Photographers Blog

By Toby Melville

The United Kingdom, London in particular, is cranking up the momentum with just over two months to go until the 2012 Summer Olympics begin. In the last few months myriads of sporting, political and business photocalls have taken place around the gleaming and glittering new venues in east London with many test events being held therein.

The last time London hosted the Olympics was in 1948, three years after the Second World War and because of that global conflict, it was the first Olympics in 12 years, since Berlin in 1936. The competition was labelled the Austerity Games, because of the post-war rationing and the economic climate of the time. With the 2012 Games also set against a backdrop of global financial and economic crisis, comparisons with the previous time London played host are easy to make.

In 2012, over nine billion pounds sterling (approximately US$13billion) has so far been channeled into building brand new stadia, with a whole new Olympic Park complex in east London. But in 1948, only existing venues and facilities were used, nor was there an athletes village. The total cost of the games then was £760 000 (approx £131 million, $210 million, in 2012). In 1948, British athletes had to buy their own kit and make their own way to events by public transport. Some of the venues used in 1948 are still in existence, so I thought it would make an interesting journey to track down and photograph them nearly 65 years later…

SLIDESHOW: LONDON 1948

(View a slideshow of images here)

By Eddie Keogh

“There’s an old fashioned East End welcome waiting for you.” There’s a good chance you’ll read that quote on the pre-Olympic hype about London. But only those with a sense of adventure will really see and feel it.

Most spectators visiting the Games will enter the park via the shiny new Westfield shopping center. There you can take time out in Starbucks, Costa Coffee, McDonald’s, Nando’s, Pizza Express or even TGI Friday’s. Now I’d put good money on most of our visitors knowing these brands from whichever corner of the world they’re from. But will they have experienced The King Edward VII, The Lord Cardigan.

The Cart and Horses, The Adam and Eve or even The Bow Bells. Now that’s visiting London and the landlord’s and ladies and the people inside those pubs are the real Eastenders.

By Lucy Nicholson

Sweaty burly men in photographers’ vests that haven’t been washed for days. Packed together, jostling for position. Tempers flaring in many tongues, monopods and lenses bumping against bodies – photographing Olympic athletes can be less than glamorous.

REUTERS/Gary Hershorn

It’s an enviable front row seat to the largest sporting spectacle on earth, but there’s not much opportunity for photographers to chat to athletes, or to find many unique shooting vantage points.

So when the opportunity came to photograph Olympic athletes training in and around LA last week as part of our coverage of the build-up to the 2012 Games in London, I jumped right in, literally.

By Stefan Wermuth

A walk from the Olympic side to ‘Little Venice’ along the Hertford Union canal and the Regents Canal.

I started my journey at the Overground station Hackney Wick. You will not find Hackney Wick in a travel guide under ‘highlights’ or ‘things to do’ but it has his own charm and its own ‘highlights’.

One of the ‘Highlights’ is also my culinary tip. Half-way between the station and the access to the Hertford Union canal is the cafe “The Griddlers”, located next to a car conversion shop. It’s a breakfast point for workers around the Olympic construction side. There is no Goût Mieux plate at the door but it’s authentic and the people are very friendly. The food is honest and cheap. I tried meal number 6 – scrambled eggs, baked beans, sausages and buttered toast. While eating number 6, I enjoyed looking at replicas of Paul Fischer’s ‘Girls bathing” and Jack Vettriano’s ‘Mad Dogs’.

Lucy Nicholson presents a multimedia blog on Reuters’ coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

With the Olympics now only a month away the search for scene-setting images to tempt the visual palate has begun in earnest. From the Beijing file Henry Lee gives us this to kick start the week - Wei Shengchu, 58, a supporter of traditional Chinese medicine, poses for photos in front of Beijing Railway Station with his head covered with acupuncture needles depicting 205 national flags and an Olympic torch, 7, 2008. Local media reported that Wei wanted to express his good wishes for the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games as well as to promote traditional Chinese medicine. 

And it is all his own work, all 205 and something more substantial representing the Olympic flame, painstakingly inserted into his head to the obvious entertainment of passersby. 

Even in this low resolution the Stars and Stripes, the Swiss, French, Canadian, Brazilian and a host of other national flags, are fairly easily spotted but not the Union Jack.