Jeff Cable's Blog: January 2022

Friday, January 28, 2022

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: NEW TURN OF EVENTS - I AM NOT GOING!

I just wrote a blog post on Monday telling you that I was going to photograph the Winter Olympics in Beijing. At the end of that blog post, I said that things could change at any time. But at that time, I really felt that everything was a "go". I called JAL and paid for my flight and confirmed everything with Team USA.

Then one day later I started hearing about charter flights being cancelled because so many attendees are pulling out, NBC not feeling it was safe to send their broadcasters, other news organizations pulling out, and a friend sent me this article:

https://sports.yahoo.com/olympics-on-high-alert-hazmat-suits-isolation-centers-midnight-knocks-at-the-door-025100701.html

I also heard about many other close friends and family members who currently have Covid, making me wonder if it was my turn at any minute.

Although I was never really feeling 100% about my decision to go, I now fell right back into my turmoil of the back and forth or deciding to risk it or pull the plug.

I have been working on the planning process for Beijing for more than a year, with the major work being done since returning from the Summer Olympics in Tokyo just 6 months ago. The thought of pulling out, after all this work and stress, kills me. But, I felt that under the circumstances, there was only one choice to make.

With that, I reached out to my contacts at Team USA and told them that I was scrubbing the trip. To say that this is a hard decision is an understatement. It isn't the cost of the airline penalties, it is the sadness of not photographing something I love so much. I have already seen ads on television for the Winter Olympics and received many messages from friends who are taking the risk and going, and I have to admit, it stings a bit.

I also know that there are many of you who reached out to me this week and told me how much you were looking forward to the photos and stories from these Games. I feel bad that I can not share those personal stories with you all.

So...for the next 3 weeks, I will be joining many of you watching the Olympics on television. It will be the first time in 15 years that I have done that. And yes, I am sure that it will be with mixed emotions for me.

I did have an idea that I am trying to put together now. That is, to have my friends who are in Beijing do some guest blogs, or allow me to interview them and write stories from their perspectives, using their images and experiences. I will be just as interested in what they are dealing with, as all of you. I hope to have more information on that soon.

I would like to thank all of you who have reached out with your points of view, words of encouragement, and overall support.

I just hope that this pandemic ends soon, and that we can get back to normal! Oh...and that Paris 2024 is back to normal too!

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Monday, January 24, 2022

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: GO OR NO GO? - I HAVE MADE A DECISION

It was 11 days ago that I last wrote a blog post, and at the time I thought I would be just days away from letting you all know whether or not I was going to make it to the Beijing Winter Olympics. At the time I was still trying to lock down flights and a hotel.

Over the last week and a half I made a lot of progress, securing a special chartered flight on JAL (flying through Tokyo to Beijing) and getting a good room at the Holiday Inn in Beijing. Both are approved by the IOC and both were extremely helpful getting everything in place.

You would think that it all ends there, but that was not the case.

It was almost a week ago that I had confirmation from the airline and hotel, and was ready to tell you all the good news. And then there was a series of events that had me second guess everything!

HERE IS WHAT HAS ME SECOND GUESSING THE OLYMPICS:

Close calls with Covid positive friends and family

Three weeks ago I had dinner indoors at a restaurant with good friends, only to find out a week later that they both tested positive. Four days after that dinner, I was hanging out with my buddy Evan (who second shoots for me) at my house, only to find out that he tested positive 5 days later. And no, I don't think it was me who gave it to them since I was testing negative and they had close calls themselves.

In the past couple of weeks I have been even more cautious than in the past when it comes to Covid, choosing to wear a KN95 mask instead of a fabric mask, limiting my time at indoors facilities if I have a choice. But nonetheless the close calls continue. On Sunday I was supposed to go out to breakfast with my brother, his wife, and his boys. A half hour before leaving to meet them, I received a text from my brother scrubbing the breakfast since his oldest son woke up with a fever in the middle of the night. Later yesterday afternoon I heard that he was indeed positive for Covid.

Word from other photographers

Photographing the Olympics is really tough, and it is always nice to know that I have good friends there who are going through the same stress and crazy deadlines that I am. Well...I have talked to more than one of these friends who is opting not to go this time around. This made me wonder if I should be doing the same thing.

Fear of getting Covid in China

I have been really lucky and avoided getting Covid to this point (at least that I know of). The thought of testing positive in Beijing and being quarantined in a small room for a week scares me. This means that there will be a level of stress each day, as I get tested and wait for those results. Enough said on this one!

