Day 5 – Fencing & Phelps

My main assignment the first week of the Olympics is taking the lead to cover the aquatics sports for Sports Illustrated, and ou side of that I’ve been trying to get in as many venues and sports as I can during my Olympics. So I checked out fencing which I only shoot every four years but always makes a photo. Then I was able to photograph another golden night for Michael Phelps in the 200m Butterfly, his first Olympic event he ever qualified for as a 15 year old. 

It was such an epic race between him and Chad Le Clos in London, and this one was a close contest but Phelps came out on top. Ledecky also brought home another gold, she’ll probably end up with four by end of the games and is in a league of her own.

Here are some of my favorites…enjoy!

Day 2 – Multisport Marathon

Today I decided to scout out the Rio Centro area that holds Badminton, boxing, weightlifting, and table tennis before heading to swimminginals in the evening. I was relieved to find these venues, like many here in rio are well lit and have decent shooting positions of you can get to them. That’s one thing I live about shooting the games is the strategy involved just in the timing of things like the bus schedule, different sports schedules at varying venues, and finally being able to walk into a venue and either find the shot quickly or plan ahead for one.

After shooting a Multisport Marathon at Rio Centro, I went back to Olympic park to shoot swimming finals which ended up being an epic night with three New World Records! The men’s 100m breast, women’s 100m fly and women’s 400m free all fell in spectacular fashion, and the night ended with the USA taking the gold in the 4×100 free relay. It was awesome…

Day 1: Swimming

Spent the day on (and under the pool deck), an exciting day with a couple broken world records in Men’s 100m breast and Women’s 400im. Here’s a few of my underwater photos, which I was happy with. While shooting for Sports Illustrated at Rio, our images are being directly ingested from our cameras as they are shooting through an ethernet cable into their servers, a great system for ease of transfer for photographers and editors! So many of my photos from the events I don’t see until a day or two later. But I will post them as I back them up, so you can follow along!

Let the Games Begin!

After a bit of a hectic bus ride, with our bus driver getting lost en route to Maracana Stadium, I got in cue with thousands of other media members trying to find our seats for the opening ceremonies. I thought five hours would be enough to lead time to beat the traffic and crowds and get into my position ready to cover, but I was wrong. With inexperienced bus drivers along routes that are blocked by police, no signage and staff to direct foot traffic at venues, and long lines at security, I’m going to get used to allocating a lot more time to get into events.

The best part was once I found my marked seat in the photographer position and finally prepared all my cameras in anticipation for these art of the ceremony, with one minute left before the kickoff all hell broke loose. Several irate Brazilian ticket holders tried to kick the media out of our seats, waving their tickets in our faces saying we stole their seats. As we also had identical tickets it became quite apparent that someone had double ticketed our section which was supposed to be for photographers. After the commotion settled and we missed much of the opening minutes of the ceremony, we all just found empty seats and continued on.

The ceremony itself was entertaining, with a nice mix of Brazilian culture and colorful costumes and fireworks. Gisele Bunchen walked the longest runway if her life in a tight fitting dress, an early airplane flying out of the stadium and virtually continuing through the the famous parts of Rio, and the Olympic Rings exploding upward via fireworks were some of the highlights. After a very long procession of athletes (2.5 hours) some nice performances and speeches were given, especially by the President of the BOC to commence the games. 

Here’s some more of my favorite photos…enjoy!

Hours away before the start of the Games!!!

With the Olympic flame making its way to Maracana Stadium to light the Olympic cauldron, you can feel the excitement in the media center and around town. I just jumped into one of several packed buses of journalists and photographers making their pilgrimage to document the “official” start of the Rio Olympics. 

Here’s a selection of some of the other fireworks displays from the Opening Ceremonies I’ve had a chance to cover…

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Setting up underwater cameras at Rio 2016 Olympic Aquatics

We always have to get the Olympics several days before the start to get acclimated, scope out venues and schedule, and start setting up cameras. The underwater venues take extra time in setting up the underwater remote cameras. Back when I started doing the underwater cameras 16 years ago, there was only a couple of us in the water, now the coverage under the surface since the Beijing games has really expanded with up to 10 cameras down there at a time, including large and expensive robotic rigs, that can shoot at any 180 degree angle with zoom, focus, liveview and preset shot functions as well.

Shooting for Sports Illustrated at these Olympics, the plan has been to have my static Aquatech camera in the swimming venue and the robust robotics rig in the diving/water polo/synchronized swimming venue. Here’s a couple behind the scenes photos and videos of our underwater setup, which wouldn’t be possible without the help of the consummate professionals like dive master Simon Lodge that the BOC and FINA place on the pool deck to facilitate the installation.

Be sure to check out my instagram feed @donaldmiralle as well as Sports Illustrated’s and the rest of the team of great photographers we have here covering Rio!

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Day -2 First competition of the Rio Olympics: Women’s Soccer!

There are a lot of photographers itching to get going and start shooting actual events, so it was nice to get a jump start on the Games with football starting on Day -2. One of the sites for football is at Olympic Stadium, which is also the site for the athletics, it was quiet enjoyable shooting SWE vs RSA and BRA v CHI, especially with all of the Brazilian fans! Here are a couple of my favorite plus some behind the scenes. Be sure to check out my instagram feed @donaldmiralle as well as Sports Illustrated’s and the rest of the team of great photographers we have here covering Rio…Enjoy!

