Shooting the 2009 Senior Olympics

[swanny338]

So here I am... sitting in the media center at Stanford for the 2009 National Senior Games in Palo Alto, CA. I will be here for a little over 2 weeks covering the games with 12 other photographers from Brooks Institute.

We will have daily deadlines to put the images on the wire for the national media. It should be an incredible experience that will include a lot of fun, a lot of stress and maybe even some pain.

There are 10,000 athletes over the age of 50 that will be competing and by the end of this, we will probably have a picture of all of them.


I will be doing daily posts on my blogs along with updates on my twitter as I go through the day.

http://www.Swanny338.com For the latest post of todays events along with
http://www.twitter.com/bryantswanstrom for those daily updates.

Excerpt from Todays post on www.swanny338.com
"Now, of course it is Friday and we spent the day touring venues and shooting the athletes practice. I figured I would head over to the water and shoot some swimming since I have water polo as my first official assignment TOMORROW… TOMORROW… we starting shooting TOMORROW, bright and early at 7am… Have to cover our event and have everything edited and toned by 8:30pm. Should be a fun, exciting and stressful day."


I hope you guys get a kick out this thing as it should be quite the experience.

[GypsyHighSide]

I look forward to you posting some images. Good luck and have fun.

[J Eddington]

I hope you can still move at the end of the day!!

[esdramaqueen]

What a great opportunity! Can't wait to see some of the shots!

[swanny338]

There will be photos on my blog every night after I finish uploading for my deadline.

Whether or not I will be able to move depends on how bad I get sunburned... Luckily I am stocked up on sunscreen.


Here is the interview I promised for this morning.


http://www.swanny338.com

[swanny338]

Todays take,
http://swanny338.com/day-3-coverage-...-palo-alto-ca/

And a bit of a teaser
Three years ago, in early 2006, he was diagnosed with Squamous Cell Carcinoma at the base of the tongue. Later that year in November, after months of chemo treatment he was cancer free… “But the Radiation had collapsed my esophagus.”- Charlie Trumbo. He could no longer swollen even just his own saliva. Trumbo had two options, either stay on a feeding tube for the rest of his life or going somewhere else. Johns Hopkins searched for 3 months for a way to help him and gave him the option of trying an operation they had never done before. “It was theoretically very possible, but technically very difficult.”



Thanks,
Bryant

[swanny338]

Day 4...

Today I will post the entire take as I don't have the energy to post the background info.

Still, from my blog at http://swanny338.com/day-4-2009-nati...-ca-badminton/



Today, I was assigned to Badminton. I was expecting it to be slow, boring and just like I remember playing it in my backyard.... It was actually incredibly intense, these 50+ year olds were smashing the crud out the shuttlecock. The problem is, I have never shot it and it is incredibly hard to capture peak action. I have no energy left so I am just going to post images tonight with no background info.

Again, I met some more really nice people and had a lot of fun shooting this. It was hard, especially since I was low on energy.... I really need to start eating more than a bagel a day. Still haven't had lunch... or dinner...

Enjoy the photos

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[swanny338]

Here is today's take... Probably my favorites so far

Even though there was a rather large mishap with our parking permits and are now each $111.00 poorer... I had A TON OF FUN today. Claytonand I went to the stadium for archery after we figured out that our parking permits were useless. We got there and started getting acquainted with the setup at about 8:45am. The location in the Stanford Stadium was amazing. There were clean background and it was just very well put together. The sport is dangerous so the rules were strict for good reason. Luckily, they had no problem with us setting up a bunch of remotes... We did have to pay attention to the groups of archers that were the most accurate so we didn't getting any arrows shot thru our precious cameras.

Everyone was so nice and there were of plenty of characters to photograph. Not only did we manage to setup a bunch of remotes, we also got access to the actual roof of the press box. We also happened to run into the CEO of the games on the third floor of the press box. Incredibly nice guy that was happy to see some photographers running around. Nothing like some press to help with their advertising.

Now lets see some pictures.

All in the timing...
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[L Stegall]

Love 'em so far.....let the Games continue!

[GypsyHighSide]

Some great images there. Love the fisheye shot of the arrow striking the target. Interesting angle, very creative.

[swanny338]

Thanks, it was totally worth the risk...

And todays take.

Waking up this morning was... difficult to say the least. I don't think I have ever felt so tired after 6 hours of sleep. I seriously thought that I hadn't slept at all.

Today was a "standard" day of shooting for most of us. No group mishaps, no parking tickets, nothing... Up until one of the guys(Aaron Pool) drobo's failed, we spent a couple of hours trying to fix that all the way up until he got a phone call from the mechanic saying his transmission is destroyed and it is going to cost him a good chunk of change to fix.

While shooting basketball, I shot some guys that were upwards of 75 years old playing rough. They would push, shove and sprint for lay ups. I haven't seen a grandaddy ever move that quick. After shooting their tied to overtime game, I met some amazing girls from Texas, more about them after the picture...

The grandaddies



They had the best outfits in the world and while they were all about the fun and games... 20 minutes before game time they were all down to business. Warming up, talking strategy and just general seriousness. You could see they were really proud of what they were doing. Anyways, they had USA socks and out fits and were called the Texas All Stars. It was amazing to see them transition from happy to serious. Here they are.

Warming up in the hallway


Planning their attack during a time out.


Setting up a play.


Staring down the competition


Solemn looks while losing... Don't worry, they did come back in there games later in the day.


Scoring layup


Free Throw?



And a portrait after the game. She was all smiley and happy to be having their photos taken and I told her... Get all serious, just like an NBA player and just dropped into this pose. It was incredible and I just had to go with it. This image was shot with two 580ex IIs, one with an umbrella and a bare as rim.



Hope you enjoy the photos,
Thanks,
Bryant

[Comanche]

Wow! I just found this thread - I usually hang around the Sports section.

Swanny - this is super great stuff! I *love* your archery shots - great angles and great ideas.

Keep 'em coming - - I'm blown away. (I'm also a little envious!)

[Dobick]

I haven't commented much, but gotta say that the colors and angles on the archery day was awesome...

Really great stuff all the way around -- it just seems to keep getting better! Thanks for posting

[swanny338]

Wow, thanks guys. I appreciate it. I don't think I have ever had this much fun shooting sports.


This morning... it was incredibly hard to wake up. My roommate opened up the window for the night and it got so cold. My alarm went off and I just said no, too cold, I want the warmth of my bed. Eventually, 30 minutes later, I convinced myself to get up, get ready, eat my breakfast and get out of there. I showed up early enough to check all the internet stuff and prepare my gear for the competition.

Today's swimming events consisted of Mens and womens 200m breaststroke and 50m backstroke. Because it was the final day of swimming there were some pretty intense finishes. One girl broke record in every even she competed in and won 6 gold medals.

Met some amazing people and saw some 90+ year olds jumping into the pool and swimming.

Here is today's take.

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Enjoy the photos
www.twitter.com/bryantswanstrom
www.BryantSwanstrom.com

[Dobick]

#2 is as loaded with emotion and a story as any shot I have seen. It is the equivalent of the Hemingway 6 word short story. If you've never heard it: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Awesome images, but that one stands above!