Venue Acclimation Day
With that in mind we all got together with our head guy and worked out who would be covering the big four sports of Basketball, Track and Field, Gymnastics and Swimming. I was assigned gymnastics, which isn’t too bad of an assignment due to my experience shooting it at the Pan Am Games in Brazil last summer as well as an Olympic qualifying event held in San Jose, CA earlier this year. It also doesn’t hurt to be shooting indoors which is huge given the tremendous heat and humidity outside.
Access was much better than I was initially expecting, which was a good thing, with one little (MAJOR) problem.
Backgrounds were absolutely brutal due to how free the photographer access was at the venue. We have access completely around the arena so it presented a problem of photographers in thr background of everyone’s shots. And when the gymnasts are up in the air then it will be broadcast people and reporters who will clutter the backgrounds.
The main USA gymnast who is projected to win multiple gold medals is Shawn Johnson so I spent a considerable amount of time shooting pics of her.
She seems like a really nice girl as she spent numerous times looking up at the swarm of media around her to flash a smile to the sounds of thousands of shutter clicks.
Most of the images from the training session were basically useless due to the empty seats in the background of most the shots. But it was still a good choice going because I now have a basic plan for how I intend to approach the competition.
After finishing up there I headed back to the Main Press Center to transmit the images and from there I headed back to the hotel with a massive headache (I believe due to the pollution and with that I went to bed before 8pm in what is probably gonna be the last time I get 8 hours of sleep in the time that I am here.
-Mark J. Rebilas is a freelance sports photographer based in Arizona. His work is seen regularly in Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, USA Today and many others around the country. Visit www.markjrebilas.com to learn more about his work.
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