leave you with a little tidbit from last night. Communication is obviously
one of the biggest hurdles for Westerners in China... yet you would
think that at the Foreign Expert Building, which is the hotel where
we're staying that it wouldn't be such a problem. Well, not exactly.
Ordering room service, or a cab for that matter, can be quite the
challenge at our hotel. Last night we tried to order french fries and
the person on the other end of the phone thought we wanted fried
rice... after five minutes of back and forth and a lot of meticulously
slow enunciation, they gave up on us and sent up someone up to take the
order in person. I ended up Googling up a photo of french fries for the
room service guy when he came to our room, and upon seeing the picture,
he yelled out "Oh! Chips!" That's apparently what they're called here.
A few days ago we tried to ask for salt and pepper. Apparently that,
and mayonnaise (you know—the white ketchup?) has proven just as
difficult to obtain (but if you think about it, when is the last time
you had to season a Chinese dish?). Which brings another tip to mind:
If you're in a hurry to "go" make sure to ask people where the washroom
is—not bathroom—that too took a few minutes to figure out the other
day. There's just no polite body motion or hand signal to make someone
understand that you really have to go... speaking of which—tune in
tomorrow following Phelp's race.
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