Vancouver Olympics 2010
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
Vancouver was the third Olympic Games I’ve covered, but my first Winter Olympics, so I was excited to be shooting winter sports.
At Reuters we generally cover one venue for the whole Olympics, and I was fortunate to be assigned to figure skating and short-track speed skating with Beijing-based staffer David Gray. David was great to work with, and gave me the freedom to be creative during the heats in my photo position.
I really enjoyed experimenting with different shutter speeds to convey motion during short track. I found that if I followed one skater, panning and zooming the camera lens with a shutter speed of 1/20 second, it would freeze that skater, while blurring the others.
Short track speed skating I quickly learned, is demolition derby on ice. The first time I was covering it, I was propelled against the wall when Korean skaters Lee Ho-Suk and Sung Si-Back crashed into the barrier in front of me during the 1,500m.
Photo by Bob Deutsch/USA Today
The collision gave US skater Apolo Ohno the silver medal, and me a cut lip.
It was a crash course in how to shoot short track: use only one camera with a 70-200mm lens and a 1.4x tele-converter (so the second camera lens doesn’t obscure your peripheral vision and hit you in the face when the skaters crash). Also I learned that the barrier is only rooted to the ice with a long cable and has a lot of give, so it’s important to jump fast if the skaters begin to lose control in your direction!
April 4th, 2010 at 8:48 am
Wow! What a memorable yet painful first experience covering short track. I’ve been following your work since I first saw it featured until Editor’s Choice on Reuters a few months ago. I had no idea you were just behind the wall that the skaters pummeled into! Stories of behind-the-scenes like this make the production even more real for me, as a young photojournalist.
I also loved your multimedia presentation on photographing the Olympics. Fantastic work and thank you for the inspiration!
Best,
Britt Hannah
April 12th, 2010 at 8:46 pm
Thank you Lucy, it was very interesting and inspiring to see your pictures… the skater pictures are just amazing. You are generous to let us know how you do this. It really does an amazing visual impact.
I’ll be back on your blog!
July 20th, 2010 at 6:45 pm
Wow! What a memorable yet painful first experience covering short track. I’ve been following your work since I first saw it featured until Editor’s Choice on Reuters a few months ago. I had no idea you were just behind the wall that the skaters pummeled into! Stories of behind-the-scenes like this make the production even more real for me, as a young photojournalist.
+1