I’m back home from Vancouver and finally have had a decent sleep after what was easily one of the best experiences of my time so far with a camera. I shot 18,175 photos in the three weeks I spent in Vancouver and really wished I had used the pedometer that was in our media kit “goodies bag”, because I reckon the amount of walking I did would be right up there. I also spent the equivalent of about three whole days on buses, I even fell asleep with a half full cup of coffee in my hand on one bus trip. I ate dinner on only four occasions during the games and only once at a reasonable hour prior to midnight. I met and worked alongside some incredible photographer’s while at the games and it was a humbling experience to be around such great sports photographers, all of whom were at the same time some of the friendliest people I’ve ever met, who included Robert Beck of Sports Illustrated, David G McIntyre, Jon Gaede, Erich Schlegal, Klaas Jan van der Weij, Peter Blakeman, Jeff Crow, Delly Carr, and Courtney Crow, to name a few. (and not forgetting my mates Sean Radich and Jake McBride).
Click below for more words and a selection of images from the second week of the games

The Olympics cemented my already unfaltering loyalty to Nikon. Nikon Professional Services onsite at the games were absolutely amazing and provided me the opportunity to use the incredible D3s on so many occasions I actually began to think it was mine! I thought it was near impossible to improve on the fantastic D3, but somehow they have done it. High ISO performance was astounding. ISO 6400 looked more like 1200 on the D3, and made shooting sport indoors a breeze. Fast shutter speeds and decent depth of field were no problem at all. The auto white balance on the D3s was also an improvement. Shooting under mixed lighting conditions gave much better results than the photographer sitting beside me at one event using the new Canon MK IV.
Also a big thank you is in order to Robert Lindsay at NPS Australia, for loaning me a 400mm 2.8 lens for the entire games. I couldn’t have done it without this lens, and am very grateful for the support Rob has given me.
I also tried out the new 16-35 f4 lens and although I didn’t take many shots with it, I can definitely say it will be a big seller for anyone using the FX full frame cameras. I’d imagine this would be a big hit with the reportage photographers as it’s a fair bit lighter and more compact than the 14-24 f 2.8 beast.
Any lens or camera we wanted at the games was no problem. I lost count of the amount of times i actually had too much gear in my bag, but for the most part my kit consisted of the following.
Nikon D3, D300s, D3s
Nikon 17-55 2.8 DX, 10.5 Fisheye, 16 fisheye, 20 2.8, 50 1.4, 14-24 2.8, 24-70 2.8, 70-200 2.8 and 400 2.8.
I purposely didn’t use the new 70-200 VRII as everyone wouldn’t shut up about how great it was, and I didn’t want my wallet to suffer.

The Olympics wasn’t all positive, and it was widely reported in the world’s media that there were serious shortcomings on the organisational side of the games. I won’t go into too much detail here but media transport to Cypress Mountain (where I spent most of my time) in particular, was abysmal. We were dropped off over a kilometre from the security screening entrance (and then had another 400 metres or so after that to the venue media centre) and forced to walk extra long distances with all our gear every single day, while other buses dropped off their passengers right at the door. It made no sense as the buses had a perfect turning circle at the front entrance and even the driver’s couldn’t understand why they made us stop so far down the road. In the pouring rain this daily walk broke the enthusiasm of many of the media, myself included, and the 50 minute wait for a bus back down to Vancouver on one very rainy night soaked some to the point of vowing never to come back.

But this was just a small blemish on what was on the whole a fantastic Olympic Games. Given just how bad the weather cards were that the city was dealt, it’s amazing they were able to pull off such incredible events, especially up at Cypress Mountain, home of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. Rain and warm temperatures don’t mix well with snow but the crews at Cypress overcame all the odds. The halfpipe was world class, the ski and snowboardcross course looked better than any I’ve seen, and the aerials and moguls courses came up great.
As I said in an earlier post, I spent a lot of time in this city six or so years ago, and it really was great to be back. Next time I promise all my friends I will definitely make the time for that catch up drink or dinner that I didn’t make this time around!

Thanks Vancouver!

