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Posts Tagged ‘Olympic’

Video: ‘One Shot’ shows what it takes to capture an iconic image at the Olympic games

25 Nov

A thread on Reddit has brought a neat photography documentary from 2017 to our attention. ‘One Shot: Photographing the Olympic Games’ is a behind the scenes look at how photographers capture the iconic images of the Olympics, including a special focus on photographers setting up to capture the 100m men’s final in Rio de Janeiro during the 2016 summer games.

Featured photographers include multi-awarded photographers such as Lucy Nicholson, Dave Burnett, Bob Martin, Tim de Waele, and Tsuyoshi Matsumoto. Nicholson had a very specific image in mind for the 100m men’s final in Rio. As she sets up her gear, nine hours ahead of the starting gun kicking off what is one of the most exciting 10 seconds in sports, Nicholson talks about how she wants a tight shot of the winner with other sprinters on either side of the winner. ‘You only get one chance to take the key shot,’ Nicholson says.

A chart showing Sports Illustrated’s plans for photographing the 100m men’s final in Rio. Click to enlarge.

The documentary, seen below, was awarded the Candido Cannavo Award at the World Final of the Milan Sport Film Festival in 2018. About 150 iconic images from nearly 100 different photographers over the last 50 years of Olympic games are featured. An iconic image tells a story for years to come. Long after the medals have been awarded to the victors, and even long after the photographer has passed, the images and the stories they tell remain. Presenter Jonathan Edwards, Olympic gold medalist triple jumper, says it well, ‘A story that’s taken a lifetime to create, told in one shot. One freeze frame.’

Years of planning are required to create iconic images, and in under a minute, an iconic photo can be sent halfway around the globe. The technology on display in 2016 during the summer games was incredible. Reuters was able to get the first photo of Usain Bolt winning the 100m men’s final out to its customers in 58 seconds. It’s safe to assume that the technology will have advanced even further when photographers head to Tokyo in 2021. And while the equipment and tools photographers use continue to evolve, photography’s importance when telling a story remains unchanged.

‘One Shot’ was directed and written by Peter Davies and presented by Jonathan Edwards. As pointed out by PetaPixel, the documentary can also be viewed on the Olympic Channel. It’s hosted on YouTube by Anthony Edgar, the Head of Media Operations for the International Olympic Committee. Edgar also appears in the video. His channel, linked above, includes a lot of interesting Olympics-related video content.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Photographer hit by Olympic skier Lara Gut during wipeout

20 Feb

Embed from Getty Images

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Swiss Olympic skier Lara Gut crashed during a run last week, and slid directly into a group of sports photographers on the sidelines. While most of them were able to get out of her way in time, one photographer, Sean Haffey, was hit square on. Fortunately, Haffey was quick with his camera and managed to capture multiple excellent shots of Gut as she slid toward him (embedded above).

Neither individual was hurt, but the collision, which was caught on video, still looks pretty intense:

According to Reuters, the crash may have happened due to one of Gut’s skis hitting a gate. She lightheartedly said to reporters after the incident, “No, I‘m OK, I‘m OK. I asked the photographer if he was OK too and he said he was. I think it’s getting scary to be a photographer on skiing hills.”

As for Haffey, Getty told NBC that he and his gear are both fine. “Sean is all OK as is his gear,” said Director and Head of External Communications for Getty Images, Anne Flanagan. “Like a true professional, he was shooting the entire time.”

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Leica unveils limited edition Leica Q ‘Snow’ inspired by an Olympic snowboarder

13 Feb

A new, white version of the Leica Q full-frame compact camera has been announced that was inspired by Olympic snowboarder and photographer Iouri Podladtchikov. The ‘Snow’ edition will be limited to only 300 units worldwide, and will cost $ 5,395/£4300.

As with most Leica special editions, on the inside, this camera will be exactly the same as the standard Q. What differentiates it is the special white leather trim and anodized silver top plate, base plate and control dials.

