I spent the last 3 weeks in Paris for the Summer Olympics and captured more than 85,000 photos over that span of time. Many of those were Team USA and some were just for me to enjoy. Of all those photos, there were 14 that stood out as favorites for me.
I would love to share those with all of you now. These are shown in chronological order.
We all know that Simone Biles was one of the great highlights of these Olympic Games and I was excited once again to capture photos of her in action. I got to the venue over an hour early to make sure to have a good position at the balance beam, knowing that the GOAT would be doing her magic there. As always, I am looking to capture that "peak of action" and this was one of those moments.
This photo is a favorite for many reasons. I love the position of Simone in the photo with her laid out almost completely straight, but also the fact that I was in perfect focus on her eyes. I was locked in on her and she was locked in on her routine. Honestly, this is a testament to the new Canon R1 which helped achieve that level of focus even in really difficult situations.
I am always looking to take photos in creative ways. There are more than 2000 photographers at the Summer Olympics, and it is a challenge to photograph the athletes differently from all the other shooters. For this shot, I decided to photograph from a low position. I saw the Olympic Rings on the net and thought that this would be a great foreground element if I could achieve focus on Coco Gough through the net, which I was able to do. I took this photo at f/2.8 to make sure that my subject was in perfect focus, but the rings would be soft.
My favorite photo from the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo was a multiple exposure shot of fencing. I knew that I wanted to try that again in Paris. When I arrived at the Grande Palais I was surprised to see that they had fans on both sides of the stage. Normally, for the sport of fencing, they have one side blacked out and it is lit theatrically. This created a different look from my photo from Japan, and I really like the results. For those who are not familiar with multiple exposure photos, they are all done in the camera (through custom settings) and not in Photoshop.
I went back to photograph Simone Biles a couple of times. This photo was taken during the individual competition, and she was really happy with her performance. As she came off the beam, she was beaming herself. I love the smile and her tongue sticking out so slightly.
I photographed a lot of water polo at these Olympics (as I do every summer Games), but this shot was one of my favorites, with a perfect arc of water coming off Jenna's hand. I literally took tens of thousands of photos of water polo and this was the only time that the arc was so clear.
This was the first time that the sport of Kayak Cross was in the Olympics, and they launched four boats from a ramp at one time. I waited for that one moment when all four boats hit the water concurrently and fired, hoping to get the curl of the water from every boat. It took many hundreds of photos, but this one was worth it.
This photo is my favorite from the entire Olympic Games. For those of you who read the blog throughout the Olympics, you know that I made numerous visits to the beach volleyball venue to get this photo. I had a decent sunset on my first visit, but the second time was even better. I had envisioned this photo for months prior to my trip to Paris, and the final result was exactly what I was hoping for. I chose to use a Canon RF 15-35mm wide angle lens to include most of the stadium in the foreground, but not be so wide that the Eiffel Tower would be small in the background. I also had to wait for that perfect moment where the tower was lit, and the sunset was at its peak color.
Once again in the pursuit of photographing more creatively and differently, I took this motion pan photo of horse jumping at 1/30th of a second. I had to move the lens at the EXACT same speed as the horse and rider to make this work, and I did just that for this photo. When done correctly, the horse and rider are in sharp focus while everything else is blurred.
I had never photographed skateboarding at the Olympics before. They had the sport at the Tokyo Olympics, but I always had conflicts and never made it in 2021. This time I was able to visit the venue and try my luck with the men and their boards. I positioned myself straight onto the Olympic Rings and waited for the riders to jump into the frame. It took me hundreds of photos to get one with the skateboarder right in the middle of one of the rings. I had a photo with the skateboarder dead center, but myself (and many of the blog readers) all agreed that this one was more interesting.
On my first visit to the Grande Palais for fencing, I took the photo that you saw earlier in this post, but I did not have a super wide lens with me that day. I went back to that venue a week later to photograph Taekwondo, and this time I brought a Canon RF 10-20mm ultra-wide lens with me. I was sitting ringside for this shot, but the wide lens makes the athletes small and the amazing venue really big. I guess you could say that for this photo, the building was my subject, and the athletes were the supporting subjects.
As I mentioned earlier, I took a lot of photos of water polo. I like this photo, not because it shows the peak of action (and I have a ton of those), but because I tried something different. For this photo, I saw that the "Paris 2024" and Olympic Rings on the ball were turned right towards me, so I quickly focused on the ball and not on Max.
This photo is a favorite not because of the photo itself, but because of what this photo means to me. I had already taken the group photo on the platform, as their medals were given to each athlete, but I did not like the background. I picked this location, which was much better, and happy to get this photo. But as I just said, the photo is fine, but the memory of this great moment, as the men medaled for the first time in 16 years. is what I feel when I look at this photo.
Lastly, I also love this photo because, even though I don't particularly like being in front of the camera, I always love the chance to hold and wear an Olympic medal. This was the last day of the Games and it was a great ending to a really long 3 weeks in Paris!
Special Thanks to Jeff!
Jeff Cable started his professional photography career photographing events in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2004. Although he has an expansive portfolio of corporate and personal client work, he's best known for capturing photos for the US Olympic Committee, photographing the last eight Olympic games for Team USA, in Beijing, Vancouver, London, Sochi, Rio de Janeiro, Pyeong Chang, Tokyo and Paris. He also leads photo tours where he teaches photo enthusiasts and professionals around the world.
To learn more about Jeff and view more of his work, visit
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Camera automatically detects the eye and "it helped achieve the focus.."?
Wow! Amazing photos! While looking at the first few I thougth, "Yeah, but he had amazing access to get those shots." But as I continued I was thinking, "Who am I fooling? If I had that access I would get good shots, but nothing like what he got." He shot them with that extra artistic flair that took them from good to outstanding. Very inspirational photos.