BEST OF LONDON OLYMPICS

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After 18 days of sleep and food deprivation chasing around the world’s greatest athletes at the London Olympic Games, my cameras shot over 20,000 images at my seventh Olympic Games I have covered as a photographer. The hardest part of the assignment other than logistics and transport is the editing of these photos and cutting them down to the best of the best, which is about .5% or less than a hundred photos. Now that the dust has settled and I am back in sunny San Diego with my family, looking back at my experiences and I realize how blessed I am to have documented the spectacle of the Olympics again. There were some great memories and images made over the course of two and a half weeks, and here is a gallery highlighting my adventures in London. Thank you all for reading my posts, looking at the photos, and motivating me with your kind notes during my journey. Special thanks to Beth Johnson and Katherine Harris from NEWSWEEK Daily Beast for having me cover the games for them, David Leah of Mexsport for sorting out my accommodations in the UK, Simon Lodge and the crew at Lodge Scuba for assisting in the underwater camera placement and aquatics, Head Photo Chief Bob Martin and his support staff that made great angles possible, William Pekala and Sarah Moosbrugger of Nikon, Brandon Magnus in my San Diego office making sure the photos and posts were published, all my fellow photographer for their friendship, and most importantly my wife and kids for dealing with my absence and supporting me along the way. As the Olympic motto states Citius, Altius and Fortius “Faster, Higher, Stronger”, the games really brings out the best of what humans are capable of, whether it be in sports, photography, or the human spirit. Thanks for following my journey and hope to  do it again in a couple years body and mind willing!!!

LONDON OLYMPICS – Day 14 Recap

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In my last full day of shooting, I was excited to cover Team Synchronized Swimming and Athletics highlighted Bolt going for the gold repeat in the 200m final. It was going to be a long day with having to set up the underwater remote at the pool, break it down and pack up my locker there, and then make it over to the track and get a descent shooting spot for the 200M. Setting up remotes for athletics was out of the question because I couldn’t get there in time to do so, and I actually would rather just focus on the event with my cameras in my hands.

In team synchronized swimming, Russia leads all teams into the free routines with a score of 98.100 points after performing a perfectly executed Russian Dance theme. China, bronze medalists in Beijing 2008, finished second with 97.000 while Great Britain, finished seventh with 87.300 at its first team event in the Olympic Games. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge made an appearance up in the stands behind me, cheering for Team GB and I got my paparazzi shots in. I was very happy with the photos I ended up shooting at the synch swimming, especially the underwater camera which was placed at the one position that I knew they would pass through, at the start where they entered the water. For this shot you have to focus slightly outside the water from the bottom of the pool, so my friend Al Bello stood on the pool deck while I focused from the bottom.

At the track, I decided to shoot from from the end of the photo moat just around the bend from the finish line, which had given me great results for the finish and also more importantly for the initial reaction and jubo of athletes. After settling down in a spot I was happy, the rest of the photographers around me were very accommodating and we spent the three hours waiting for Bolt shooting the shit.

It was no surprise that not only Usain Bolt led the Jamaicans into a sweep in the 200 meter sprint for the gold, silver, and bronze, but that the OBS Handheld video guys ran out on the track immediately (and I mean right after!) the athletes crossed the finish line and smothered them with their wide angle lenses, blocking all still photographers from getting a clean shot of the action. At the London Olympics it is really sad and disgusting how bad the TV invasion of the athletes personal space has become immediately after they cross the finish line. I really hope one of the athletes complains (especially when their cameras are a couple inches from their face after they are crying from losing an event) because TV barely gives room for the athlete to move. So most photographers got a great shot of the back of the head of the video idiot, rather than the   gold medalist.

The photo if the day came in them men’s 800M final where World Record Holder David Rudisha won his first Olympic gold medal with the kind of world-record performance that has made him almost untouchable the last three years. The 23-year-old Kenyan won the final with his long stride in 1 minute, 40.91 seconds, breaking his own record he set in 2010, and setting the first world record on the track at the London Olympics. After crossing the line, he pumped his fist while the other competitors threw their arms up in the air stunned, and continued to celebrate which made for great photos.

At the end of the night, it was a great feeling turning off the cameras for the last time in  London, knowing that it was a job well done and I would soon be home in San Diego with my family. Before I rolled out, I said goodbye to a handful of photographers in the trenches from all over the world who come together every four years to document the best in the world going higher, faster and stronger.

LONDON OLYMPICS – Day 14 Photo of the Day

LONDON, ENGLAND – AUGUST 9:  Team Australia enters the water during the Synchronized Swimming Team Competition, Day 14 of the London 2012 Olympic Games on August 8, 2012 at the Aquatics Center, Olympic Park in London, England. (Photo by Donald Miralle) Nikon D4  Lens: 16mm  Aperture: F3.5  Shutter 1/2000th sec  ISO:3200.  Aquatech NY-4 housing with a LP-3 Dome Port. Triggered with Pocket Wizard Plus III’s via cable.