The testing process

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I have real issues with "medical procedures" of any kind. Even though my father was a doctor, I really don't like needles or foreign things being shoved deep into my nose. In order for us to go into China, we have to do numerous tests where they do the "deep nose test". I have been happy to avoid this during the entire pandemic and really wanted to keep it that way.

My first grandchild is due to be born during the Olympics

This is a tough one. My son and his wife are expecting soon, with a due date around Feb 10th. Even though I would not be allowed at the hospital due to Covid protocol, it will be hard to be half way around the world when this big day happens.

Shooting the day before I leave

Since I ended up having to rebook all my flights and I am leaving a day earlier than originally planned, I am now shooting an event all day and night before I leave the next morning for the Olympics. I will be wearing my N95 mask the whole time and eating outdoors away from everyone! But this also means that I need to turn the cull through all those images and build a gallery late that night, before leaving. I prefer not to make my client wait a month for their proofs.

Losing sleep

There are more reasons than all of these, but suffice it say that I have been losing sleep over this for the last 10 days. I am not saying this in a figurative way. I have literally been waking up around 3am every night and lay awake for at least an hour worrying before getting back to sleep. Melatonin has been my best friend.

TODAY WAS MY DAY TO MAKE A FINAL DECISION

I created a pro / con list and have been looking at it daily. And yes, there are a ton of reasons to go to the Olympics too. Some of those are:

* It is always an amazing experience (which I love sharing with all of you)

* I have commitments to the team and don't want to let them down

* My first Olympics was the Summer Olympics in Beijing and it would be cool to be there again, in the same buildings which have been repurposed for the Winter Olympics.

* I have been working on this for more than a year and know that I will regret not going. FOMO (Fear of missing out) is a real thing!

After weighing all the options, and having a couple of discussions with my contact at the team, I have made the decision to go. I am tired of going back and forth and not knowing what to do. I called my contact at Japan Airlines and made final payment about 2 hours ago. I can tell you that just 3 days ago I was working on a blog post explaining to you all why I was NOT going to make the trip. This has been a really tough decision!

There are still some hurdles to overcome. I need to stay away from the Covid virus and I need to get my approved Covid tests prior to flying out (yuck!). I also need to start the long process of packing cameras, lenses and cold weather clothing.

If all goes well, I will be shooting the opening ceremony from the Birds Nest in 10 days.

Not to sound like a broken record...but... Stay tuned. In this crazy world, things could change at any time.

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Thursday, January 13, 2022

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: CREDENTIALS, FLIGHTS, HOUSING, COVID AND MORE!

Talk about backwards! We are now about 2 weeks from when I am supposed to depart for the Winter Olympics in Beijing and I still do not have my flights or hotel locked in yet.

Weirdly enough, I just received my credentials for the Beijing Games. Under normal circumstances, when I receive this coveted credential via UPS, I celebrate this as the culmination of years of planning and the signal that it is almost "go time".

This time around, it appears that I am doing things backwards.

Credentials? Check!

Everything else? Well...nope!

But I do have some good news to share with you all:

FLIGHTS

I did hear back from Japan Airlines and they are holding a seat for me on a flight from San Francisco to Tokyo (seems like I was just there) and then connecting to Beijing. And a return flight the day of the closing ceremony. I have yet to see an actual reservation, and I have not paid for the ticket yet, but I have confidence that this will happen.

HOUSING

Initially it looked like my only option for a hotel in Beijing was through the USOPC and going to cost me $400 a night. Since I am there for 3 weeks, that would total more than $8000. Yikes! When I saw that, I then went onto the Olympic AMS (Accommodation Management System) web site to request something a little more reasonable. Only to see that the organizing committee has stopped booking reservations as of 12.27. Uh oh!

The good news is that the people who run the AMS site sent me a list of approved hotels and let me contact them directly. I have found several options that are more affordable and hope to get something booked soon.

And here is some bad news:

COVID TESTING REQUIREMENTS

China is requiring that we have special Covid tests that must be performed at pre-determined labs around the country. I called to get more information on these tests and found out that they will cost $600 for the two tests. What the heck? I think someone is profiting off this pandemic!

THE OMICRON SPREAD

Unless you live under a rock, you have heard about the massive spread of the Omicron variant of Covid around the world. And now China has locked down approximately 20 million people in their country to keep the virus from spreading and interrupting the Olympic Games. I have heard of some press who have already arrived in Beijing (testing negative before taking off) and testing positive on arrival. This means that they have to quarantine in less than desirable conditions. This scares the heck out of me! I even know of many of my friends who have Covid now, and I am doing my best to hole up at home and stay as safe as I can. But I do have some events to shoot and will likely double mask to protect myself as best as I can in the mean time.

