Photographer Mark J. Rebilas had to hustle to cover wrestling, water polo and beach volleyball at the 2008 Olympic Games. Check out his photos and his thoughts.

 

After yesterday where I only had one shoot and spent the rest of the time at the Great Wall of China, today was payback for my easy day. I shot five different events at five different venues.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 2000iso, f2.8, 1/1600^th

 

First event on tap was women’s beach volleyball semi final  match between the USA and Brazil with the winner going onto the gold medal game.

 Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f3.5, 1600^th

Backgrounds at beach volleyball are pretty cluttered so I tried my blue wall foreground shot that I had done at volleyball the other day. Not quite as dramatic without the black background but still cleaned the shot up a bit.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f4, 1/1600^th

For most of the match I set up directly in the middle of the court lined up with the net. By being there I could shoot either team without having to worry about shooting peoples backs. I liked the little bucket hat the ball girl was wearing so I used my wide body and got really close to her to shoot a pic. It didn’t come out as cool as I was hoping but its something different from all the other volleyball crap I’ve be shooting.

Nikon D3, 24-70mm, 200iso, f5.6, 1/1250^th

During time outs they would have these little cheerleaders come out and dance for the fans…..and photographers. I was having a boring game so I tried to get some cool looking pictures of the dancers to have something for this blog.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f4, 1/1600^th

She looks like she just stuck her finger in an electric socket eh?

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f3.2, 1/1600^th

I noticed towards the end of the match that a lot of the photographers had their 400mm lenses aimed into the crowd at something so I looked around and noticed several players from the USA Basketball team were in attendance. Since I hadn’t brought my 400mm I had to see what I could do with my 80-200mm from across court. I ended up lining myself up to get them watching from the crowd with a volleyball player leaping in the foreground. It worked out just as I had planned.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 200iso, f4, 1/1000^th

Following beach volleyball off I went to shoot some water polo. I lost one of my flashcards with some of the images on it which sucks but my favorite picture was of one of the Australian girls who had a black eye with the eye filled with blood. I wish I could have shot a more dramatic photo illustrating her eye closer up but this was as best as I ended up getting.

Nikon D3, 400mm with 1.4 convertor (550mm), 3200iso, f4, 1/1250^th

Cut out of there right after the match and went over to wrestling to shoot a few matches.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 2000iso, f2.8, 1/1600^th

After one of the wrestlers won his match he busted out a perfect front flip.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 200iso, f2.8, 1/1600th

The below photo makes me SOOOO glad I grew up shooting photos with my dad instead of joining a wrestling team or something. Our industry may be having crappy times but nothing can be that crappy!

Nikon D3, 400mm, 2000iso, f2.8, 1/1600^th

Then came that match I had gone there to shoot. USA competing for a gold medal.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 2000iso, f2.8, 1/1250^th

He ended up winning the gold medal and fell to the ground crying before getting up and celebrating with an American flag.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 200iso, f2.8, 1/1250^th

From there I headed over to shoot gymnastics (my LAST day of it!)

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 2500iso, f2.8, 1/1250^th

USA women won gold and silver in the balance beam so it was worth adding that to my schedule.

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 2500iso, f2.8, 1/1250^th

Final event of the day was men’s diving. Plain and simple, it sucked! The backgrounds were total crap and unless you had a pool vest there wasn’t too much you could do about it.

Nikon D3, 400mm, 4000iso, f4.5, 1/1000^th

I attempted to do some sort of cool motion blur shot but it just wasn’t in the cards for me this night as the crap photo below was as good as I got. Goodnight!

Nikon D3, 80-200mm, 100iso, f4.5, 1/30th

-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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