After 3 weeks of working myself to the bone we come to the final two days of the Olympics. Myself along with numerous other photographers I have been speaking to are just plain burned out. It has been a totally amazing experience that I am incredibly thankful to have been a part of but I am more than ready to come home. Continue Reading

After a very late evening the prior night it was a tough 7am wakeup call to head over to the BMX finals. Bike racing was certainly a sport right up my alley so I was more than happy to head out there. Continue Reading

Had the morning off from shooting so I caught up on some sleep and spent time chatting with friends back in the states on instant messenger before heading off to shoot the womens water polo gold medal game between the USA and Netherlands.

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I began my morning (which I was supposed to have off) by heading out to shoot the supposedly undefeatable U.S. Softball team.  It was generally assumed the U.S.A. would demoralize every team they played on their way to yet another gold medal. Continue Reading

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.

I started my day off by spending over an hour backing up images to my LaCie 500gig external hard drive since my macbook pro was down to less than a gig of memory. Due to the time it took to transfer everything I ended up missing my morning shoot of women’s triathlon. Oh darn!

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It was a relatively light day of two events to be covered. Began the day shooting some volleyball. When I arrived at the venue I noticed one of our other photographers there so I left the standard action images to him and attempted to do some blur shots. A lot of people hate blur shots where you don’t have something tack sharp but I was really enjoying the flurry of blurry players jumping and the ball streaking off their hands. Continue Reading

Check out this sweet page where you can scroll around and get a full 360 degree view from the photographer’s perch just before the men’s 100 meter race in Beijing. Continue Reading

My first shoot of the day was women’s field hockey. I wasn’t excited to shoot it and it ended up being one of the worst events I’ve shot since coming to Beijing. It would have been better had I brought my 600mm but with only a 400mm (on a full frame camera) it just wasn’t a good situation.

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Once again my day began covering gymnastics. This time it was the women’s individual all around final. (supposedly the biggest event in a gymnasts career) With as many days in a row as I have done with gymnastics I bypassed the normal routine of following all the gymnastics around from apparatus to apparatus to position myself in a good spot for the medal ceremony. Continue Reading

As with most days since the Olympics began I started my day off shooting gymnastics. This time it was the men’s individual all around competition. And once again it was an ass whipping by the China team.

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I started my day off at Gymnastics to shoot the women’s team all around final. China and USA were projected to go head to head for the gold and they certainly lived up to the predictions.

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Started my day off with a very healthy breakfast at McDonalds. One good thing about the Olympics is it doesn’t matter if you eat every meal at unhealthy fast food, you won’t gain weight with the amount of running around and work you’re doing.

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President George W. Bush said he was coming to the Olympics as ”the president of a friend, and I’m coming as a sportsman.” How presidential do you think G.W. appears in these photos? Write captions to let us know–we’ll post the winner here on AskthePhotographer.com.

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I gotta be honest, with the exception of the opening ceremonies, shooting Olympic events has been just another day another sport for me. Of course you have a lot more hassle such as the amount of media and being in a foreign country but after all that it is like any other event where you need to do what you do best and that’s shoot.

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The day began with me waking up at 7:55 needing to be at beach volleyball for a 9am USA Match. I threw my clothes on and was out the door at 8:05. I had just missed the shuttle to the media center, where my gear was, so I hopped a cab there since the next shuttle wasn’t until 8:30.  When I got there I quickly grabbed my gear and hopped another cab for the 20 minute ride to the venue. While we were driving it began to rain, hooray! Continue Reading

Been in China for a week now and am finally acclimated to the busy schedule as well as the culture shock. Now that Im as settled in as I’m gonna get I have no excuses not to perform at my best with the images I’m shooting. Just like the best athletes in the world are here it is basically similar with photographers as I find myself shooting alongside the best sports photogs in the world. Just knowing that is motivation enough to give it my all. Continue Reading

Today was the opening ceremonies for the Olympics. With all of the security plus the 150,000 fans who would be there it was imperative to get to the area several hours prior.

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