China's Chen Xue and Xi Zhand defeated the Brazilian team and won the bronze medal in the women's beach volleyball game. I made this image with a 15mm fisheye lens set to f22 in an attempt to accentuate the raindrops and absolutely miserable conditions. Photo by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 What a day–I’m amazed that not only I, but also my cameras and lenses survived. At 6 a.m., after only two hours of sleep, I got a call from Simon Barnett to strategize on the remaining four days of the Olympics. Little did Simon know he was cutting into 1/3 of my bedtime for the night. But it was time to go anyway–even though I would have bet a healthy sum of money that there was absolutely no way that the gold medal match of women’s beach volleyball was going to be played in the conditions I was seeing out of my hotel window. The rain was torrential. Read the rest of this entry »

Yulis Gabriel Mercedes of the Dominican Republic scores a point against Mu-Yen Chu of Taipei during the men

 I had a tough time being creative today. The venues just seemed to have too many obstacles in the way of unique photographs. Things just didn’t seem to open up–and some days that’s just the way it is.  You accept it and move on, hoping you’ll have better luck the next day. Read the rest of this entry »

 

 

Tsuboi Gustavo of Brazil (bottom) and Peter-Paul Pradeeban of Canada playing table tennis in this long exposure from overhead. Photograph by Vincent Laforet for NEWSWEEK

 I think that I was followed by the secret police in an unmarked car today outside of Beijing…but you’ll have to read through to the end to get to that part of the story. Instead I’m going to take you through my day in chronological order.   Read the rest of this entry »