The Paris Olympic Video games 2024 are nicely underway, providing once-in-a-lifetime alternatives for photographers to seize a number of the most iconic sporting photos of all time.
Just one photographer, nonetheless, is allowed within the water throughout the Olympic surf competitors, happening in Teahupo’o, Tahiti.
“Yeah, it is superb to be sincere,” ocean photographer Ben Thouard informed me simply earlier than the beginning of the surf competitors final week. “It is an amazing honor to be chosen to be within the water to cowl the Olympics.”
Representing Agence France-Presse, the 38-year-old has been spending 10 hours a day within the water, together with his unbelievable pictures being routed on to the worldwide press places of work in real-time.
This distinctive alternative is not only right down to his immense talent in underwater images; Thouard is aware of Teahupo’o of previous.
With an early and enduring love of the ocean and browsing, Thouard found images in his teenagers, transferring to Paris to attend images college after graduating from highschool.
Quitting midway via to go skilled, he took a visit to Hawaii and met the surf group there. After touring and photographing the world, Thouard settled in Tahiti in 2007, photographing each swell and surf in Teahupo’o.
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So, the query you are all dying to know the reply to: what’s in Thouard’s Olympic underwater equipment bag?
“I’ve travelled with my Canon R3, and I am principally going to be counting on two Canon lenses, a 16-35mm, and a 24-105mm,” he mentioned.
“I selected the R3 as a result of it is probably the most dependable digicam obtainable now, and it has an ethernet port, which permits me to switch the images onto a telephone, and transmit reside straight onto an FTP.
“The R3 has an amazing battery life, superior autofocus, and clearly one of the best body per second for taking pictures sports activities. With the 16-35 I ought to be capable of get some actually distinctive photographs, and the 24-105 has one of the best vary to cowl a contest.”
All of Thouard’s equipment is secured in AquaTech water housing, full with two completely different ports, a dome for the wide-angle lens, and a flat port for the 24-105mm. He’s additionally utilizing a particular housing on high of the opposite housing, which is able to maintain the ethernet cable that connects the digicam to the telephone, with an exterior battery.
As you possibly can think about, virtually every little thing is custom-made, and he has been creating this know-how with AquaTech over the previous few months.
Following up with Thouard throughout the competitors, he is happy to report that every one his equipment has held up flawlessly.
“Nothing has gone improper. Transmitting from the water has been working completely. Whereas I’m floating within the South Pacific, editors in Paris and the US are sitting behind desks processing the images I’ve simply taken, which is fairly superior when you consider it.”
It is essential to keep in mind that all of Thouard’s Olympic photographs are taken whereas freediving; he has no oxygen tank and no additional buoyancy.
Waves in Teahupo’o can develop as much as 50ft – and on high of that, there’s additionally the big shallow reef, ready to impale these unfortunate few who occur to wipe out.
“I solely have my digicam and my fins, after which I navigate via these waves, simply swimming. It is bodily very demanding, swimming ten hours a day over a four-day occasion.”
Regardless of the acute situations, and the suspension of the competitors on account of harmful climate, Thouard is loving each second.
“I am tremendous proud of how every little thing’s been going. In the course of the coaching I used to be in a position to shoot lots underwater, even getting within the barrel with the surfers. I am unable to get as shut throughout the precise competitors so it is a bit of bit tougher, however yeah tremendous stoked thus far.”
Thouard was fast to acknowledge the success of fellow photographer Jerome Brouillet, whose picture of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina ‘floating’ above the water went viral.
“Yesterday was a extremely nice second for my colleague, capturing Gabriel Medina kicking out, floating within the sky together with his board behind him.”
Whereas that shot is being hailed because the greatest {photograph} of the Paris 2024 Olympics, the entire surf competitors has produced some phenomenal photographs.
“That is most likely the important thing second of the Olympics thus far, and I imply it is superb to see this all unfold proper in entrance of me. It is historical past.”
Take a look at our guides to the greatest waterproof cameras, and the greatest underwater housings for cameras and telephones.