The other night was one of my only free nights of the Olympic Games, with no ice hockey for the women or men. I photographed the team party for USA Hockey in the afternoon (sorry - not allowed to show those), and then headed over to photograph the ice dancing competition.
When photographing events where I am not contractually obligated to get images, I will push myself to be creative. Just like I did with speed skating, I usually motion pan most of what is happening in front of me. It is a great challenge and sets me apart from most of the photographers who are there shooting.
These two were facing away from me, but I still like the image.
This was a solid motion pan showing not one, but both of the athletes in focus while moving.
Here they are closer together which I like better.
With all of the distractions behind the skaters, I preferred the motion panning to blur them out.
I took all of these photos at shutter speeds between 1/30 sec and 1/40 sec and moved my lens at the same speed as the skaters.
I mostly shot pretty tight into my subjects, this time using the
Canon R1 and
RF 70-200mm lens with the
RF 1.4 extender to get me a little closer.
A lot of you saw me on television during this event, and some asked me why I was selectively shooting. With motion panning, there are only certai times when I know the image has a chance of coming out. In those other times, I will put the camera down and wait for the right moment.
As soon as I would see something like this, I would quickly zoom out to include head to toe. I saw them do this maneuver and hoped to god that I would get a sharp motion pan image of this.
Honestly, the biggest challenge when motion panning pairs skating, is getting both of them sharp. Usually it would be one or the other.
These two skated right in front of me and I panned with them. Normally, when they are this close, it does not work out. In this case, I got her sharp (with this funny expression on her face). It looks like she is in some serious pain!
This was one of my favorite photos of the night.
For this photo, I had switched back to shooting at 1/1250 of a second, freezing the action. It was a cool pose in front of the logo.
When photographing the Americans, Madison Chock and Evan Bates, I needed to get some good sharp images so I stayed in the same "safe mode" with a fast shutter speed.
I loved the flowing red coming off of Madison's dress and knew that it would look great in photos.
I looked to capture those key moments like this...
...this...
...and this.
They finished their routine and knew that they were in gold medal contention.
It was up to the French couple of try and beat them out. I decided to go back to motion panning for this last performance.
They did an amazing job, and ended up taking the gold medal. I woke up this morning and heard the news that there are many people who feel that Madison and Evan should have won gold. Either way, it was great to be there and to capture such beautiful skating.
Even though it was late and I was exhausted, I stayed for the medal ceremony.
After receiving their medals, Madison and Evan skated over to our photo position to get a portrait with the American flag. A beautiful ending shot for the evening.
Please excuse any typos. Normally I try to proofread everything before I post, but here at the Olympics, time is a commodity. I definitely miss some things. :)
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