Sunday and the Olympics continue :-)
Today went to show that you don't always sit on the touchline and hectically try to snap pictures of the action, which is non-stop. As on Sunday I was covering the Women's Road-cycling, but as the course was so 'short' there was no chance to get a shuttle to the course and be in place for the start and finish.
Tube to Green Park in the morning as Media Bus was not worth the hassle - walk with the crowds past the The Ritz down to the media centre alongside the Mall and for the first time I GOT A LOCKER at a venue.. whether this is only the last time, remains to be seen. Good timing on the arrival as the Finnish rider Pia Sundstedt was just being introduced to the crowd so I got some good shots of her before the race (which proved to be just as well). For the start the request was to get some images with something that says 'London' in them.. so off to the photo position by Buckingham Palace with the rest of the photographers.. As we walked down the Mall it felt like we were having a race of our own, and we even got a cheer from the crowd :-)
At the photo position every one was snapping pictures of the crowd were we looked for the younger watchers or some fans dressed in colours of their country. And we found some nice one subjects to photograph.. and if you've read about the cycling race, you've probably seen few of those images in some of the papers.
Walk back from the photo position.. DON'T GET ME STARTED! Instead of the security allowing us the way we came.. oh no - it was a walk all the way to Green Park and along Piccadilly.. thank goodness none of us had something like a 400mm to carry with us.
After getting back to the Media Center - all the spaces were taken so I ended up sitting on the floor with a fellow photographer, who is here on an assignment for Finnish photo-agency Lehtikuva. And we waited.. and waited.. then waited some more.. and after about three hours, we ventured out to get ready to shoot the finish. Photo positions in the finish are rather poor - only selected few got the 'head on' position.. and for the rest of us, well.. they were lacking in angles and crowds got in the way of the shots a bit as well, but in these situations you have to improvise and do best out of the situation.. but even if I had over 100 frames from the main bunch coming into the Finish, the Finnish riders was bunched in somewhere there in the middle and I only saw her bike frame in some of the images (things would have been different from head on position).
Quick sending of few images and then headed to have dinner at the Catering Village - before hooking up with Mansoor Ahmed at the basketball venue (where I've heard that he sleeps under the tables and refuses to leave the venue even during the night ;-)) Managed to say Hi! to Team GB's Drew Sullivan before the game.. got some nice pictures of the Russians playing some attractive ball.. i did NOT take pictures of the Red Foxes cheerleaders.. which will surprise and disappoint many of you.
After the GB game - across the park to Stratford and back up the Central Line to Epping and it was 'lights out' as soon as I got to my Hotel..
AH!! You must be wondering about the 'Royals' in the title.. well, whether Buckingham Palace knows exactly where I am every day, and sends one member of the family there or what, I once again managed to snap a Royal at an event. Princess Anne sat right behind me at the finish line of the Road Cycling.. and I managed to catch her looking not so happy while at the front of the image I had a lovely set of Dutch children with the flag celebrating Marienne Vos' victory.. that image will quite likely find its way to my archives of 'keepers' from the Olympics. But as far as I understand - as an accredited Photographer my images can not be shown in Blogs/Twitter/Facebook.. so none you will ever see it :-(