Day 5 - Women's Snow Board Cross

So the olympics are actually over now, but i have not had a chance to update my blog so here we go. Time to catch back up. On Tuesday Feb 16th, Whistler local Maelle Ricker had a chance at redemption after making the final at the last olympics in Torino only to crash and knock herself out. This year she has been one of the top ranked boarders and my pick to win the Gold medal. She almost didn't even make it through qualification as she fell and had a slow time in her first qualifying run, and with the weather rolling in, there was talk of not having a second run. Luckily the weather broke and she was able to post one of the top times in her second run. She then went on to win the Gold medal.

Day 4 - Mens Downhill

Here are a few shots from the Mens Downhill. It was nice to sleep in my own bed and get up 2 hours before the race started. Too bad home course advantage did not extend to our Canadians.

Aksel Lund Svindal at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill. Svindal took the Silver medal.

Hans Olsson of Sweden shrugs after finishing 12th in the Men's Olympic Downhill.

Erik Guay of Canada at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill. Guay finished in 5th place.

Patrik Jaerbyn of Sweden crashes into the air bag at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill.

Didier Defago of Switzerland at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill. Defago took the Gold medal.

Didier Defago of Switzerland at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill. Defago took the Gold medal.
Swiss supporters cheer at the finish of the Men's Olympic Downhill.
The mens podium at the flower ceremony of the Men's Olympic Downhill.

Nikon Rocks!!!

In case i have not mentioned it before, Nikon Rocks. Both Nikon and Canon treat the photographers covering the games very well here. We all received a Beautiful Lowepro Flipside 500 camera bag at the opening reception, and they both have Loaner equipment available in the main press center. On Day 2 i had a bunch of time to kill so i visited the booth, they offered to clean my gear, so i handed over both my camera bodies as well as one lens, and an hour later i got them back nice and clear, tightened and they even replaced a piece of missing rubber on my D2x that fell off years ago.

That night I was shooting Mogul skiing so i asked about borrowing a Nikon D3s, which has even better high ISO than my D3, they gladly handed over the body. The following day i borrowed another body and a teleconverter. The only downside is that the gear needs to be returned each within 24 hours, but it is still a sweet deal. They also have a range of long lenses all the way up to a 600mm F4, but so far i have not needed one as my 200-400 is suiting me just fine.

After shooting in the pouring rain at the moguls, and seeing all of the other shooters with their high tech rain covers, i figured i would ask Nikon about them. Once again Nikon happily handed over a very nice cover for my lens, and told me to keep it.

Yes Nikon does Rock!!!

Day 3 - Woman's 3000m Speed Skating

After 4 very long days of shootings, I decided to to take it easy today and cover Speed Skating at the Richmond Oval. By taking it easy, i mean staying away from the transportation system. The oval is about 500m away from my mom's house, so i visited Mom, had some breakfast and walked to the venue. Again it was my first time at a new venue, so it took a bit of time to figure things out, but after checking in, i was track side pretty quick. I should know this by now, but once again the prime photos positions were all staked out well before race time. I ended up just after the finish line on the curve, which made for a great shot during the race, but was too close to the finish to get the best shots after the race.

The racing was great, with Canadian Skating heroes Cindy Klassen and Clara Hughes competing, and Kristina Groves winning the Bronze medal.

As soon as the racing was finished, i wanted to get the flower ceremony shot, so i just followed 2 pool photographers (pool photogs always get the best shooting spots) as i assumed they knew where they were going. They led me to the photo manager who handed out Field of Play armbards that got me access to the center of the oval, just one of 10 photographers who had this access. Turns out all of the other photographers were lining up shooting from the far side of the track. So again i lucked out with a great ceremony shot.
Cindy Klassen of Canada during the womans 3000m speed skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
Nancy Swider-Peltz Jr. of the USA during the womans 3000m.Katarzyna Wozniak of Poland slips at the finish line of her pairing at the womans 3000m.Kristina Groves of Canada during the womans 3000m speed skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Groves won the Bronze medal.Ice Hockey star Jaromir Jagr cheers on the Czech's during the womans 3000m speed skating event.
Clara Hughes of Canada during the womans 3000m speed skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
The crowd cheers as Kristina Groves of Canada wins the Bronze medal at the womans 3000m speed skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
Martina Sablikova of the Czech Republic celebrates her Gold medal victory during the womans 3000m speed skating event at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

