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.