The men’s and women’s halfpipe competiton of this Winter Olympics would have to have been the most talked about and anticipated events of the entire games. The press conference for the U.S snowboard halfpipe team was held in a 300 seat conference room, and was packed full of journalists, photographers and television crews from all around the world. There’s no question that having somebody like Shaun White competing has helped bridge the gap and make the Olympics watchable for the “X-Games/energy drink generation” and given it some credibility back. First up was men’s halfpipe, and given that the previous week it had rained on Cypress Mountain enough to wash pretty much all of the snow away, it was amazing there was even a pipe there to be ridden. Unbelievably againsts all the odds, the pipe building team at Cypress, headed up by Steve Petrie, pulled together a world class pipe when the world’s media had a magnifying glass on the event, and more importantly the condition of the playing field.
Men’s qualifying and finals was a somewhat surreal experience. I positioned myself at the top of the pipe right below Shaun’s first hit. I had watched him in practice and knew that it would be a good spot to get a few images and then move down to the bottom of the pipe for the finals. I also wantyed to be in a good position to capture the Aussies. Ben Mates, who is competing in his second games, and the newcomer Scotty James. Matesy made us all proud and advanced through to the semi finals – a first for an Australian male halfpipe rider!
All the venues at this Olympics that have snow “on the ground” require photographers to wear crampons (ice climbing spikes) to access any of these on snow shooting areas. In all my time shooting snowboarding, I have never had to wear Everest issue ice climbing spikes to hike a halfpipe. Uncomfortable, but you do what you have to do to get the shots.
In all the venues I’ve visited during this games, I have never seen so many photographers at one single event. I soon realised that this event, men’s halfpipe, was the event of the games – no question. There would have been at least 200+ photographers at the bottom of the pipe alone for the finals. It was mayhem.
Second day of the pipe was the ladies and for Australia it meant that we had two riders who were almost guaranteed to go top ten – that in itself is a big deal for our little non-winter sport country, Holly Crawford and Torah Bright. Holly was riding really stylishly and going large in practice, and Torah’s technical tricks such as her switch backside 720, were also looking great in practice. These girls were in form.
I have to hold back the good shots from the pipe as there will be a few going to print in the mags.
I also need to thank the legendary Sports Illustrated photographer Robert Beck for giving me a Clif Bar while we were lodged in our pipe positions for 8 hours. I didn’t realise that once in position on the pipe we weren’t allowed to move-for the whole competition, which meant eight hours in the one spot, and I had made the rookie mistake of not taking up water, food or sunglasses. Beck is a legend and was kind enough to force me to take one of his bars. I paid him back a couple of days later, and it was great to chat with someone of his experience who is just so down to earth and friendly. Top bloke!

Ok so I’m starting to catch up here. Got about six hours sleep last night and I feel like a new person. There are some great events coming up in the next few days and there have been some brilliant moments in the past few. I’m still behind a bit with my posts, but I will get there!
I have also been photo blogging daily for Mountainwatch.com along with fellow Aussie photographer Jake McBride and you can check it out here. In this post are images of Dale Begg-Smith’s silver medal at the moguls and the men’s and women’s snowboardcross along with some shots from the halfpipe training.

I’ve been trying to do this post for at least four days now. Time is not something that is readily available when you’re shooting an Olympic Games. I’ve spent the last week constantly on buses between venues and walking from drop off point to security, then more walking, then a shuttle bus, then more walking – fast walking, trying to get to a good spot as fast as possible. The buses in theory are probably a good place to get some of these blog posts done, but then again they are one of the few chances to get some sleep. Today I fell asleep with a half full cup of coffee in my hand – Tim Horton’s, your coffee clearly isn’t strong enough.
The games are dominated by the big photo agencies, Getty, Reuters, Assocociated Press, and Agence France Presse. These agencies get all the best positions at every event reserved for them, they have card runners constantly collecting their memory cards and running them back to pictures editors to get the shots on the wire before the event has even finished. For all the other photographers it’s a free-for-all. There are limited positions and for the most part, the angle or the shot from those positions isn’t clean and you are squeezing in with 20-30 other people trying not to hit the guy in front on the head with your 400mm lens (sorry to the dude from The Oregonian, or whatever newspaper you were from, it wont happen again!) It forces you to look for a different shot, and that is a damn good thing. It’s exciting hearing 30 cameras’ motor drives chattering away like some crazy summer insect on steroids, it’s cool to talk shop with photographers from all around the globe, it’s great to try to teach newspaper guys how snowboarding works, and even better when they start showing you the shots on their camera, clearly stoked they’ve made a nice frame.
Here’s a bunch from the opening ceremony and the first couple of days of competition after that. Let’s call this part 1!