LACK OF SLEEP

Knowing that the Olympics is a 3 week span of sleep deprivation, I usually try to rest up before the big trip. But with all of this stress, I have been waking up at all hours of the night. The only good thing about this is that I can communicate with the people in China, since they are working when we should be sleeping.

NOW WHAT?

I thought I would have everything wrapped up by now, but it appears that I have another week of work ahead of me. I promise to keep you all updated.

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Saturday, January 8, 2022

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics: THE UNKNOWN AND THE STRESS!

"Are you going to the Winter Olympics in Beijing?"

Over the last couple of weeks I have received countless emails, IMs, text messages, social media comments, and phone calls asking this question.

This Olympics has proven to be way more complicated than Tokyo (which we thought would be the most difficult ever). As I mentioned in a previous blog post, China has cancelled all flights into the country. It wasn't until recently that I found out that I can use my Olympic credentials to get a special charter flight to Beijing. They are limiting incoming flights to select charter flights from cities like Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Tokyo, and only for Olympic athletes and staff. I was sent a couple of documents to help me with my search. One had a list of people in Beijing who are acting as "flight support attache" and another with specific contacts at certain airlines who will try to help us out. A couple of days ago I reached out to the flight attache people but that got me nowhere.

At the same time I sent emails to many of those airline contacts to see if they can help me get where I need to go and when I need to be there. The European carriers would require me to fly to Europe and then to China. That would double or triple the travel time and definitely not work for me. The Asian carriers are my best bet and I have been spending late nights communicating with them in their time zones. So far Japan Airlines has been the best at communicating, and I have the highest hopes to fly with them. Air China got back to me but the price for a round trip on the 3 hour flight from Tokyo to Beijing was $1700. What the heck? Add that to the flight from San Francisco to Tokyo and that gets really expensive!

Normally I have my flights, accommodations, contract and everything else complete about one year in advance. We are now 3 weeks from the Winter Olympics and I have nothing yet. And from what I am hearing, most media are in the same boat right now. It is craziness!

In parallel with my flight researching, I am also investigating my accommodation options in Beijing, and a little nervous about booking this at the last minute. But I have no choice and will deal with that once I can confirm that I can get to the Games.

At this point I am making the assumption that I will work all this out and get to the Olympics and lining up the clothing and gear I would need. I have already talked to Canon and they are going to hook me up with the Canon R3 cameras I need. Apple is going to get me the screaming fast new 16" MacBook Pro with the M1 Max processor. This time I am photographing primarily for USA Hockey and the deadlines are even tighter than the Summer Olympics. I will have the new computer on the ice with me, and I will be downloading, retouching and posting from the dasher boards. Crazy, but true. Speed is even more important this time around. There is no time to go to the press room at the venue since the break between periods is 15 minutes.

Oh...and let's not forget the Covid testing requirements. They are going to require a whole bunch of negative Covid tests before we head to the Olympics, and a negative test once we get there. With this Omicron variant covering the world, this makes me nervous too! I did get confirmation that once we are in China, we will be tested everyday with swabs in our mouth. This seriously beats the anal swabs that were initially proposed!

Is all this a little stressful? Heck yeah!

I should know more details by early next week. Stay tuned!

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Monday, January 3, 2022

The Rain Forest of Costa Rica: My favorite images from last month's trip

First and foremost, Happy New Year everyone! I hope that 2022 is so much better than 2020 and 2021 for all of us!

As many of you know, I lead photo tours to the rain forest of Costa Rica at least twice a year. Well...in normal times I do, but lately it has only been once a year. I am hoping that Covid will subside once and for all and we can all return to normal travel at some point. Last month, myself and 9 guests met up in Costa Rica for another great photo tour.

I flew down a day early, to make sure that I arrived in time to meet all my guests. Since I had a free morning, my buddy Mauricio picked me up early and we drove out to see if we could get a clear view of the Poás Volcano. This volcano is still active. so prior to walking up to the viewing area, everyone had to watch a safety briefing letting us know where the safety bunkers were located, and grab a hard hat which had to be worn at all times.

The Poás Volcano is located up in the cloud forest, so there was no guarantee that we would see the crater. But as we climbed to the viewing area, we were happy to see at least some of the crater amongst the clouds.

They limit the viewing time to only 20 minutes per group, and luckily just 3 minutes after I took the first photo, the clouds cleared away from the top of the volcano giving us this magnificent view.