A white leather case and strap complete the ‘Snow’ theme:

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Speaking about the special edition camera, Podladtchikov says the white finish doesn’t only reflect the snow he is so closely associated with:

‘White, for me, also means ‘carte blanche’ – it’s up to you. It’s time to get creative’.

The Swiss Olympic gold medalist and world champion is also a keen photographer, and intends to open his own photographic studio. He was due to compete in the current Winter Olympics in Korea, but had to pull out after sustaining an injury at the 2018 X Games.

The Leica Q ‘Snow’ will be available starting in March. For more information, read the full press release below, or visit the Leica website.

Press Release

Leica Q ‘Snow’ by Iouri Podladtchikov

The Swiss Olympic gold medallist and dedicated Leica photographer designs a special edition of the iconic Leica Q

Wetzlar, 12 February 2018 – Leica Camera AG presents a new version of its high- performance compact camera with full-frame sensor and fast prime lens: the Leica Q ‘Snow’ by Iouri Podladtchikov. This limited edition has been created in collaboration with Swiss Olympic gold medallist, World Champion snowboarder (halfpipe) Iouri Podladtchikov, whose own ideas inspired the design of the camera.

The Leica Q ‘Snow’ by Iouri Podladtchikov is based on the coloured version of the Leica Q with a silver anodised top deck and baseplate and controls on the top deck in silver. The design concept also features a new accessory shoe cover made from aluminium. The highlights of the special edition include the pure white trim in premium real leather that gives it its name. The edition is also strictly limited to only 300 pieces for the worldwide market, each of which bears a special serial number.

In the words of the dedicated Leica photographer: “As a brand ambassador, it’s a fascinating feeling to have inspired a special edition of a camera, but I also see it as an enormous responsibility”. Interestingly, his choice of the colour white doesn’t just relate to snow – perhaps the obvious choice for a snowboarder: “White, for me, also means ‘carte blanche’ – it’s up to you. It’s time to get creative” explains, Iouri Podladtchikov, who has already published two books of his photography and will soon be opening his own studio.

The Leica Q ‘Snow’ by Iouri Podladtchikov is presented as a set complete with a case in soft white leather and a colour-matched carrying strap and will be available from March 2018 for £4,300 (including VAT).

The technical specifications of the Leica Q ‘Snow’ by Iouri Podladtchikov are identical to those of standard model of the Leica Q. Thanks to its particularly fast Leica Summilux 28 mm f/1.7 ASPH. lens, the camera is perfect for photography in low light, for street photography, architecture and landscapes. To allow for reliable control of subject composition, the Leica Q also features an integrated viewfinder with a resolution of 3.68 MP. Even the finest details of every exposure are displayed without any perceptible lag as soon as the camera is brought up to the user’s eye.

All functions of the camera are clearly laid out and logically placed to guarantee perfect ergonomics. Its clear and logical menu concept provides rapid access to all essential functions and enables users to programme personalised settings.

The Leica Q also delivers video recordings in full-HD quality. Depending on the scene and subject, users can choose between 30 and 60 full frames per second for video recording in MP4 format. The camera also features an integrated Wi-Fi module for wireless transmission of still pictures and video and remote control by WLAN from a smartphone or a tablet with the Leica Q App.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Reuters photographers banned from Olympic opening ceremony over leaked photos

31 Jan

Reuters is in hot water with the IOC and PyeongChang Winter Olympics organizing committee after the news agency broadcast several images of the olympic cauldron being lit during an opening ceremony rehearsal this past weekend. The lapse—highly uncharacteristic for a major news agency with decades of experience respecting image embargoes—has gotten Reuters banned from covering the Opening Ceremony.

The news broke through the Yonhap News Agency, who is reporting that Reuters pulled the photos after the IOC and PyeongChang organizers complained.