Day 2 - Woman's Freestyle Moguls in the Rain

Today was supposed to be the Mens Downhill, so i left to drive to Whistler at 7 am. I got about half way to Squamish when i heard they had postponed the race, so i made a quick U-turn and returned to the city. As luck would have it, i was right at the U-turn lanes they recently put into the highway. I always thought they were a waste of taxpayer money but they came in handy today. I got back to our Studio in West Vancouver just as Brad and Ian were leaving, so i caught a ride into downtown to make my way to the Main Media Center.

One of the nice things about not being assigned to a specific event at the olympics (other than covering the Whistler athletes when they compete), is that i get to choose what i want to shoot. I checked out the schedule and decided that the women's moguls event was my best option. Jennifer Heil was favored to win the first Gold medal on Canadian soil, so i was looking forward to covering this event. I had lots of time before the event so i figured this would be a good time to explore the Media Center. It is located at Canada Place, and takes up all of the available trade show space. They have a McDonald's and a food court, a bank and store, as well a the transportation hub to get to all of the venues. I checked in at the photo desk and was assigned a locker to store my gear. Each venue has photo lockers, big enough to store a few camera bags and clothes etc. they are about 2 ft by 2 ft by 3.5 ft. At this point i have 3 different lockers around town, One up at cypress, one at Whistler Creekside, big enough for my ski gear, and the one at the main media center.

Eventually i caught an early bus up to Cypress Mountain, to get ready for that evenings event. After experiencing the challenges at the downhill training, i figured i was ready for this. but let me tell you, shooting the Olympics is not all it's cracked up to be. First i had to find the correct bus, i was directed to the cruise ship terminal at Canada place, which is outside the security zone, but this was incorrect, so i wanted to get back into the meadia center to find the correct location. But every time you enter, you have to go through security. They randomly pick you for searches, so of course i got picked. rather than unload all of my bags and pockets, i wanted to just go find my bus on my own, but i figured the security people would not like me refusing to get searched so i had to unload everything. I was dressed for the pouring rain up on cypress so it took while for them to search me, as i had on about 5 layers. and had some keys in my bottom layer. eventually i got through and found my correct bus. After about 45 minutes, we reached the top of Cypress mountain, or at least as far as they would drive us. We got off the bus and had to walk about 1/2km up the hill to another security check. After passing through this one, we walked another 1/2km to get to the media tent. I checked in, dumped my gear in my locker and checked out the site.

After a while i noticed all of the photographers prepping their gear for the heavy rain that was falling. I am used to shooting in the snow where your gear gets wet, but these conditions were something else. I frantically started looking for anything i could find to protect my gear. I eventually found a plastic bag and some tape to try to cover it. but that was not working well, so i got in line to buy a rain poncho from the souvenir stand. All they had left was a small, but i figured it was better than nothing. We were supposed to be in place 1 hour before the event started, so i got all poncho'ed up, grabbed my gear and headed out into the downpour. I wanted to shoot the qualifying run from the side of the course and the finals from the bottom. To get on the course, we needed to have crampons and climb straight up the hill beside the fence. My crampons barely passed inspection because they only cover half of my foot. I was told next time to have full mountaineering ones. As i started to climb, i noticed that due to the lack of snow, it was going to be very difficult to get high enough to shoot over the fence. They only had enough snow for the course and not the side of it, so it sloped off right at the fence. this meant there was no way to get high enough to shoot over the fence. After climbing over half way up the slope, i decided to head back down and beat the others to the finish corral. Another lesson i learned, if you want a good spot, get there early. By the time i got to the bottom there was not front row access. i ended up finding 3 japanese photographers standing together. All were about a foot shorter than i so, i figured i would just shoot over their heads.

