Home to Canada – don’t buy TSA locks!
After being away on my Olympic assignment for a total of 21 days I am glad to now be back in Canada. My travel home went reasonably smoothly except that once again my Pelican equipment shipping box was opened on each leg of the journey by airport security services. Now, in principal, I have no [...]
Final Olympic Post – 2008
I am writing my final blog of this Olympics from my hotel room where we are virtually locked in by Hurricane Nuri that will shortly make a direct hit on Hong Kong. As I am writing the TV is informing me that the hurricane is gaining strength and we are going from Hurricane warning 8 [...]
Doping scandal hits equestrian events
In a sad turn of events this evening 4 riders have been suspended after horses tested positive for banned substances. If upheld this will affect at least the bronze medal winners. The riders involved are Chritian Ahlmann of Germany, Bernardo Alves of Brazil, Denis Lynch of Ireland and Tony Andre Hansen of Norway. I cannot [...]
Tropical Cyclone approaches Olympic Facilities
The weather has been kind to us up until now. Tonight it looks like it will be on with the rain covers for cameras and lenses as we are suddenly faced with oncoming Typhoon Nuri. Below is the warning just posted in the media centre – happy days!! Tropical Cyclone Bulletin Here is the latest [...]
Almost the end
As I approach the final event of the equestrian Olympics I look back on what overall has been a very positive experience. Although of course, with any event of this size, there have been a few problems, some of which I have outlined in this blog, the organization, transportation system, information, volunteer system, etc. has [...]
One more day to go
We are almost there, tonight was the individual dressage medals and I think I have finally got the hang of shooting this discipline. It only took me a total of 4185 dressage photos, and that is just the keepers. I must say I shan’t be sorry to not be shooting dressage for quite a while. [...]
How many photographers can actually be working at this event?
The accreditations for this event are totally out of proportion with the possible numbers of outlets for the images taken. Due to the fact that the equestrian events are taking place at a venue other than Beijing accreditations have been done on a specialist sports basis and it seems that virtually anyone who could afford [...]
The Great God of TV
It has become apparent that tis Olympics is not run for the benefit of the thousands of ticket buying public, the equestrian athletes, and certainly not the written press. The ridiculous scheduling of events that finish at midnight or later are solely for the benefit of the great god Television. Each evenings event starts with [...]
Canon loses photographers to Nikon
Take a good look at the photo above. If this image, which was taken at the Olympic Pool in Beijing, were to have been made 4 years ago in Athens, you would have been hard pressed to have found a black Nikon lens among all the white Canons. Suddenly there is around 50/50 of Nikon [...]
Another exhausting day!
Finishing transmitting dressage pictures at 3.00am, then getting up again at 7.00am to take a cultural tour to Victoria Peak, and the floating fishing village at Aberdeen is probably not the most sensible thing to do, but a break from the Olympic venue seemed like a good idea. At least I got a few hours [...]
Dressage team medal day
The first dressage medals were awarded today and surprise surprise, Germany Gold and Netherlands Silver. Don’t know why the others even bother turning up! At least this evening was a little cooler so the poor photographers suffered a little less. One of the big problems here has been the incredibly high humidity. Fortunately the organisation [...]
Olympic Dressage starts
Well, as anyone following this blog will now realize, yesterday’s post did not get updated – mainly due to intermittent failures of the internet connections all day. It’s now official! “Dressage is boring!” According to a report in the South China News, its reporter attended the three-day-event dressage and for most of the competition was [...]
Olympic eventing medal day
Well, things have changed from early morning starts to early morning finishes. I am writing this post at 1.50am while waiting for my images of the leading riders of the three day event to upload – need less to say it will be a short post! Who said that the life of a sports photographer [...]
Additional items for sale
In addition to the items mentioned in an earlier post I now have 2 D2x cameras for sale. Both are in excellent condition and have been serviced by Nikon. These cameras cost over $5000 when new only about 18 months ago and for sale at just $1350 each complete with manuals, battery charger etc. Also [...]
Olympics day 3 – eventing cross country
Today started reasonably well with a much more relaxed attitude by the security guards enabling us to get out of the media hotel reasonably quickly and get out to Beas River near the Chinese/Hong Kong border for the three day event cross country. Unfortunately it started to rain on the journey and by the time [...]
Olympic Day 2
Yesterdays second session of the eventing dressage produced little in the way of excitement except for yet another Tibetan independence protest, although this time it was squashed very quickly, perhaps orders had come down from Beijing! Finishing at 10.00pm, then downloading the files, captioning, sorting, throwing out the outtakes took until midnight. I must say [...]
First Day of Competition
It was fortunate that yesterday was only the veterinary inspection as the rain was torrential pretty much all day, the last remnants of the recent typhoon which skirted around Hong Kong. Today was the first day of competition with the first rider being previous Olympic Champion Mark Todd of New Zealand with a 6.30am start [...]
No further postings until Saturday 9 August
I will be travelling to Hong Kong to cover the equestrian events at the Beijing Olympics on Tuesday 9 August. There will likely be no more posts until Saturday 9 unless there is some major breaking news or I am stranded at an airport somewhere!
Latest Nature news roundup
Worlds smallest snake discovered The world’s smallest snake, averaging just 10cm (4 inches) and as thin as a spaghetti noodle, has been discovered on the Caribbean island of Barbados. The snake – named Leptotyphlops carlae – is the smallest of the 3,100 known snake species and was uncovered by Dr Blair Hedges, a biologist from [...]