Day 7 - Paparazzi Time

So today presented a new challenge for me. Rather than cover the olympics, i had 2 shoots for different clients. First i had to shoot some video of the olympic line for Bombardier. They had just passed 300,000 passengers on the demo line and wanted to show how crowded it was. Then i had to shoot for another client, Sports Mark, who plans and organizes the hospitality programs for a lot of the major sponsors of the games. In this case Omega had scheduled a photo op of Michael Phelps, and sports mark wanted me to shoot it with both video and photo if possible. It started out ok as i got in the front row of the camera scrum as Phelps and Canadian Mogul Gold medalist Alex Bilodeau posed for the cameras in front of the Omega countdown clock outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. We were then supposed to move into the Hotel Vancouver for a shoot outside the Omega store in the lobby. This was my first experience of what it is like to be a paparazzi photographer. I literally had to fight my way inside, as the crowd was so big they had security linking arms keeping out people. Even though i was one of the invited media, they were not going to let me in until i squeezed past one guard. By the time i got in i was only able to get in about the 3rd row of media, so i had to shoot video holding the camera as high as i could straight armed above my head. I got off a few still shots, but the scene was just too crazy. The challenge of shooting Olympic sports is one thing, but i don't think i ever want to get into the paparazzi thing.