Well, I just got done copying the files from my trusty 17″ MackBook Pro and 3 External Hard Drives over to my server overnight… and here are the facts:

In Beijing, with a total of 6 cameras, I shot: 28,444 files for a total of a whopping 480 Gigabytes of Images!  That’s INSANE!  Even I am shocked.

So I looked into at what Sports Illustrated shot during the Olympics with their ten staff photographers there – SI shot over 300,000 images of which their staff kept 17,000.   One of their editors took that down to 1046 “super selects” and then their director of photography Steve Fine, edited his selection down to 135 images.  That means their “best of” turned out to be 0.045% of what they shot.

These numbers may – and should – look crazy to most of you.  But truth be told – it’s what happens when you have cameras that now shoot bursts at 10 frames per second – and when you’re likely firing not one – but two or three cameras at once (via remotes.)  In fact mon ami Bill Frakes had more than 18 cameras firing at once each time someone crossed the finish line at the Athletics (Track & Field) venue for example-  so imagine the volume coming out of the track venue.  Hallucinating.

With simple arithmetic, it looks like I shot just a little under what the SI shooters did – but there is one important distinction:  I saw many of them editing their images live on the back of their cameras.  In other words – they would look at every series of images after they’d shot them (either during events or in between each rotation for example) and delete the poor or out of focus images – this to make sure that a “bad” one didn’t make it into the magazine – as someone else would end up editing their images.  I on the other hand – never deleted a single frame – and that’s because I would be the only one editing my take each day (and not have to explain myself for missing a key frame to any editor.)  I don’t believe in deleting images on the back of the camera myself – I’ve deleted quite a few keepers out of “sleep deprivation” or just by rushing in the past, and in fact missed more moments that happened right in front of me because I was “chimping” (term used for looking at back of one’s camera, and jumping up and down and howling like an ape, when one finds a good image, often showing it off to the person to the left or right of you.)  So I keep everything.  Given that those guys tended to mount a few more remote cameras thanI did – I’m sure it evens out things a bit further. Read the rest of this entry »

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 By the time many of your are reading this post, I will be on my way to the airport to catch my flight back to New York City. The Beijing Olympics will have concluded and thousands of others will be making their way home—some with gold medals, some with memorable images and stories, others with bruised egos and many with goals of practicing for the next four years in order to shave an extra few hundredths of a second off their performances in time for the London games in 2012. I for one couldn’t be happier.  This has been the best Olympics I’ve experienced, and while the host country has played a good part in this, other factors have been much more instrumental in making this a “great success” as Borat would say. Read the rest of this entry »

Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 For those of you that are just waking up in the U.S., The “Redeem Team” won gold today against Spain while you were sleeping.  It was the NBA’s—I mean Team U.S.A.’s—first gold medal since the 2000 in Sydney. I must admit I wasn’t expecting much action or reaction at the conclusion of this game,  but boy was I wrong.  It was a pretty good game, and I’ve rarely seen such excitement out of NBA players even at the end of an NBA Final.  Spain gave them a good run, and early on they were ahead, but at no point did I see Team U.S.A. break that much of a sweat—they just played solid basketball and had great performances from Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. It was a real treat to see those three and their teammates so genuinely excited at the conclusion of the game and when they received their medals.  I’m at the closing ceremonies and getting ready for that—so I’ll just drop a few quick pictures in for now. Read the rest of this entry »