2012 Olympic Games: Opening Ceremonies!

As most of the world knows, last night here in London there was a small show called the Opening Ceremonies officially opening the 2012 Summer Olympics. I was lucky enough to be there to capture images, and I am excited to share them all with you.

I will keep the text to a minimum and just share some quick stories...

We had to be in the stadium by 4:30 pm even though the show did not start until 9pm, so after spending an hour negotiating a better shooting position (which is usually a seat in a designated area), I went out to the general areas to shoot images of people dressed up for the occasion. Unfortunately, the people here in England don't go crazy like they do in the U.S. But, as you can tell, I did find some cool people to photograph.

And, of course, I had to capture an image of an American supporter.

Even an hour before the show began, they had people in character which was entertaining.

And then at 9pm, they did the countdown...

They had thousands of people reenacting different times in English history.

One of my favorite moments of the opening ceremonies was when the rings flew in and formed the Olympic logo.

 Awesome!

I even caught a picture of Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip, William, Kate, Harry, David and Samantha Cameron. That is a lot of royalty in one image!

I had to include this image in the blog. When I first saw this person flying through the air, I figured it was another performer, but nope, it was a videographer. Can you believe the extent that the networks will go to get that killer shot?

Amazing colors throughout the stadium.

Some of the Aussies enjoying their time walking in...and hamming it up for the TV cameras. (When I enlarged the image, I noticed that they all had notes written onto their hands.)

Everyone was having a great time.

After quite a long time, Team USA enters to arena.

Although difficult, I was able to find some of the water polo players in the large crowd of athletes.

The crowd went crazy when Great Britain made their entrance!

I took a risk and mounted my Sigma 15mm fisheye lens to my Canon 5D Mark III and I think it paid off when the fireworks started,

Nice of the flag carriers to come in by my photo position. :)

And, of course, you can't start the Olympics without the Olympic flame!

I hope you enjoyed the photos.