However, as the damage had already been done, the IOC has decided to punish Reuters all the same, revoking the agency’s media accreditation for the Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 9th. Furthermore, the Reuters photographer who took the leaked photos has been banned from covering the games altogether.

The PyeongChang organizing committee wants to make it clear that violating Olympic media embargoes is being taken very seriously, telling Yonhap that it will “enforce strong penalties on media companies and their reporters who disobey embargoes of the opening and closing ceremonies.”

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Shooting an Olympic sailor in action using remote high speed sync

12 Nov

This article was originally published on Luminous Landscapes, and is being republished in full on DPReview with express permission from Terry McDonagh.


In January of last year, I was commissioned to shoot some dramatic action shots of an Olympic sailor; however, I did some image research and wasn’t overly impressed by any images I found, so I decided that a good approach would be to try and light the subject and by doing so I could afford to underexpose the available light.

This would help add to the drama, plus in doing so I would be able to get some light into the water spray coming off the boat. In order to get this shot, I needed to freeze the action using a high shutter speed and combine that with flash, so how was I going to achieve all that?

Obviously, I needed to use flash, but I knew I would be shooting at a high shutter speed, so it had to be high-speed sync (HSS). The beauty of HSS is that it allows you to shoot at a high shutter speed whilst still syncing the flash, which was unheard of a few years ago.

I decided that I would use two flashes, both for the extra power and to avoid any redundancy due to the high risk of this particular situation. I was attaching a flash to a boat which could easily capsize, and I was doing it in January when, due to it being 3°C, the batteries weren’t going to last too long. In other words: I was only getting one chance to nail this job, so I had to minimize the chances of anything going wrong.

Flashes facing Starboard

I had used HSS before, but never remotely and not on the water, which was all a bit daunting.

To prepare, I did a bit of research on trigger systems and decided on a Phottix Laso trigger for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it would trigger my Canon 600EX-RT directly, via the built-in radio on the flash. Second, it came with a separate receiver for my Canon 580 EX-ll, which meant I could control both units remotely from one base unit. And finally, the receiver had a metal hot-shoe mount, which I wanted, as I knew that the gear was going to get bounced around out there so I wasn’t risking any plastic hot-shoe mounts.

Flying along flashes pointing to starboard

The next part of the jigsaw puzzle was the batteries, as HSS is really hard on batteries and the faster the shutter speed, the higher the power drain. I did some more research and came across some ‘Panasonic Eneloop pro rechargeable’s’, apparently the best. I purchased a few sets of them, tested them in the cold, and found they were amazing.

Which brought me to my next major problem: waterproofing the flash units. There was a strong chance that they would be submerged if the boat capsized, and having sailed a Lazer, the boat that I would be shooting, a few times, I knew that these boats flip over very easily. To counter this issue, I developed a triple bagging system using some freezer bags.

When I submerged the flash in a bucket of water to test, it stayed watertight: Happy Days!

The trick was to place one bag over the complete unit and then mount it to the hot-shoe. Then I placed another bag over this, but upside down, and a third one over the spigot so that it was completely sealed.

Flashes bagged up and tethered.

Then it was just a matter of pushing the spigot into the Manfrotto clamp which was attached to the boom of the boat.

Flashes pointing to port.

I headed down to the yacht club to do a technical recce and try to attach the gear to the boat and figure out all my settings.

I settled on mounting the units upside down, firstly so that the sail would not damage them, and also because I was afraid they might rotate with any impacts, plus I reckoned there would be fewer forces on them if they were not top heavy. I used a Manfrotto super clamp as it has a secondary safety lock, so I was able to instruct Annalise how to open the clamp and rotate the speed-lights.—every time she did a tack she rotated the units so they were always facing her, and she was brilliant at doing it. Her sailing wasn’t too shabby either.

Total control

So, I had designed a system that I could remotely fire, adjust exposure and rotate, and it was waterproof… pretty cool! Next thing was to get out there and see how it all worked.

