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Farewell Beijing - it’s been a “Dream Job” to cover these Olympics

12:03 PM, August 24, 2008 | Comments (31)
Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK By the time many of your are reading this post, I will be on my way to the airport to catch my flight back to New York City. The Beijing Olympics will have concluded and thousands of others will be making their...

U.S.A. Wins First Gold Medal in Men's Basketball in Eight Years

6:52 AM, August 24, 2008 | Comments (3)

Off to the airport

8:36 PM, August 23, 2008 | Comments (5)

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A project of the Asia Society, "Clearing the Air" looks at the overall causes of China's pollution problem, featuring a broad overview, a daily photo diary documenting “blue sky days”, and resources for more information. See more here.

  • Picture of the Day: August 9, 2008

    Vincent Laforet | Aug 9, 2008 01:31 PM
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

    Our photographer, Vincent Laforet, had never shot fencing before today. Even though he fenced as a youngster, he'd never, until today, pointed his camera at the sport. I've selected this picture as Picture of the Day as an example of a sports photographer seeing the "bigger picture" and taking a visual step back in order to make a superb photograph. The picture itself is of the type that any amateur could potentially shoot—it's shot on a short lens of a similar focal length to the point and shoot cameras that all of us own. In that regard, it's an achievable image for many of us—it is not utilizing costly super telephoto lenses that many sports pictures necessitate. The success of the image is in the details.  It's perfectly composed where the eye is drawn to the action first, and is then naturally allowed to absorb the entire scene. There is a discreet, but important positioning of the Olympic rings in the bottom left, which gives the picture a sense of time and place. This too, is an action picture. Note the timing of the image, where the attitude of the fencers' bodies is captured at a precise peak moment (imagine if you will, the fencers in a "non-moment"—the image would immediately die a boring death.) And lastly, the background is kind too. Nothing distracting, nothing superfluous, just a dark canvas with a strip of lights to bring it to life.—Simon Barnett, Director of Photography, NEWSWEEK

    See a gallery of Newsweek's photos from the first day of Olympic competition


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  • Gymnasts and Photographers Practice During Preliminaries...

    Vincent Laforet | Aug 9, 2008 12:26 PM
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    Today I made a quick stop by the men's Team Gymnastics preliminaries  - doesn't hurt to brush up on your Gymnastics shooting once every FOUR years ;)
     
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    I felt a little rusty at first, while Alexander Artemev was far from that--he did have his moments on the parallel bars...
     
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    But he more than held it together--and even gave a little Michael Jordan tongue-action.
     
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    He made up for any slip-ups when he hit the floor exercise. What an athlete! The U.S. Team is looking very strong despite it's recent shakeup.
     
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    Seconds after Alexander  hit the pommel horse - I hit the ground running to make it to fencing in time to get a good position for the women's sabre finals... this was a good little practice run for the finals!
     
     
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  • One Day Down, 15 to Go...

    Donald Miralle | Aug 9, 2008 10:29 AM
    Competitors bike past Tiananmen Square during Road Race. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

    Photo Marshall trying to get us to move down the block. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
     
    Thomas Bouhail of France competes on the vault. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    Yibing Chen of China competes in the Men's Qualifications. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    Anton Golotsutskov of Russia competes on rings. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    Mariel Zagunis and Sada Jacobson attack in an all-U.S. final. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    Field of Play at Fencing. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK
     
    After about 2.5 hours of sleep after the opening ceremonies, I rushed through a couple of buses to get to Tiananmen Square in Time for the Men's Road Race. After about fifty photographers were shuttled and dropped into our photo position directly perpendicular to the square. A young photo marshal did her best to try to move us down the block. But we all stood our ground and everybody got the shot. Then I moved shot over to Men's Artistic Gymnastics to get a feel for floor and positions for the Men's Final next week. I found a couple of good angles that I was pleased with and can improve on next week.  Finally, I walked over to fencing to check out the Women's Individual Sabre Gold Match in which the U.S. women, including defending Gold Medalist from Athens Mariel Zagunis, were heavily favored. The Americans came through and swept the podium and earned the U.S. its first medals of the Beijing Olympics. It's been a long day and  I've got swimming finals in the morning with Mr. Phelps so I'll sign out an let the photos tell the rest of the story—DM
     

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  • First U.S. Gold Comes in Fencing - Along with Silver & Bronze

    Vincent Laforet | Aug 9, 2008 08:56 AM
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     

    I had a total blast at the Fencing Hall today. What a beautiful stage for fantastic images.   Although I was a Junior Olympic fencer myself more than a decade ago (my discipline was foil—not sabre as you see here),  this was my first try at photographing fencing... I'm amazed that it took me this long!   The lighting couldn't have been better,  and made for a beautiful wide shot of Sada Jacobson (right) fencing against Sofiya Velikaya in their quarter-final match.

