Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

The Olympics are over, and the sports event has generally been considered an entertainment triumph. What will quickly come back into sharp focus, however, is that China is a world power whose politics will continue to loom large. This communist nation is getting ever more powerful. Its political, economic and humanitarian actions—and inactions—will be a major factor in shaping our world.  This picture, by Donald Miralle, while acknowledging the sporting spectacle, also conjures up the uncertainty about what lies ahead.  For me, as Picture of the Day, it is an appropriately ominous image on which to close.  —Simon Barnett, Director Photography, NEWSWEEK

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 16 of the competition

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

For those of you that are just waking up in the U.S., The "Redeem Team" won gold today against Spain while you were sleeping.  It was the NBA's—I mean Team U.S.A.'s—first gold medal since the 2000 in Sydney. I must admit I wasn't expecting much action or reaction at the conclusion of this game,  but boy was I wrong.  It was a pretty good game, and I've rarely seen such excitement out of NBA players even at the end of an NBA Final.  Spain gave them a good run, and early on they were ahead, but at no point did I see Team U.S.A. break that much of a sweat—they just played solid basketball and had great performances from Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. It was a real treat to see those three and their teammates so genuinely excited at the conclusion of the game and when they received their medals.  I'm at the closing ceremonies and getting ready for that—so I'll just drop a few quick pictures in for now. 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 

I had to rush back and pack last night after the men's finals.  There was nothing ground-breaking and given that I'm covering the U.S.A.'s basketball game immediately followed by the closing ceremonies tonight, I thought it best to pack every piece of gear and clothing that I could, so that I wouldn't need to rush that before running off to the airport in 14 hours. (Quick tip—the single best thing I did in packing for these Olympics was to use a point and shoot camera to take a picture of the inside of every bag and case that I packed on the way in, and print out an 8X10 color copy of each picture and tape it to the inside of the case before I left... this saved me so much time in packing everything up... no more guessing which lens goes in what case, etc...) 

I'm now on the floor of the bronze medal basketball match between Lithuania and Argentina—there's less than 34 seconds left as I type and you could hear a pin drop in this stadium.... ZERO energy here right now. hope that changes for the U.S.A. game... 

Here are a few more images from last night. The first two are of China's Liang Huo who was the Olympic favorite in the men's 10M diving final. He came in fourth, behind Australia's Matthew Mitcham in a stunning upset that prevented the Chinese from a gold sweep in diving. Given that I've shot diving from the overhead position, beneath the surface through a window, and from almost every possible side angle, I decided to take my last tilt-shift of the games, as well as to play with pans shot between 1/8th and 1/15th of a second.

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

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. 

See a gallery of NEWSWEEK's photography from Day 14 of the competition

A tilt shift view of the first ever BMX Olympic Competition.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Today, for the first time ever, a gold medal was handed out in BMX at the Olympics. It was also:

• The first time that I saw a perfectly clear sunset in Beijing.
• The first time that I was able to sit down for lunch at our hotel.
• The first time that I took a nice mid-day nap.
• The first time that I experienced a completely random act of kindness: a volunteer walked up to me out of the blue and gave me two Olympic bracelets.
• The first time that I've made it two weeks without the need of antibiotics to fight off a severe cold or flu at the Olympics.
• The first time that I did not have to run in a mad dash to catch the bus at the end of the day.
• The first time that a good friend of mine ate scorpion and centipede.
• And today was the first time that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  
  
  

Here is the stock shot that has the rings in the back - a photo that clearly places this sport at an Olympic venue. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

48 hours to go!  

We're in the home stretch--the key word here being HOME! This Olympics has been wonderful--very likely the one that I've enjoyed the most of my career in no small part to this blog and the type of photographs that we've been asked to produce for NEWSWEEK. But two weeks away from home is tough on anyone. And I'm starting to count the hours until I get to see my wife and son again.

The day started of as most days have these past two weeks--with less than 2 hours of sleep and a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call. I headed over to the BMX venue for the first time and despite everything that my body was telling me, I was very excited to photograph the inaugural medal event for the sport in the Olympics. I owe a big thanks to Mike Powell for letting me have a go at this sport--although we were both scheduled to cover BMX together, the rainout yesterday changed our schedules quite a bit and he was very gracious in giving me the nod to go ahead and take a crack at it.

