Posts Tagged ‘Olympic experience’

GDC and CAPIC present a post Olympic Showdown

Thursday, November 11th, 2010
Devo fans at the Whistler Medals Plaza during the Vancouver 2010 Games

Devo fans at the Whistler Medals Plaza during the Vancouver 2010 Games

FRIDAY 7-10pm, November 26th, 2010 at EMILY CARR UNIVERSITY OF ART + DESIGN

Join us for this special evening celebrating still
images and moments from the 2010 Winter
Olympic Games by two of Vancouver’s prominent
commercial photographers, John Lee and Rick Etkin.

Learn behind the scenes stories and the commitment required to
capture Canada’s historical spirit of the games.

LIMITED SEATING. BUY TICKETS NOW.
*****************************************************

The Society of Graphic Designers/BC Chapter welcome you

to an ‘Olympic Photo Showdown:Lee vs Etkin’on Friday, November 26th, 2007.

Each special guest will showcase select images from
their award-winning portfolio of behind-the-scenes
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic photographs while
sharing stories about each special moment captured.

After the presentations, a short Q&A period will be
available to the audience with a social reception to follow

Winnipeg Presentation – My Personal Games Experience

Saturday, June 5th, 2010

Click for video
A very quick look at my games experience – an excerpt from the presentation.

A short but successful trip to Winnipeg. Thanks to my host Ron Weston, Superintendent of the St James-Assiniboia School District (and a former volunteer in press operations at the Whistler Media Centre during the Olympics) I was able to share my experience of the Games with photography and art teachers from the district..

The participants of the presentation wearing the latest in photo ID

The multi image extravaganza covered the steps through my time at VANOC and the role that I played and how it related to the photography that was seen around the world. It starts with the destination (an amazing collection of photos from the Games) and then changes to the journey of how the photos came into existence. Many thank yous to the photographers who allowed me to share their work!

The talk included insightful peeks behind the scenes of the photographers at work. There were great portraits of my colleagues, who made the experience so great, and views of some of the planning that it took to accomplish all of the success. The participants gained a lot clearer idea of what was involved in my role at the Games.

The instructors were there to see something that they have not experienced in photography and then discuss ways to help motivate their students to explore and enjoy photography in school and beyond. I believe that the day was a success the teachers had lots to talk about after.

I would be happy to share the presentation with others that are interested, send me an email  for more details.

Some sites around Winnipeg which had record rains a couple of days earlier.

Heavy rains raised river levels in Manitoba past flood stage and made this walkway at The Forks impassible.

Stairs to an underwater walkway at The Forks

The Palm Lounge at The Fort Garry. Not a bad place to spend time on tech support to sort out software problem. Good java and jazz found here.

The Games End…A Blog Begins

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

The Torch reaches Whistler Village to a welcome of thousands of cheering fans

It has been an experience that I will remember forever. For those that didn’t know of my contract with the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, I have spent the last eighteen months as Supervisor of Photo Services for the Mountains in Press Operations. I started in October 2008  and worked inside the Games until late March. In that time I worked closely with my two colleagues, Nick Didlick – Photo Manager and Alain-Pierre Hovasse – my city equivalent (more about them later) with a photo team that eventually reached over thirty managers and supervisors and over two hundred volunteers. That was just our photo operations team, the whole press team reached over five hundred people and the Games more than twenty thousand.

In 2009 I was the Photo Manager at eight World Cups in the Whistler area and helped with the planning for all of the photo positions, infrastructure and technology that would be required for the 740 photographers accredited to the Games. During the Olympics, I oversaw the photography operations for The Whistler Media Centre and Whistler Medals Plaza as Venue Photo Manager. My work expanded for the Paralympics as I was also the Venue Photo Manager for alpine racing at Whistler Creekside.

I was often working in the best, most exciting places at the Games. You can only imagine what it was like to be standing at the lip of the Large Hill Ski jump at Whistler Olympic park as the competitors launched into space at 100kph or at the Whistler Sliding Centre with a Luge blasting by at over 150hph. Blink and they were gone, but the sound and memories will never fade.

My plans were to start this blog before the Games began and share some of my experiences and photos as it happened. The best laid plans often take a left turn as there simply weren’t enough hours in the day, and since there were maybe only 3 days off from Mid January until  the end of the Paralympics I had to shift my priorities.

Photographers at whistler Creekside

Waiting in a snowstorm for the Medals ceremonies at Whistler Creekside / 2010 Paralympics

I am now gathering my thoughts and images to share, hoping that I can give you a small insider’s taste of what it was like to be involved in the largest event in the world in a role that played on all of my experience as a photographer, producer, manager, planner, film-maker and scheduler….

More to come.