     

    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    I went from the wide (safe and easy shot) to complete opposite side of the spectrum, shooting the tighter and more difficult shot above. It's better to do this in the quarterfinals; not the best idea to try this when it's the final match, and not when it's your first time shooting a sport—you're begging for a disaster if you do.   I love the way the sabres bend here in Jacobson's (right) quarter-final match against Velikaya.
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

    When Becca Ward (right) took her turn against Velikaya for a chance at the bronze medal (she managed to win it!) I decided to take a different type of risk and drag the shutter a bit.   You shoot dozens and dozens of frames in the hopes of getting just one that somehow both freezes and demonstrates "motion" albeit in a "still" photograph.

    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    Mariel Zagunis was pretty dominant all night . The frame above is of her quarterfinal match against team member Becca Ward.  She was quite aggressive and managed to pull ahead quite decisively in her gold medal match.   It was such a pleasure to witness these athletes compete. The action is so incredibly quick that even the judges have to watch the television monitor almost every time before rendering their final decision.  At first the clip is played at quarter speed, but at a few points the judges had to see the clip of the point two to three times, at even slower speeds.  This sport is so amazing in that your Olympic dreams of Gold can be realized in a blink of an eye—literally.   Photographing these bouts reminded me of the times I was able to fence against Olympic fencers myself. You never really quite knew what hit you.   By the time you realized you were hit, your opponent was already walking back and preparing his next move. 
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    Mariel Zagunis ripped her mask off as she won the first U.S. gold medal of the Beijing Olympics, leading an American sweep Saturday in women's sabre fencing.  She was far ahead in the bout and the decision to stay focused on her for a tight vertical was an easy one.  You hate the matches that are tied 14-14 - because the last point can go either way... shooting decisions are made much easier when Zagunis, the 2004 Olympic saber champion, takes the gold with a 15-8 victory over Sada Jacobson. Becca Ward took the bronze. 
    Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK
     
    Here are the three of them celebrating in front of what seemed to be more than 100 photographers with, who else, former President George Herbert Walker Bush.  I was one of the first people to leave the medal ceremony and rush to where Bush was—we all knew that would be the photo.  But being there early isn't always a guarantee. I had a Secret Service guy right in front of me who kept blocking me completely.   When another photographer nudges you a bit it's standard practice to hold your ground or reply with equal force back in the opposite direction.   When the Secret Service shoves you backward—it's not a shoving match you ever want to enter—you just pull back and let the photo go...  this one turned out OK though. Another photographer apparently got Bush's full attention and gave me a few seconds to grab this frame.

    All in all, not a bad first day at the Olympics:  photographing the first U.S. Gold of the Olympics is always a bit of a scoop for any photographer.   Photographing a sweep of all three medals is incredibly rare.   And photographing the sport you once competed in yourself—for the first time—will definitely be one of my personal Olympic highlights of these games!
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  • Cycling at the Great Wall

    Mike Powell | Aug 9, 2008 08:33 AM

    Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

     

    Opening ceremonies puts me on my heels for the first couple of days. Lots of pressure and always a very late night. Last night was no different. I finished work at 3.30 am grabbed a quick beer and some food with Vincent then headed up to repack for today’s Men’s cycling road race. It was 4.30 am by the time I got my head down and of course after thinking I’d dodged the jet lag bullet here it came. I basically lay there awake until my alarm went off at 7.30am and headed down for some breakie and onto the first bus of the day.

    We had not secured one of the limited places on the small buses that would stop at Tiananmen Square so I was planning on shoot the start getting on a bus and heading the finish. As it happened, about a third of the photographers that had won the position lottery for the buses didn’t show so I just slid on and went to work. That made life much easier for the day.

    On the bus over I got to catch up with Graham Watson a fellow Brit, gent and excellent cycling photographer. In fact he pretty much set the bar for quality work in the genre. It’s always nice catching up with some friends that I really only see every few years.

    I’ll admit I’m a bit of a cycling fan/geek and any time you get the list of competitors together of this caliber I get pretty excited. Unfortunately the last thing you get to do when covering the events is actually enjoy them.

    I managed to get around to a couple of spots on course then decided to shoot about 150 down from the finish as opposed to right at the line where everyone else was. Well the sprint didn’t fully open up in front of me but they were pushing hard and I didn’t have to bang bars with everyone at the finish. Bonus!

    Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

     

    Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK

    Photograph by Mike Powell for NEWSWEEK


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