All of the Olympic venues are light for TV, at a light level of about 1400 lux which gives you around 1/500 sec at f2.8 at iso800. So with a camera that shoots high ISO you are good to go. Unfortunately the reason they do this is for the TV cameras, which have a tendency to get in your shot at the finish line. so you must choose your location wisely. For the flower ceremony, the photo staff made a strange request. They told all photographers who wanted access to the finish corral to shoot the ceremony, to meet in a certain spot 5 minutes before the end of the competition. What is strange is that this is when the top skiers come down. so with 3 skiers left, i found myself with a front row access to shoot, while most of the others waited to get into the corral for the ceremony. During the Flower ceremony, they all had to kneel down anyways, so i just stayed behind the them on the other side of the barrier and got just as good of shot.

After the event, we had to walk back down to the transportation hub, and wait for 30 minutes in the pouring rain, for the bus back to the media center. You would think they would have more than 1 bus every 30 minutes for the end of the event. In the end Jennifer Heil took home the Silver Medal. Here are some of the shots from that night. To check out more go to

Day 1 of the Olympics

The first day of the olympics for me consisted of more video of the torch relay for 2 separate clients, and watching the opening ceremonies on TV. We started downtown early again. and at first the crowds did not see that bad at all. We found parking about 2 blocks away from the Art Gallery, where we where shooting. But by the time the torch was near, the crowds were a big as i have ever seen. Everyone was staying on the curb while there was still traffic on the road, but as soon as the sponsor vehicles got nearby, the crowds filled the streets. It got so crowded that the run turned into a push. the vehicles could barely get through.

Our next assignment was for Bombardier on the olympic line. We had been shooting for Bombardier for quite a while, so we were able to get staff jackets from the train crew, which allowed us access on the train and boarding platform. As the torch arrived, the crowds swelled once again, but this time we were able to get some clear shots. We then continued back to Granville island on the train to complete our last shoot. We were doing interviews with the Coke VIP's but kept getting interrupted by the constant sound of helicopters hovering over head. At about this time i was really looking forward to becoming a photographer again. Enough of this video stuff.

I had a great seat for the opening ceremonies, right in front of the TV. Having a media pass will get me into almost any venue and event during the olympics, but not the opening ceremonies. There are 750 accredited photographers covering the games, but they only had seats for about half of them. It would have been great to see live, but after a few long days, and many more to come, i was kind of happy to relax on the couch for this one.

1 day to go.

Today was another crazy day. I was shooting Video for Coca-Cola, covering a few VIP's who were running with the torch. We started at the live site in Coquitlam at 7 am in the rain. We then traveled to Burnaby for our first torch runner. As we pulled up to the meeting spot, we ran into Bob Costas from NBC. turns out he was the torch runner our Coke VIP was handing the flame off to. We were located right beside a highschool, so about 30 minutes before the torch arrived, classes were let out and the streets were flooded with kids. While covering the torch relay in Whistler, I was able to run along side and get a few shots and planned to do the same here. unfortunately the crowds made this very difficult. After getting the torch kiss, where they light the next runner's torch, i took off behind the crowds, ran up about 150 meters, and found a gap in the crowd. As i stuck my camera out to shoot, one of the escort cyclists, who was racing ahead at full speed, slammed into my camera. He almost went down, and gave me the dirtiest look as i check my gear for any damage.

For our next runner, we were located along Cambie Street, where the crowds got even bigger. We were standing between 2 groups of school children, screaming at the top of their lungs while we waited for the flame to arrive. I made sure this time i stayed far away from the escort cyclists, as i did not want to be recognized.

Our day continued in Yaletown, where we shot at the live site at David Lam Park. We were among the first to enter the Coke Hospitality tent, and i have to say, it is pretty cool. Inside they have a very energetic staff handing out samples, showing some of their recycling initiatives, as well as showing off some of their involvement in past olympics. The best part was the polar bear mascot. I am sure you have seen the commercials, but this mascot was as real as they get. you have to check it out.

Luckily we wrapped up earlier than expected, so i was able to attend the Olympic Photographers reception held at the Vancouver Aquarium that evening. Sponsored by Nikon and Canon, this reception was a chance to mix and mingle with some of the best photographers in the world, in a spectacaular setting. The best part about it was that at the end of the evening they gave all of the photographers a limited edition Lowepro Flipside 500 camera bag worth about $200.