Let the Games begin!

I had heard photo spots were limited for the Opening Ceremony, and as I think that the Olympics are about sport, not ballet I wasn’t overly fussed if I missed out. However, a couple hours before the kick-off, I strolled past the protesters downtown and into the MPC and asked about photo spots…and was handed a ticket! So that meant I had to race to BC Place to get there in time and get a position in the stand. It was a bit of a mission with all the traffic and crowds to get there…and out front was another sign of Vancouver’s “prosperity”: an old woman sitting in the rain collecting plastic bottles for recycling. What a welcome to the Opening Ceremony.

Once inside, the first person I saw was Himbrechts.

Now that the action has started, the games are on, and the niceties are over! Our two super-agencies, SRM and DHP have had a rivalry for ages, he’s Nikon and I’m Canon, and as he is the enemy I made sure I sat right in front of him. This was great, because just as I realised the snowboarder was going to frontside-air through the Olympic Rings and I didn’t have the right lens ready to capture it, I just sneakily bobbed my massive head in front of Himbrechts super-dooper long lens to also stop him getting the shot! Perfect. Unfortunately, you’ll see here that he still managed to get in a few shots from the night despite my best efforts.

The Opening Ceremony was great and I really enjoyed it.  They made everyone wear all these hospital-bibs so that it looked better on TV, which was pretty funny. You pay all this huge money to watch an event, then they employ your free labour for the world-wide TV production! The only lull was the innumerable teams that came out and paraded around. Those indian/native american/first nation/aboriginal/original tribes/indigenous/whatever-they-are-called-this-year dancers must have gotten so tired jumping up and down and spinning around and around during the parade!

Unfortunately, despite the massive status of SRM (and unfortunately also DHP) we were assigned pretty crap spots far away, and it was a challenge with a long lens and very dark interior (and only being able to shoot at max ISO 1600 on the Canon 1dMkIIN). The big guns at Reuters, Getty, AFP, AP and AAP get the prime spots, and the best shots. It was a challenge to get nice shots – we were both pretty happy with our work…until we checked what the uber-agencies managed to capture. Check-out Fairfax’s gallery here. Those guys have it so sorted – prime spots already assigned, they just fire away till a memory card is full, then hand it to a runner who takes it downstairs to a guy who edits the shots for him, then emails them on so they are online before the Ceremony is even over! So I’ll chalk my night down to a great learning experience and an awesome, fun, general Olympic experience…