We were both shooting away getting our photos during this clear view, and then decided that it would make for a nice panorama shot. I combined 4 images to make this panorama in Photoshop. For all these photos, I was using the Canon R6 camera with the RF 24-105mm lens.

After we left the volcano, we drove further into the cloud forest and stopped at a couple of water falls.

We then drove to the Blue Falls for a hike and more photos.

The hike down was not easy and the hike up was even harder, but it was well worth it!

After climbing back up to the top of the waterfall, we rehydrated and then spent time photographing some of the local hummingbirds. For these shots, I decided to use the Canon R3 and the Canon RF 100-500mm lens. Look at the amazing color in these birds!

This hummingbird was flying right in front of a large leaf, and the sunlight was reflecting off the leaf and right onto the neck and throat of the bird. I took hundreds of photos of these fast flying birds to come away with 5 or 10 that I really liked.

And then it was time to fly down with the group to the Osa Peninsula to capture photos in the rain forest.

We arrived at the resort around 10:30am and I gave everyone time to get settled into their rooms. We had a nice lunch and then walked the property so that the guests could get the lay of the land. And, once again, the grounds of the resort did not disappoint. We saw Howler monkeys within minutes of the start of our walk. I saw this mother and baby and encouraged everyone to capture this great interaction.

In all my trips to Costa Rica, I have never gotten a really tight shot of a toucan with a good background. On this first day, we were treated to this toucan low in a tree and right by the swimming pool.

We were all taking really nice photos of the bird, when it decided to flip this nut in it's beak. I was shooting with the Canon R3 at a pretty fast frame rate (using the Canon RF 100-500mm lens), which allowed me to capture this split second of action.

The next day we took our first drive out into the rain forest to see what we could find. We found more howler monkeys in the trees.

It is a lot of fun to capture these animals as they meander around the tree branches. It is also a great time for me to teach about exposure compensation and capturing images when there is catch light in the animal's eyes.

Right outside the restaurant where we ate most days, there are some bird feeders. The resort staff are nice enough to put out papaya for the birds. This allows us to capture really nice images just feet from our table. And yes, it was a big distraction when you have a bunch of photographers trying to eat, while having great subjects flying in and out at all times.

On every photo tour to Costa Rica, I make sure that we have at least one day of macro photography. If you have read my blog before, you know that I absolutely love the red eyed tree frogs.

This time around, I decided to try something different, so I used the Canon R6 with the Canon RF 100-500mm lens instead of a Canon 100mm macro lens. This allowed me to get nice tight shots, but also stand back so that my guests could get in close with their macro lenses.

The long zoom lens still let me get up close and personal with the frogs. I love the way this tree frog was at the end of this leaf and looking right at me.

We are photographing these frogs and snakes at a reptile area. The handler is taking care of the snakes while we have fun photographing them from afar. I love capturing images of this Eye-lash viper with it's tongue out.

On our fifth day, we took boats over to the animal rehab sanctuary.

This is always a favorite for my guests, since they can get really close to the Macaw and other animals.

This young Squirrel monkey was hanging out in a nearby tree and watching our every move.

This 3-month old howler monkey is a new addition to the sanctuary, and the first time I have ever been so close to this species.

Towards the end of our time in the rain forest, we drove to the Sierpe River for a river boat tour. This was a good spot for a group photo.

This is a great place to see animals in the water, on the shoreline and in the surrounding trees. We saw this large iguana sunning itself along the river.

There were lots of birds flying around us.

And speaking of animals flying...check out this video of these squirrel monkeys who were making the long jump from tree to tree. It was awesome to watch their strength and accuracy.

On our last day, we went to an area where they have numerous sloths on the property. The first sloth we saw was pretty high in a tree.

We did get to see this three-toed sloth which came down pretty low.

The sloths happen to be on the property owned by the grandfather of our guide, Dennis. And they have a parrot on the property as well. I was photographing the parrot when it fanned out its wings for a split second. The colors are amazing.

We took a break from shooting and had some amazing homemade lemonade and snacks, hoping that some of the sloths would come down low while we were away from them. And that plan worked out just great!

This three-toed sloth was almost down at eye level when we returned to check its location.

This was one of the last photos I took on this trip, and it is one of my favorites. I love the position of the sloth's hands and feet, the look on it's face. Everyone had a blast photographing these docile animals up close and personal. It was an awesome way to wrap up the tour.

I do have two more photo tours to Costa Rica in 2022 (only 3 spots left) and I just added two more for 2023. If you are interested in joining me on one of these trips, let me know. You can see all these (and contact me) HERE.

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