Hard to believe the Olympics are almost over already. It’s been an absolute blast having them in town; having so much to see re-awakened my interest in photography and I’ve probably had more fun taking pictures in the last couple of weeks than any other time I can remember. It’s been a real privilege to live in Vancouver during the Games. It’s a shame that the weather is so bad for the last few days here, otherwise I’d be out there now taking more! Here’s a round-up of my favourite sights.
The street scene
The downtown core has been absolute madness during the Games, but always good-natured and civilized madness which makes it a pleasure to walk around taking everything in and of course taking pictures! Along with the crowds, we’ve had attractions like the zipline across Robson Street, street hockey games on Granville, art installations and all kinds of attention-grabbing stuff. Had some great walks with friends at lunchtimes just taking it all in. Here’s a small selection (all pics link to their Flickr page).
The hockey photo is interesting to me; by pretty much all objective measures it’s not a good photo, but it captures something I’m not likely to see again with a lot of apparent motion, and I find myself liking it a lot.
The Russian tall ship Krusenstern
I took the seabus over to North Vancouver earlier this week to make sure I had a look at the Krusenstern. It’s an IMMENSE ship, as different from the tall ship that my workmates and I sailed on last year as a cruise ship is from the seabus. The light wasn’t too good for some of the pictures I had in mind, but I got one or two interesting shots.
Kruzenstern.net – The official Krusenstern site.
The Olympic flame at sunrise
I got up at 5am one morning to take pictures of the Olympic flame and the cauldron at sunrise. Justin met me down there and we both got some great shots, then took a slow walk back to work getting some more pictures along the way. Great fun and I got some of my personal favourite shots from this one walkabout.
This shot was taken with my Canon 28-135 lens with a polarizer attached. We ran the gamut on settings here; I’ve got shots at 1/1600 to get detail in the flame, and other shots at 1/20 to get the sky and background looking good. The polarizer really brought colour out in this scene, and I like the end result a lot.
Here’s one last comparison picture demonstrating how much busier the Robson Square area got during the Games! The first shot was taken one lunchtime about 10 days or so before the Olympics opened, and the second was when the Games were in full swing, at the same time of day. So long Olympics, I doubt I’ll ever see a party again like the one you gave us!
