Olympics in Paris - Day One: Trying to figure it all out, and stay awake!

Today has been a REALLY long day! I woke up at 6:45am on Monday and caught my flight to Paris. I barely slept on the plane (since I am not very good at that) and then landed here this Tue morning and hit the ground running. I am going to take you through the day, and you will have to excuse any typos in this blog post since I have been up for the last 29 hours straight.

I landed in Paris around 10:30am and still look pretty awake for this photo. This was taken right after we got off the plane. I always love seeing the Olympic imagery upon landing!

The next step was to get my credentials laminated. They actually embed an RFID tag into the credentials to help speed the security process at each venue.

I was given a Navigo card which lets me use any of the public transportation in the city at no cost.

For the first time in my Olympic experience, there was no transportation provided for us from the airport to our hotels, so after checking out my options, I decided to take a taxi. I figured it would be faster and easier with all my luggage. It was the right call for sure. As we drove by some of the venues I grabbed some shots with my iPhone.

This is one of the swimming venues, which turns out to be the venue where water polo will be played up until the medal rounds.

I then got to my hotel and it was pretty much what I expected. Nothing fancy, that is for sure, but it seems to be clean, comfortable and decent enough for me. I had two twin beds, so I crammed them together to make more room for me and my stuff.

I am staying near La Défense (an area within the city of Paris), and decided to take the long walk to the train station to get the lay of the land.

I was admiring the architecture, and also frustrated that I could not find the train station. 

As I walked closer to the train station, I came across this Olympic venue. I am really happy to say that I am walking distance from the swimming venue. This makes life easier for the times I am photographing swimming at the end of the day, or when water polo gets moved to this venue for the medal rounds.

After an hour of walking and taking the train one stop, I finally made it to the Main Press Center (MPC).

This is the first floor where they have displays and shops.

The second floor is where all the photographer's are set up. I went straight to the Canon CPS booth to meet up with my friends and to get two Canon R1 cameras and a Canon R5II camera to borrow for the length of the Olympics. Woo hoo!

On the second floor is where we have the photographer's working area. It was also on this floor where I picked up my photographer vest. I am the photographer with vest number 2912. See if you can find me on your TV. :)

They even have a post office for us.

This is the transportation desk. I spent a fair amount of time there today trying to figure out how to get around these Olympic Games.

They have a small store for us to purchase Olympic clothing and gifts. 

And as I do every Olympics, I wanted to get a photo of myself in one of the media interview rooms. I saw a couple of photographers talking just outside the room and asked if one of them would take my photo. I was lucky enough to run into Roger Sedres (who turns out to be a blog reader of mine) and we took photos of each other.  My new Facebook banner shot. Thanks Roger! :)

Guess what? The MPC is located on top of a mall, so there are some really good cafes, restaurants, and even a Starbucks on site. Amazing!!!! The only bad part is that we have to go back outside the secure zone to eat and then go back through security to get back into the MPC. But that is not a huge deal. 

After I completed everything I need to get done at the MPC, I then took a press bus (yes, they actually have some of them) to the Main Aquatics Center. This is where water polo is played until the medal rounds, and also diving is located here. I wanted to scout out the pool and meet the photo manager and staff.

Honestly, my first impression of the pool is not great. Look at the harsh light that is coming across the pool. And this photo was taken from one of the 4 approved photo positions. Not good!

I walked to each shooting position and had the same issues. I had a long talk with the photo manager and his assistants about this. We are all hoping that this can be solved in the next couple of days.

Here you can see the 4 approved photo positions on the pool deck and the three high positions. 

I was given a tour by one of the photo staff (who was awesome) and found out that the media room is not in the pool building. It is located about one block away in a temporary tent. You might be thinking "so what - it is only a block", but this means that I have to run back from the pool to try and make my 15 minute deadline of delivering images to the team!

Here is the outside of the media room.

I took this photo of the swimming venue from the half way spot in between the venue and media room. 

This is the first time I have ever seen the diving in the same venue as water polo. I had a good time watching the divers practice.

I even broke out my Canon R5 to grab a couple of photos. All I had was my 24-70mm lens with me, but I was still able to get some fun photos.

Here is one of those photos.

Now I am back in my hotel room, writing this blog and configuring the new cameras. I will be using the preproduction Canon R1 and Canon R5II cameras a lot for the next 3 weeks and will let you know what I think, once I put them through some serious work!

Now that it is after 9pm here in Paris, it is time to get some sleep!!!

Tomorrow I have to be at the MPC fairly early to photograph the media event for the women of USA Water Polo. 

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