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.