Olympic Village at Night

One slow night in the MPC, I took a Nikon D3 out for a little test-run. The camera performed admirably, although the meter is completely bonkers in low light. I had to shoot manual and under-expose (per the meter) every shot by 1–2 stops, and then tweak the heck out of the RAW files in Aperture. I've never chimped that much in my life. However it performed better in daylight; those images will get here soon(ish).

Anyway the Village at night is gorgeous. It's pretty clear that both landmark venues, the "Bird's Nest" and the "Water Cube", were designed to look amazing at night. I wasn't very impressed with either of them during the day, but to be fair they grew on me. However in total disclosure, when I first arrived in Beijing, I compared the National Stadium (the Bird's Nest) to the Brussels 1958 World Fair's Atomium and its surrounding structures (1958—2008; 50 year anniversary… coincidence? You be the judge!). Not because of it's shape, but because of its hideousness against the grey sky. In Belgium, you have a pretty much guaranteed grey sky most days. Same in Beijing. I'd think that if you were going to build something that large in a city that's mostly grey during the day, you'd find a way to make it stand out. The brushed steel nest against the grey sky does not a pretty picture make.

Site of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, taken in 1998 on a Kodak DC210 (!)

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Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium

As with any Summer Olympics, there are so many sports, and therefore so many venues, that it's impossible to have them all in one place if they're going to be hosted in an existing metropolis—especially one that's been around as long as Beijing! So as you might imagine, venues are spread far and wide around the city (and actually, the Equestrian Venue was all the way out in Hong Kong!). And as far as cities go, Beijing is huge. Fortunately the Olympics Committee had organized an extremely effective bus system (albeit not a 'green' bus system, which would have been very welcome considering the pollution problem that they already have), that could get you to any venue and most of the hotels, any time, any day.

Many of the venues were newly built for the Olympic Games, and the rest were newly renovated. I'm going to take a wild guess that the Basketball arena fell into the former category. It was gorgeous inside and out. You saw the inside in the previous post; here is the outside (front and back) of the 168,000 square meter, seven floor, 18,000 spectator capacity Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium.

Front of the Beijing Olympic Basketball Arena

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Women's Basketball, USA vs Korea

One of the two tickets I had to competitions at the Olympics was to a women's basketball quarter-finals match between USA and Korea. I had amazing seats; second row by the U.S. basket. It was easy to tell which team had more supporters in the audience… every point Korea scored elicited an absolute eruption in the crowd. However I'm very happy to say that even as the U.S. scored their way to victory, the Korean supporters cheered them on. It was heartening to hear — and feel — such universal support. I suppose that's part of what the Olympics are about. Sure we're all there competing for the same medals, but we're also all there to support the players and the love of the friendly — albeit aggressive! — competition.

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Those little red cars

I’ve seen this mentioned around the web a few times [i.e. gizmodo], so I thought I’d throw my photos up. At events like the javelin, discus, and hammer throw, these little red remote-control cars had the duty and honor of returning said hurled object to the other end of the field. It was quite comical to see these things puttering around the green.

Now if I could just teach one to open the fridge…

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Beijing Olympics 2008 Closing Ceremonies

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