Today was the first day in weeks without shooting any sports, so I took some time to return camera gear to Canon (thanks CPS!!!!!), turn in my locker keys, and just check myself out of Olympic mode for another year and a half. I spent some time with my friend, Vitor, cruising around rainy Rio today, and did a little eating and shopping.
Now I am back at the hotel to write this blog for all of you, before heading out for some dinner. And this time, it will NOT be the Olympic Park hamburger!
Today's blog shows my photos from a visit to the wrestling venue. And it was a fun time shooting this sport.
The first wrestling matches were preliminary rounds, and not medal matches. It was good for me to get used to photographing the sport before the medal rounds. This guy was from Puerto Rico and I loved his hair. Yeah - I am jealous.
There were also times when the athletes were in weird positions.
My leg hurts just looking at this shot.
Due to the fact that these guys are constantly fighting for position, it is not often that I could get a clean shot with both of their faces, when they were down on the mat. This was one of those shots when I had both athletes visible in the frame.
A take down.
I mentioned that there are times when the guys are in strange positions. This is one of those times.
Then it was on to the bronze medal match with J'den Cox from the United States against Cuba's Reineris Salas Perez.
Not knowing the sport very well, I just shot the match and was looking for those key high energy moments.
And then something amazing happened.
The US team challenged a take down call, and J'den waited to hear the outcome.
His friends were all pleading for the correct call to be made.
And then when it was announced that the call was made in J'den's favor, his family celebrated.
I love the emotion in this guy's face!!
Needless to say, Reineris was not too pleased with the call, and he refused to come back onto the mat for the last 6 seconds of the match.
He was disqualified and J'den was announced the winner. Reineris was so upset that he would not even join them on the mat for the final decision to be announced.
J'den went crazy with excitement, which was a perfect photo opportunity.
He turned towards me and gave me this! How is that for emotion?
After he ran around the mat for a minute or two, he immediately went over to his parents. Even through the camera, I could see his family members crying with joy, knowing their boy just won an Olympic medal.
He then hopped over the gate and joined in on the party. This my friends is why I love photographing the Olympics. There are so many great moments to capture with our cameras!
As I said at the beginning of the bog, I still have 3 or 4 more sporting events to blog and then a blog from the Closing Ceremony. So stay tuned for those. Until then...
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Thank you for doing what true sports fans do... Show up to see what happens.
ReplyDeleteAs they always say you have to play the game.
The skill you have with your camera, to capture the story, is true genius.
Thank you! We'll save this forever!
ReplyDelete