On the day of the shoot, conditions were perfect: overcast, but with some nice contrast. I was getting a light reading of around 1/640 @ F3.2 iso 500. I underexposed by around two stops to try and get some drama into the images but without making it look too much like nighttime.

We headed out to sea about 4 km out as that’s where the wind was and I wanted little or no background buildings etc. in the images. To preserve the batteries I left the units off until we reached our destination, This proved to be a bit of a mistake as the boats were dancing around a lot, so much so that I almost fell in trying to locate the switches on both speed-lights and the receiver, and through the Ziploc bags it proved very tricky.

Luckily my very quick-witted boatman spotted this and grabbed me at the last moment, otherwise I honestly would have gone into the water with a 5DSr and a 70-200mm lens plus my phone etc. Thank god is all I can say.

We shot for approximately an hour, as that was long enough for both Annalise and me, and the batteries were getting very low on energy. I reckoned I had the images I needed in the bag.

Annalise loving the conditions.

I was shooting on a Canon 5DSr with a 70-200mm lens. Final settings were 1/640 @F3.2 and iso160. I had considered using a faster camera but the flash wouldn’t have kept up with it so I just stuck with the higher 50MP camera, which was important as we were using the image on billboards etc. so the higher the quality the better.

The shoot worked out brilliantly. The hardest bit was trying to maintain focus on Annalise, and trying to keep the horizon level; plus, watching all the other elements meant that after an hour of this type of thing you’re pretty burnt out.

When we finished, Annalise nearly fainted when she heard that there was approximately €2k worth of gear attached to her boat. She said had she known she wouldn’t have sailed so hard! I didn’t believe that for one minute.

Wind just died, time for home.

Based in Dublin, Terry works for leading advertising, design and architectural agencies throughout Ireland and often abroad in the areas of industry, architecture, products, people and food.

He provides a fast and reliable digital retouching and manipulation when required, and shoots live action commercials too. Feel free to contact Terry for more information.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Amazon Calm: Rio’s Deteriorating Olympic Games Venues

27 Feb

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

abandoned-rio-olympics-1h

Barely completed in time, venues at the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil are going south in a big way now that the athletes have left.

abandoned-rio-olympics-1m

The Games of the XXXI Olympiad – Rio 2016 for short – were meant to do for Brazil what the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing did for China: announce the host nation’s arrival on the world stage.

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Critics of Rio’s winning bid were placated by that old chestnut; “hosting the Games will bring improved infrastructure and services that will benefit residents far into the future.” So how’s that working out, less than a year after the circus left town?

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Rio’s Olympics weren’t all that popular with cariocas (Rio de Janiero-ians) from the get-go, and let’s recall that Brazil’s economy was booming back in October of 2009 when the Games were awarded. In 2014, a massive financial scandal coupled with the onset of Brazil’s worst economic recession since 1990 put a huge financial squeeze on preparations for the Games. With funds tighter than a gymnast’s tendons, corners were cut and, well, you know the story – it’s a wonder the Games were as problem-free as they appeared on TV.

abandoned-rio-olympics-1j

abandoned-rio-olympics-1k

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Good thing Rio’s poorer residents had so much to look forward to once the Games ended. Too bad their hopes focused on looting the lightly-guarded facilities of anything valuable – payback, of a sort, for their sense of disenfranchisement and a conviction that the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games were the rich and powerful. These images depict the jewel in Rio’s Olympic crown, Maracanã Stadium, mere months after the Games ended with a bang at the Closing Ceremonies.

