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!

Reuters multimedia project Route to Recovery: A trip through the epicenters of the American recession

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According to a 2006 report by the UK-based NGO ‘Womankind,’ anywhere between sixty and eighty percent of marriages in Afghanistan are forced, 57 percent of brides are under the age of 16, and 87 percent complain of domestic violence.  Afghan women suffer from the lowest literacy rate in the world, at 13 percent.  

Photos and video:  Lucy Nicholson

Producer:  Jill Kitchener

 
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Lucy flying with Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah to a campaign rally in Samangan province.  Photo: Tyler Hicks

In Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan on Thursday, the traveling press piled into the back of pick-up trucks following Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s main rival, from the airport to the Shrine of Hazrat Ali.

Supporters race to keep up with Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah’s convoy as he arrives to give a campaign speech at the Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-i-Sharif.  REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Around 50,000 supporters jostled between the cars in the convoy, so each truck would accelerate, then slam on the brakes.  Abdullah supporters were grasping the back of the truck and trying to climb up.  It was really challenging to stay standing to take photos without being launched into the crowd every time we went from 30-0 mph in 3 seconds.

Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah is mobbed by supporters as he arrives to give a campaign speech at the Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-i-Sharif.  REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

It was 104 degrees Fahrenheit at the shrine, and all the sweaty media members got separated as we fought our way through the throng.  People were horribly packed and a few ended up in hospital with injuries and heatstroke.  It was brutal fighting my way through the crowd.  Even hard to breathe at one point.  The crowd was all men so I was fighting off wayward hands.  The lens hood broke off one of my lenses and the filter on the front of the lens smashed.

Campaign workers attempt to cool off Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah with water before he gives his campaign speech at the Shrine of Hazrat Ali in Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh province.  REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

After Abdullah’s speech, the whole crowd was trying to fight its way back into the mosque.  The security guards forced the door shut against the crush.  I kept knocking to be let in and they eventually opened the door, but the force of the crowd propelled me backwards onto the floor of the mosque.  I was sweating profusely and breathing fast, so a man poured water on my head, soaking all my camera equipment.

Lunch, as always in hospitable Afghanistan, was a beautiful contrast.  Time slowed down as we drank tea from delicate china cups in an anteroom at the governor’s mansion with spinning chandeliers.  Upstairs we entered a banquet hall and were served at least six different meat dishes, rice, naan, okra, soup and watermelon.  Bollywood music videos, and later Abdullah’s speech played on the flat screen television next to Karzai’s portrait.

Then came the rally car drive back to the airport with all the young drivers in the convoy racing each other.  Guys with Kalashnikovs hung out of the back of many of the pick-up trucks and the whole convoy drove at high speed.  They overtook on roundabouts, sounded police sirens, shouted at each other, and screeched tires on every turn, slamming on the brakes for cyclists and donkeys.

Cars tend to barrel towards you on both sides of the road in Afghanistan.  Drivers in both directions abuse their horns until one driver loses his nerve and swerves away from the impact.  We joked about dying, but laughed most of the way because it was just such a relief to not be at the mosque.

The view home flying over the Hindu Kush is a beautiful distraction from the noise, fumes, and claustrophobic heat of the Soviet-era MI-17 “flying truck” helicopters and troop planes the candidates use on the campaign trail.

The remote photo I took of the Olympic flame from the roof of the Bird’s Nest stadium during the opening ceremony ended up on the cover of Time Asia this week.  I had thought the photo was a failure because the torch bearer lit the cauldron with a long fuse, so he ended up being cropped out of my remote camera frame. 

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My Olympic opening ceremony endurance test began with an 8am call to be on the roof of the Bird’s Nest stadium for a meeting of photographers.

I began my first of three climbs through the maze of steep narrow catwalks with IOC pool photographers from AP, Getty, AFP and Xinhua.  On either side of the path were sheets of glass through which the colored lights of the stadium are projected.

We were told to wear fireproof suits, helmets and climbing harnesses over our clothes.  The Chinese fireworks technicians on the roof had sensibly chosen to wear t-shirts and shorts.

(L-R) Julie Jacobson of AP, me, Ezra Shaw of Getty, and Christophe Simon of AFP.

It was 90-something degrees Fahrenheit and humid on the ground, but felt a lot hotter on the roof — especially after lugging 3 camera bodies, 5 lenses, a bag of magic arms and 50 meters of remote cable up there.

The door to the catacombs of the roof was barred by Chinese police who confiscated any water, food, cigarettes and cell phones.

The show was filled with interludes of fireworks, and we were told to crouch on the floor every time another burst came.  So I quickly mounted a wide angle Canon 5D with 15mm lens on the edge of the stadium, which I could fire remotely every time we had to duck.

I set the camera on aperture priority at f8, 200 ISO, with minus one stop exposure compensation so the camera wouldn’t misread the dark sky. 

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

We were told we would have to crouch in a sunken part of the roof when the main fireworks and cauldron-lighting occurred, sometime after 10.30pm.

So we mounted a couple of pool remote cameras to be triggered with zip cord to shoot the Olympic flame being lit.  The Chinese police said it would be fine to clamp onto the pole holding their video security camera, so I trained a 70-200 in the direction of the torch, and Ezra Shaw from Getty put a wide angle very near the flame.

“Top secret, no-one will know until the last minute,” was the response from everyone when we tried to imagine how the flame would be lit, so we could frame it correctly.

Julie Jacobson from AP suggested we put our Canon Mark IIIs on monopods while we were stuck in our ditch, so we could hoist the pole and shoot using the camera’s Live View.

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

As we huddled and waited for the grand finale, a policeman came over gesturing and shouting in Chinese for us to go down the stairwell and shut the trap door over our heads.

One of the fireworks technicians translated and told us the rail we were sitting next to had been electrified to carry a trolley that would transport the athlete carrying the Olympic torch around the inside rim of the stadium.

We huddled on a 6×6 ft platform above the stairs.  Below us were sheets of glass and below that sat the world leaders watching the extravaganza, known as “The Greatest Show on Earth.”

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

A Chinese policeman who looked barely 20-years-old stood on the stairs.  We had a narrow slit through which we could watch the rest of the ceremony.  The cop grabbed my arm as the parade of athletes progressed.

“China’s coming! China’s coming!” he said as we heard a huge roar from the crowd of more than 90,000.  I could barely make out any of the athletes but saw Yao Ming, who is probably visible from space.

The torch bearer glided around the top of the stadium, passing inches from the narrow gap we were looking out of.  He ignited the flame with a long fuse, outside the frame of my vertical remote which was trained on the massive cauldron.

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

The final firework explosions reverberated around us in our metal cage.

I had met the head pyrotechnics engineer when I first came on the roof.  When he found out I was from London, he said he really wanted the contract for London 2012 and asked me to put a good word in for him.  He didn’t seem convinced when I told him I didn’t have that kind of clout.  I hope he gets the gig.

REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Thanks to Ezra for taking the photos of me with my Canon G9 point and shoot camera!

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When I’m out shooting around Beijing, people often come up to me to ask if they can take a photo of me with their family.  Jessica Rinaldi & I took a break from holding babies to pose in front of the Bird’s Nest National Stadium on a typically smoggy day.