Ok so day two of competition is officially over, it’s almost 1am and I’m just getting a chance to think about a blog update with photos that I took four days ago. So far, the Olympics have been pretty amazing, but to be honest I reckon I’ve been so tired that sometimes I just have to stop and look around, and it’s only then that I realise I’m in the middle of something so great that I don’t have any scale by which to measure it.
In the past few days I’ve witnessed so many incredible things that I can’t possibly put into words in one short blog entry.
I was invited to a fancy Australian team welcoming party held by the Australian Olympic Commitee where I got to see some of my snowboarder mates in a different light – as representatives of our country, as Olympians. It’s hard not to get a little tear in the eye with pride!
I got to go to another fancy party, on the same night, hosted by Nikon and Canon for the 700 or so accredited photographers.
I’ve shot about 300 press conferences. Well I’ve shot about 15, but you know what I mean.
I’ve geeked out on the sheer amount of camera equipment hanging off each and every photographer here, and I smile everytime I see Nikon outgunning Canon by at least two to one, maybe even more. This is Nikon’s games – no question!
All this prior to the opening ceremony. The games haven’t even begun. (well they have, but not on this blog yet!)
Oh, and I got my first page one sport photo in The Australian newspaper!
Here’s some photos prior to the opening ceremony (after the cut).

I arrived in Vancouver early on Friday morning after leaving Sydney on Friday around midday. The international dateline does strange things to the body when you’ve been in a plane for 14 hours and you arrive at your destination almost five hours before you left! My good friend Sara was kind enough to pick me up from the airport on a postcard Vancouver winter day (grey and raining), and on our way back to her house we drove past a group of Australians waving placards, flags and boxing kangaroos. My initial reaction was one of embarrassment, but either way it was a great photo opportunity. After being off the plane less than an hour (thanks to Vancouver airport’s express lanes for accredited Olympic media) I was taking my first shots of the Olympic assignment. I found out that the crowd of Aussies was protesting the International Olympic Committee’s order for the Aussie athletes to remove the boxing kangaroo flag from the athlete’s village. The story was making headlines both here and at home in Australia.

After checking in at the Main Press Centre and getting all my accreditation activated, as well as collecting a stack of handbooks, photo guides and other “stuff”, I took a quick walk around the city that even after a six year hiatus, still seemed so familiar it was like I was here only months ago.
On Friday night we headed up to Whistler, where I had lived between 1999 and 2003, for a couple of days snowboarding without the camera gear, before the craziness of the Games started. It was great to be back in Whistler, I have so many good memories of the place and it holds special significance as it was where I shot my first published snowboarding photos, and it sent me on a course that ten years later sees me realising a dream and shooting my first Olympic Games.
I start shooting training tomorrow. can’t wait to bang off a few frames.
Some photos of the first couple of days below the cut.

The Big Day Out music festival has just rolled through Australia and I was assigned to shoot it for Australian Associated Press (AAP) when it came to Sydney. The temperature reached a furnace like 41 degrees Celsius and festival goers were dropping like flies due to heat exhaustion. Something like 300 people were treated by ambulance staff on the Friday I was covering the festival, and it was the hottest recorded temperature in the festival’s 18 year history. Given just how hot it was out there, I’m surprised more people weren’t hospitalised! The international acts for this year included Muse, Lily Allen, Groove Armada, Peaches and Kasabian and the Aussie acts included Powderfinger, Jet, Bluejuice, Eskimo Joe and heaps of others. With so many bands playing at the same time it’s impossible to even cover half of the acts in one day.
Click below for a small selection of some of the pictures I filed over the long 13 hour day.

I have been pretty busy lately doing a lot more news photography. The past month or so has provided some pretty interesting news assignments for me, whilst working as a casual for Australian Associated Press. I have photographed the Prime Minister twice, the previous PM, and also the new leader of the federal opposition. I’ve shot the Australian and Pakistan cricket teams, and taken on some challenging assignments such as shooting the New Years Eve festivities in Sydney. I have been working toward shooting more news for a bit over a year now, trying to shift away from the tight niche of action sports. The Christmas/New year Break gave me a chance to prove myself as a lot of the full time shooters were away on holidays.
Below is a gallery of some of the selects of the many mixed assignments of the few weeks. (click on the images below for full size and captions)

Invite front page

I have a few prints in a group exhibition which opens this coming Wednesday night in Surry Hills, Sydney. The exhibition is titled Tasty All Sorts and features a bunch of emerging artists, 16 to be exact. If you’re in Sydney on Wednesday and at a loose end, pop down to the Somedays Gallery 72b Fitzroy st. Surry Hills and say hi, have a few beers and check out some cool art.

Invite back

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