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Amazon Calm Rios Deteriorating Olympic Games Venues

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Double-Helix Bridge Design for Beijing Based on Abstracted Olympic Symbol

23 Jul

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

double helix bridge 1

The Olympic symbol consisting of five interlinked circles is stretched out and rotated until the links create a three-dimensional double helix formation in this bridge design, which is scheduled to become reality in Beijing in time for the Olympic Winter Games in 2022. China has already made it clear that it’s willing to go big when it comes to Olympic architecture, filling Beijing with a series of massive structures for the 2008 Summer Olympics, and it aims to make its next turn hosting just as memorable. The San Shan Bridge (3 Mountains Bridge) by architecture firm Penda will connect Beijing with the city of Zhangjiakou, where most of the outdoor events for the Games will take place.

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160612_SanShanBridge_structure diagram

 

 

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bridge 2

Spanning China’s Gui River, the San Shan Bridge is supported by the double-helix structure made up of three sets of undulating steel arches that cross above and below the road surface, dipping into the water. The deck is suspended from the higher arches using high-strength steel cables in a woven pattern. Four vehicular lanes are edged with greenery, which separates the cars from pedestrian paths on either side. Using up to 5 times less steel than a conventional box girder bridge, the design is slim and lightweight in appearance despite its big visual impact.

bridge 1

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double helix bridge 2

The region surrounding the bridge is a popular recreation spot for locals and tourists alike, with booming growth leading to a need for more infrastructure. The bridge will not only provide a crucial (and highly memorable) artery from the city to the Olympic events, it’ll be a central component of the Beijing Expansion Masterplan. Nearly 1500 feet long, the bridge will take a few years to construct, but should be done by the time the Beijing Horticultural Expo 2019 rolls around.

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Field Test: Canon PowerShot G5 X on the Olympic Peninsula

16 Mar

The Olympic Peninsula is a year-round destination, as its lakes, rivers and temperate rain forests attract hikers and wildlife enthusiasts even in the winter months. It’s just the kind of place you’d expect to find someone like Kyle Johnson, a freelance photographer and avid fly fisherman. Hoping to give the local Steelhead population a run for its money and to try out the Canon PowerShot G5 X in the wild, DPR staffer Carey Rose joined Kyle at Lake Quinalt for our latest field test. 


This is sponsored content, created with the support of Canon. What does this mean?

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

 
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Junked Ship: Japan Ditches Hadid’s 2020 Olympic Stadium Design

25 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

japan stadium hadid ditched

Scheduled to land like an otherworldly spacecraft in Tokyo, the curvaceous, controversial but competition-winning National Stadium designed for the 2020 Olympics by Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) will be restarted from scratch.

tokyo stadium design

The structure has been criticized for everything from its mounting construction costs to its design that arguably clashes with the surrounding historic portions of the city and violates local height limits. After years of growing issues and complaints, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe finally announced a change of course: “We have decided to go back to the start on the Tokyo Olympics-Paralympics stadium plan, and start over from zero. I have been listening to the voices of the people for about a month now, thinking about the possibility of a review.”

tokyo stadium plans

tokyo stadium interior

Intended to be a sports center to last a century, the price tag has repeatedly climbed beyond original estimates, recently reaching a reported $ 2,000,000,000, in part due to expensive materials but also the complex shape. A number of Japanese architects also weighed in, signing a petition to scrap the project – Hadid, meanwhile, as a London-based Iraqi architect, has contended that their criticism is based on the selection of a designer from outside of the country.

tokyo stadium at night

Whether the 80,000-seat stadium will now be designed by another firm or simply restarted by Zaha Hadid is unclear as yet, but 7 years after she won the competition for this concept one might hope they will give her another chance to cut costs or come up with an alternative. For now, her firm has officially defended the direction they took, claiming the icon is worth the cost and comparable to other world-class sporting arenas in major cities around the globe and that local labor costs are part of the problem: “We have used our experience on major sports and cultural projects, including the hugely successful London 2012 Games and legacy, to design a stadium that can be built cost-effectively and still deliver the flexible and robust National Stadium that the Japan Sports Council requires.” Perhaps the final design solution will more closely mimic the famously futuristic 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympic Games as predicted and portrayed in the famous 1988 anime Akira.

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