Olympic photo journal
Chicago Tribune photojournalist Scott Strazzante shares the experience
of the 2008 Summer Games
Image 1 of 203
-
Email |
It's all over but the packing
(Tribune photo by Scott Strazzante)August 25, 2008: It's all over but the packing
As I walked out of the Closing Ceremony at the National Stadium in Beijing Sunday night, I was overcome with a feeling of sadness and relief. Covering an Olympics is one of the greatest assignments that a photojournalist can be given but it is also one of the most grueling.
Over the past 17 days from the Opening to Closing Ceremony, I photographed 59 events, shot 103,276 photographs -- transmitting 650 of those back to Chicago; ate 38 meals while losing 10 pounds; was awake 323 hours while sleeping 85 hours and put three boxes of band-aids on the blisters on my feet.
Out of those 103,276 images, I have 61 that are my absolute favorites. 61 photos that I believe are special. That means I really like 0.00059% of the images I took, or 1 in every 1693 frames. Not the greatest average in the world but I am proud of my effort here in China.
With the state of newspapers, who knows if I will ever get another chance to photograph an Olympics. I would love the opportunity but if it doesn't happen, I know that I squeezed every bit of fun out of my past three Olympic in Athens, Torino and Beijing.
I would like to give huge thanks to everyone who stopped by my photo journal and to Chicago Tribune multimedia editor Meg Theno who put a ton of work into editing and posting my images and words on chicagotribune.com.
Time to start packing, settle into my middle seat and fly back home.
As I walked out of the Closing Ceremony at the National Stadium in Beijing Sunday night, I was overcome with a feeling of sadness and relief. Covering an Olympics is one of the greatest assignments that a photojournalist can be given but it is also one of the most grueling.
Over the past 17 days from the Opening to Closing Ceremony, I photographed 59 events, shot 103,276 photographs -- transmitting 650 of those back to Chicago; ate 38 meals while losing 10 pounds; was awake 323 hours while sleeping 85 hours and put three boxes of band-aids on the blisters on my feet.
Out of those 103,276 images, I have 61 that are my absolute favorites. 61 photos that I believe are special. That means I really like 0.00059% of the images I took, or 1 in every 1693 frames. Not the greatest average in the world but I am proud of my effort here in China.
With the state of newspapers, who knows if I will ever get another chance to photograph an Olympics. I would love the opportunity but if it doesn't happen, I know that I squeezed every bit of fun out of my past three Olympic in Athens, Torino and Beijing.
I would like to give huge thanks to everyone who stopped by my photo journal and to Chicago Tribune multimedia editor Meg Theno who put a ton of work into editing and posting my images and words on chicagotribune.com.
Time to start packing, settle into my middle seat and fly back home.
