It’s been a few weeks since my last post and this time I won’t be referring to my photos or any assignments which I have been to. For this year’s Black & White Ball Hollywood, Bruce Cosgrove with the Chamber of Commerce wanted a life size cutout of me posed as an old school paparazzo to display at the main entrance. In the newsroom we all joked about it for a couple weeks leading up to the event about how I wouldn’t be surprised if some one drew a mustache above my lip, cut the head off or found it destroyed somewhere during the massive street party. My girlfriend Candace was bummed I didn’t go to the Ball, but I told her I would be there in spirit and she posed with the cut out for a photo. In the end the cutout remained in one piece but I heard it smelled like booze.

With the Olympics happening live in Beijing, China I can’t help notice all the photographers seen in the background with their enormous 600mm lenses strapped to either a Canon Mark III or Nikon D3. Not sure what that means? Basically they’re rolling with about twenty grand in camera gear. I even saw one photog with two cameras, one strapped with a 400mm lens and the other with a 70-200 mm lens, mounted on a single monopod looking like a giant pair of binoculars.

This past Monday evening I was watching the gymnastic competition between U.S. phenom Nastia Liukin and China’s He Kexin. You know the one I’m talking about. The heat where the two athletes had the same score yet we ended up with the silver medal. Who says there’s no home field advantage? After Liukin noticed the scores it was very apparent she was confused and disappointed.

At one moment she walked over near the audience apparently speaking to some one in the stands and within seconds photographers rushed her with cameras in her face hoping to get the money shot. I was in awe watching these photogs work so I recorded it for this blog, which you can view at auburnjournal.com. When watching the video, notice some photogs are completely ignoring her while you see one in the upper-right corner pop a few frames, another guy noticed he’s shooting, runs up, makes some adjustments, and fires away. Then a guy with a backward hat starts shooting and then another rushes in and then another. Soon all you see are wide-angle lenses waiting for her to do something that depicts her frustration with the final scores. It looked like a scene from Britney Spears stepping into a club. I studied this segment for a few minutes trying to figure out what causes such a mainstream of media chaos in an already high pressure, action-packed sequence of events.

When you see one photog getting the shot the feeling is you need to get the same exact shot and it trickles down to each photog. I would admit while shooting Stacy Dragilla at the Olympic Trials in ’04 and even photographing high-profile court cases I feel a rush while shooting. There’s something about being right in the middle of the action, two feet from your subject, hearing the clack of the rapid shutter, getting bumped by other media, all to get one shot.

I asked myself if I were down there as a pool photographer would I do it? Probably. For some getting a chance to shoot the Olympics is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so they’re making the best of it. Until then the closest thing to being a paparazzo I’ll get is a cutout at the Black & White Ball.