USA Water Polo vs Hungary at Stanford - The women's Olympic team dominates!

Last night was a great night for USA Water Polo, as more than 3000 people came to Stanford University to watch the women of Team USA take on the women of Team Hungary.

This was the largest crowd in the US to watch a water polo match, and as close as many people will come to seeing the Olympic team in action. I was amazed at the length of the entry line and glad to see so many people showing up to sheer on the team.

People were definitely patriotic! I looked up into the stands to see if there were any good photo opportunities and saw this flag poking out of the crowd. Normally I would want to get more faces in the shot, but I like that the focus of this image is the red, white and blue.

Here are a couple of photos from the warm ups.

This was a great moment before the start of the game. They were playing a video, starring all the women from the team, and I caught them all enjoying it from the other side of the pool deck.

And then the action began.

As you might be able to tell from this photo, the lighting at the pool was a challenge this late in the day. There were some areas of the pool that were really bright and other shaded areas which were covered in dark shadows. Not the easiest photo environment, but workable. I am looking forward to shooting all the Olympic games indoors, where I can count on nice even light.

I like this shot of the coach working with the women.

I had to take this picture of my friend who was in the second row of the bleachers. C.J. is a good friend of the family and a really great water polo player. When I started studying the game in preparation for being their team photographer at the Olympics, I had her by my side at many games helping me thoroughly understand the game. She deserved a photo in the blog for that!

I love the amount of leg strength to get themselves this far out of the water. Awesome!

A hard shot from 5 meters out... the American women dominated from start to finish.

USA scores again.

This was one of my favorite "reaction shots" from the game. Since Team USA dominated so heavily, there was not much celebrating after each goal, but this shows the complete frustration as the Hungarian goal tender missed an easy shot.

Another great corner shot.

As I mentioned, this was a sold out crowd at Stanford University, with standing room only.

This photo pretty much tells the story of how the game went for the Hungarian goalie. With a final score of 15 to 7, the Americans dominated the Hungarian players.

After the game, the team turned and thanked the crowd. It was a really nice moment. The next time I see the team will be over in London and I can't wait. Go USA!

USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose, CA - Day 4: Women's Finals

Last night was the last day of the 2012 U.S. Gymnastics Olympic Trials, and the finals for the women. It was an exciting night for the athletes and fans in front of a sold-out crowd in San Jose, CA.

Positioned in the center of the venue, I was able to grab this shot of the gymnasts for the National Anthem.

The ever challenging uneven bars, both for the athletes and for us photographers trying to grab sharp images. This is a very difficult sport to shoot.

I like this shot of the gymnast in a perfect arc while her coach watches on intently.

Once again, I spent a lot of time photographing at the balance beam. After shooting the numerous events at the competition, I determined that the balance beam yielded the most interesting shots of the girls.

I am amazed that these girls can jump this high and land on this small surface.

I like this image for two reasons. Firstly, it is a good capture of the gymnast stretched out in midair, but more importantly, I like the way that you can clearly see her Olympic Ring tattoo on her neck.

Awesome abilities...

Gabby Douglas working the uneven bars.

This is one of my favorite shots of Gabby in midair. I especially love the light on her, while everything else is kept dark. (Photographer's note: I shot all three days of this meet in manual mode. Because the light is different as you move the camera to track the athelets, aperture priority will not work well in this environment. Without shooting in manual mode, I would have ended up with images that were either severely over or under exposed. Most of the photos were taken between ISO 2500 and 5000 with shutter speeds in the 1/1250 range at f2.8)

After Gabby completed her floor exercise, her family figured out that she had clinched the top spot and guaranteed herself a spot on the Olympic team. I had just moved over by them, to take pictures of her dad with the flag, when this happened. Good timing!

One of the last vaults of the night and then it was time to take a 15 minute break and find out who would be representing the US in London.

As we waited for them to announce which girls would represent the US in London, all of us photographers moved into position to shoot the ceremony. Just a few of us, huh?

As they were determining which girls would be going to the Olympics, they introduced the guys who had clinched their spot the night before. This is a shot of the 5 gymnasts and 3 alternates who will be making the trip overseas.

And then, they announced the team and the girls came out to thunderous applause. As you can see from this image and the image below, they were completely overwhelmed. (Click on the images to see the emotions on their faces.)

And here is the final US Olympic Gymnastics team for 2012. Congratulations to all of them. I can't wait to see them all again in 3 weeks!

USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose, CA - Day 3: Men's Finals

Today was a full day of shooting with the men competing for the final spots on the 2012 US Olympic team. For the second day in a row, I shot more than 60GB of images using the Canon 1Dx, and this time I got used to the new focus system and had better luck for with the sharpness of my images. I also decided to bring the Sigma 120-300 f2.8 lens so that I could zoom in a little more. This lens performed better than I could have hoped for and will be coming with me for the women's finals. Since I am running short on time and want to get these posted for everyone to see, I won't write a lot, I will just let you enjoy the photos from the competition.

Not a high-action shot, but I really want to get a shot focusing on the white powder.

Is he looking right at me?

This was a tough shot because I wanted to get the focus on the face of this gymnast, but as you can tell, there was not much face to focus on. (You can click on any of these images to make them larger.)

Coach was happy with this performance!

Big air!

I really like this image because it show the definition in this gymnasts arm muscles. My son would be very impressed with this guy's muscle definition!

That arm strength worked to propel him to an amazing height.

And then he nailed the landing. I love the reactions from both the gymnast and his coach.

Oh yeah!

This made me laugh...

A group of Associated Press photographers capturing their shots of the future Olympian. There are a limited number of photographers who are allowed to shoot from the center of the floor, and these passes almost always go to the large photo agencies.

Dismount.

 Taken from high above the action...

John Orozco achieved the second highest score of the Olympic Trials which guaranteed him a spot on the 2012 US Olympic Team. As you can tell, he was very happy as he exited the arena (as were the girls who got to shake his hand). Congratulations to John and Danell Leyva (who took the top spot)!