A tight shot on the 3rd jump--full frame with a 500mm f4 lens. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Therefore I felt a bit of pressure to produce today. I showed up two hours prior to the start of the race to place my remotes on the field and to secure a head-on shot with the Olympic rings in the background. The venue is very tough to shoot, as there are very few good shooting positions.  No low angles to shoot from and make the athletes "fly."  The pool photographers were able to place remotes wherever they wanted--for some reason I was only offered one spot, which did not yield much. I knew this instantly when I was shown the "one" spot I could place a remote by the photo venue manager... and frankly would have called it then. But I was there anyway and you never know--some crash could have gone right toward the camera, and I would have killed myself if I hadn't gone through the trouble, especially since I knew my two teammates wanted to be here as well. Unfortunately nothing much happened in the one spot we were offered, so the remote did not lead to anything worth showing.

A shot with a 50mm set to f2 at 1/4000th of a second to isolate the busy background.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

This is a very dynamic sport. The crashes are amazing and a key part. Unfortunately none of the official non-pool spots had a good clean angle of the crashes. In fact, they happened underneath us--we were completely blocked, so the action ended up being pretty straightforward.

A shot of the second jump with a 500mm f4.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Given that I didn't really have a clear shot at the crashes, I decided to shoot with a tilt-shift lens and try for something completely different than what everyone else was shooting. Here is a second version--a little quieter than the first image in the blog. I can't decide which one I like the most just yet.  But I think the tilt-shift approach works particularly well with this sport: for one it gives a very miniature feel to the images--almost a doll-house effect. The venue looks pretty surreal to start with, and in many ways the bikes are so much smaller than most of the athletes, which adds to the effect that using this type of lens from a slightly elevated angle produces.

A slightly different moment shot with a tilt-shift lens. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

Finally, I ended the day at Athletics (Track & Field), and I didn't really come up with anything that was all that special from within the venue itself.  The one image I did see took place while I walked into the venue, during the first clear-sky sunset I've seen over this two week period. I decided to focus on the fans, color and light and shadow, mixed in with a little geometry as I photographed them walking to their seats prior to the start of the evening session.

Fans at the Birds Nest.  Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

U.S.A. soccer pulls off the upset! Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

U.S.A. Softball gets upset. Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

The last couple days I just feel it slipping. My interest in photos is fading, I’m finding it harder to get out of bed in the morning, and I just seem to be missing things or making mistakes. And when I’m not making mistakes my cameras are either backfocusing or not working all together. It’s like there is a little gremlin in my camera back that is sabotaging my Games. For example, today was the first time I was granted access to placing an underwater camera in the pool (unfortunately for me it was for women’s synchro, not Phelps) and I flooded a camera in one of my housings when I first jumped in the water. In 10 years, and hundreds of times in the water, I have only ruined one camera. But this time I just didn’t check everything twice before hopping in, and next thing I know the housing is filled like an aquarium. To top it all off, the camera that was ruined was not mine. I luckily packed two housings, so after dropping some f-bombs on the pool deck, I placed the back-up system in the water.

I’m not sure if it’s that I’m just worn down from shooting, editing, and blogging everyday, or if I’m just missing home, but I just feel like I can’t get it going. I feel that I’ve made a strong set of photos to this point and would love to finish it off strong, but the last couple of days I’ve been down and out. It’s been a great assignment for NEWSWEEK, with much of the creative control and scheduling of this assignment left in our hands. Kudos to Simon Barnett and the photo staff at NEWSWEEK for giving us this opportunity and placing us in this position. Nevertheless, I feel a bit depressed and in a funk, and one of my close friends commented, “don’t go to that dark place” when he saw me yesterday. The truth is the Olympics is a very long and stressful few weeks for any photographer, especially if you are leaving family back at home. I feel like every Games I do shaves a couple years off the back-end of my life. But for me it is the pinnacle of sports photography, where the finest sports photographers in the world congregate to shoot the top athletes in an arena that transcends sports. I just want to get this thing wrapped up on a good note and get back to the comforts of home and family.

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

 

Photograph by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK