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!

SHOOTING SPORTS: TIPS FROM THE PROS

Former Editor for Sports Illustrated and Newsweek, Jimmy Colton has put together a fantastic piece about tips for sports photography on the NPPA site. Includes images and words by legends like Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer, and insight into their greatest photographs. I’m honored to have been included in this group. Check it out:https://nppa.org/news/shooting-sports-tips-pros

Lime Rock Motorsports Photography Workshop 2012!!!

Copyright Jackie Buys, 2010 student.

Capturing the speed and beauty of auto racing is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of sports photography. The Lime Rock Park Motorsports Photography Workshop offers you the opportunity to learn and improve your skills at the most scenic race track in North America. Legendary George Tiedemann and I are the instructors this year and  Lime Rock is offering both one-day and two-day workshops during Historic Festival 31, August 30 – September 2, 2013. To learn more about this great weekend of photography and racecars go to  to sign up now go to http://www.motorsportsphotoworkshop.com. Spaces will fill up quickly!!!

Motorsports Photography Workshop IIII
Historic Festival 31 on Labor Day Weekend
August 30 – September 2, 2013
Lime Rock Park, Conn.

Truly amazing picture taken by Julian Finney, Getty Images Photographer of Andy Murray on The Times cover today

Saw this images posted on twitter today by Huffington Post, Stern, and Times. Awesome cover shot of Andy Murray making history with the entire country behind him after a 77 year drought for the UK at Wimbledon. Congrats to Andy on his Championship and to Julian on this great image that captures the moment!

copyright Julian Finney/Getty Images for The Times

Donald Miralle/2.8 Sports Photography Workshop in Torino, Italy September 14th&15th, 2013!

This September 14th & 15th in Torino, Italy 2.8 Quarterly Collection of Photography and MAJOR4LIFE are presenting my Sports Photography Workshop! This will be a two day hands-on workshop, with lectures and shooting in the field  in Torino Italy! More details to follow soon, but space is limited so signup or get more information at http://www.dueeotto.com or email info@dueeotto.com. Hope to see you there!!!

Gallery: “World Champion Sebastien Kienle” – LAVA Magazine Cover

If the phrase “World Champion” precedes your name you’re pretty much a bad-ass. Sebastien Kienle is no exception. The 2012 70.3 World Champion hailing from Germany was in the lead at his first Kona Ironman World Championships last year, en route to crush the bike course record, when not only did he manage to get one flat tire, but two. And he still finished fourth at the end of the day.

I caught up with Kienle in St. George Utah before his 70.3 race there, to shoot him for the July cover of Lava Magazine. After hanging out with him for a couple days I realized the guy’s a machine, down to earth, and he will be in the lead again in Kona. I used my Nikon D800 paired with the Pocket Wizard Flex TT with the new beta firmware, to consistently freeze action shooting over 1000th of a second synched with profoto 7b strobes! Here are some of my favorite pics from our shoot, hope you enjoy!

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Gallery: “Beauty and the Beasts” – Pacific Magazine Cover

If you don’t know who Ocean Ramsey is, fire up a google search and you’ll recognize a viral video of graceful woman swimming with a 15-foot great white shark with no cage!  She’s part ocean and shark conservationist, part free-diving bad-ass, and part model/athlete. I had the great opportunity to shoot her in Oahu, Hawaii for this month’s Pacific San Diego Magazine Cover.

I knew they were my kind of people when they pulled up in their 4X4 towing a wave runner and asked if I still felt up to free-diving with tiger sharks. Unfortunately, just like anything else in the ocean, it’s all dependent on the conditions and mother nature and the wind were not cooperating with us that week. Regardless, we dove in underwater caves, swam with dolphins, and took some great pics along the way.  It was a pleasure to meet her and her partner Juan Oliphant, whose passion for the ocean and sharks is truly inspirational. To learn more about Juan and Ocean go to waterinspired.com and read the online article of Pacific Magazine here. Here are some of the images that made it into the mag and some outtakes, hope you enjoy and as always your feedback is appreciated!!!

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Dick’s Sporting Goods Running Shoot

Panoramic view of runners on the boardwalk in the Palmetto Marsh.

Once again I had the great opportunity to do a campaign with Dick’s Sporting Goods for their upcoming 2013 Running Catalogue and commercial imagery. The assignment was in Charleston, South Carolina for about 4 days where we had the chance to shoot in some very beautiful spots which included the streets of old plantation houses, Palmetto Marsh, and the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge. Shooting running was similar to shooting golf, looking for the right light is key for making the picture successful.

Beautiful evening for a run at Shem Creek in Charleston, SC.

The weather was all over the place, one moment it would be sunny with some scattered clouds, the next it would be dumping buckets of rain. Luckily we decided to take some pictures in the late afternoon after the 1st day of scouting and ended up with some beautiful running shots with the sun setting in the background over the marsh and some shrimping boats. On the 2nd day we had pumped out most of the shots that we needed at the marsh trails in the morning and the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge before the rain started coming down hard around noon. At one point we sat in the trailer with the crew and all the models trying to wait for the rain to pass.

The crew waits out the rain in our production trailer. Thankfully we had good company and good food!

The highlights of the shoot for me were watching the sun come up over the Palmetto Marsh (and squeezing in our shots before the rain came!) and closing down the streets of downtown Charleston for our marathon shot. Here’s a funny video my assistant Brandon Magnus took of me directing traffic:

We also had one free shoot day when we decided to shoot youth soccer to fill in some content for the Dicks library. It’s always a nice change of pace when you go from shooting refined professional athletes-slash-models to young kids who just want to play sport. We couldn’t hope to direct or even contain the little monsters, so for the most part we set up game situations and had them run through it while I shot, which worked perfectly.

General view of marathon with street closure in the streets of downtown Charleston.

This was another fantastic experience and pleasure to work with Dick’s Sporting Goods team, and I look forward to our next shoot together! Big thanks to Scott Lenz, Peter Ahi, Kim McEniry, Barry Berenson, Pat Hugg, Zach Schefer, Brandon Magnus and most of all to local photographer John Smoak who made this great shoot come together and did everything from scouting, to permits, to holding a reflector…

My First Image in National Geographic Magazine

Since I was a child and my parents had a subscription to National Geographic Magazine, escaping to remote locations, excavating ruins and experiencing exotic animals was always just a page flip away. For me NGM has always been the gold standard for not only nature and conservation but also great photography. David Dubilet’s surreal underwater scenes, Steve McCurry’s Afghan girl, Chris Johns Camel’s crossing the Sahara, Paul Nicklin’s Emperor Penguins, and the list of amazing photography in the magazines 125 year history goes on and on. I am honored to have one of my favorite images, the underwater view of the mass swim start from the 2011 Kona Ironman World Champs that won World Press Photo in 2012, published as a double page spread in the March edition of National Geographic Magazine’s Visions of Earth section. It’s always been a dream of mine to be published in the magazine and can’t thank NGM enough for deeming my photograph worthy to be in the same pages as the greats. Pick up your copy of National Geographic today or go to their website here and order your own custom print of my image!