2012 Summer Olympics: USA Water Polo vs Spain - The women tie

Yesterday, the woman from USA Water Polo played against Spain and ended in a tie, with a final score of 9 to 9. It seems like the American water polo teams are destined to have close games every night.

This was a great backhand shot to start the scoring for the U.S. team.

Some physical action in in the 2 meter area.

I really like this shot with the American player framed by the three Spaniards.

The American goal keeper coming up with a big stop.

It looks to me like the Spanish athlete might be faking this one.

Ooops. This shot did get past the American goal keeper.

But not this one.

I really like this shot of the American player not taking any crap from the other team.

Back atcha!

This is probably my favorite shot from this game. Check out the reaction!

For those people who have never experienced water polo, it is a very physical game. This shot really highlights that point.

2012 Summer Olympics: Women's 10m Synchronized Diving

Last night, I made a quick trip over to the Aquatics venue to shoot the women's 10m synchronized diving event. I really enjoyed shooting diving when I was in Beijing for the 2008 Summer Olympics and was really looking forward to shooting this event in London. Unfortunately, the photographer positions and the backgrounds were not nearly as good at this Games, which was a bit disappointing. But, I still got some shots to share with you all.

When editing these images on the press bus today, I kept thinking of that old Steve Winwood album, Arc of a Diver.

I shot most of these images with the Canon 400m 2.8 lens, but found that it was a bit much for this event and later switched to my 70-200mm lens with a 1.4x adaptor. This gave me an effective focal length of 300mm and zooming capabilities. I also founds that shooting this event handheld was better than trying to track the divers using a monopod.

The girls from Canada were so excited when they saw that they had clinched a Bronze Medal. Awesome reactions from them.

I was incredibly disappointed with the medal ceremony at the swim venue. In Beijing, it was beautiful with clean backgrounds and great viewing for the audience. As you can see from this image, it was cluttered with the media and hard for anyone to view. Yuck!

And then the medalists are escorted over to the press area for their photos. I avoided that but shot this image of all of them clamoring to get their shots. Crazy huh?

2012 Summer Olympics: USA Mens Water Polo vs. Romania

Last night was another good night for Team USA in the water polo venue. This time the team won the game by two points. A little more breathing room than the first couple of games (men and women) but still very close. Here are images from last nights match. And check out the images of our surprise VIP siting.

Before the game...

The team always enters the pool at the same time, but last night I caught this image of everyone jumping into the pool and they staggered a bit. It almost looks like a strobe shot of someone in different points of a jump. :)

A pep talk to get the team fired up and ready to go.

There is huge American support here in London, with lots of fans cheering for their team.

And look who came to the water polo venue last night...

Yep - that is Prince William in the house. The future King of England. He asked me to take this photo of him and his friends and then told me how much he enjoys reading my blog. OK, not really. :)

Tony Azevedo taking a bomb of a shot from 5 meters out (after having his cap ripped off of his head).

Shea Buckner celebrating a big goal to put the U.S. up by one point.

I love shooting images at 1/1250 of a second to freeze the water trails coming off the ball and players, in this case the arm of Adam Wright. (Most shots of this game were taken with the Canon 400mm f2.8 lens and a Canon 1DX).

A mass of humanity in front of the cage.

A nice backhand pass.

The athletes do a lot of talking in the pool. In this shot, he is looking for someone to get open for a pass during a power play.

Merrill Moses started the game a little colder than usual, missing some blocks, but heated up when needed and came through with some huge saves at the end.

Merrill celebrating a big stop.

A great win 10 to 8 and now it is up to the women to win again tonight. Go Team USA!