Beijing Olympics: Day 3

Today, I shot two sports that I have only ever shot once before, and never before on a professional level. They were field hockey and water polo. Oddly enough, field hockey was one of the first sports that I had ever shot, as it was one of my first sports assignments I was ever given when I shot for the Daily Northwestern. And water polo I had only shot once before for a prep sports company in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Needless to say, the level of play was much better. The passing was far cleaner, and thus, scrambles for loose balls were far more infrequent. But the biggest difference of all... especially in water polo, is that they are MUCH harder hitting and violent.



You can see it in field hockey, but it's not as apparent in water polo.... supposedly there is a lot of grabbing, scratching, and kicking that goes on under water as players fight for positioning in front of the net. Some photographers there were trying to rank the sports in terms of physicality and violence, and this is what they came up with: water polo/handball (tie), wrestling, boxing. Yeah... boxing is only the third most violent and physical sport.... crazy, huh? Maybe I will try to shoot part of a future game in one of those underwater viewing holes to see what exactly goes on. In any case, because I was above water, so like any other sport here at the Olympics, the name of the game is not only to shoot the action, but to try to clean up your backgrounds or include Olympic signage.







Tomorrow, I am back to the Water Cube for some swimming finals as Phelps goes for gold medal number three, as well as some more water polo and diving.