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| Photo by Robert Hanashiro/USA Today |
| Lisa Leslie carries the flag after a Saturday night women's gold medal basketball game on September 30, 2000. Click photo for a gallery of Hanashiro's images from the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. |
AP: What challenges do you expect to face in Beijing? Will you cover assignments not directly related to the Olympics? How much time will you have to familiarize yourself with the city before the Opening Ceremonies?
RH: I think anytime you're working in a different country there are a lot of challenges. Language is always a concern, as are customs and culture. I am hoping that politics isn't going to be an issue as many journalists predict. I've tried to study as much as I can about China, but you can only learn so much from reading. I've seen so many "ugly American" incidents while covering the Olympics; I try to stay as alert and sensitive to the customs and rules of the host country.
I have been looking forward to these Olympics since it was announced that Beijing was going to host the 2008 games. I think the Chinese people and the government want to put on a good show for everyone at the games in Beijing and watching at home.
I have been to China a couple of times; the last was a trip with the U.S. Gymnastics Men's National Team several years ago as they trained at the Beijing National Training Center. I know there have been a lot of changes since then and I am looking forward to seeing what has happened in Beijing during those years. I hope they haven't built more T.G.I. Friday's, but I'm sure they probably have. I read somewhere they even opened up a Hooters in Beijing and I hope that isn't true.
Unfortunately I fly into Beijing just a few days before Opening Ceremony and leave a couple of days after Closing Ceremony. So I won't have much time to really see China, which is my only regret about this trip.
AP: Besides the obvious SportsShooter.com, what websites or workshops do you suggest for photographers interested in becoming better sports shooters?
RH: I am a voracious reader and read a lot of books, magazines, and newspapers. That's where I get a lot of my inspiration and ideas. I'd rather look at a good book (or newspaper or magazine) rather than go to the web to look at photographs.
Any sports shooter should read as many of the behind-the-scenes books by John Feinstein, particularly The Last Amateurs, The Majors and A Civil War: Army vs. Navy. Checking out any of the books by SI's Walter Iooss for inspiration is always fun. There are a few lesser known nuggets I can suggest, but you may have to look through the used bins for these: The Fights by Charles Hoff; The Sports Photography of Robert Riger; and Photographing Sports, John Zimmerman, Mark Kauffman and Neil Leifer (Masters of contemporary photography series).
I'm a creature of habit, so I tend to look at the same websites all of the time for technical things. Here are a few that I look at:
• Dave Hobby's wonderful strobist site for using small flashes in portrait work.
• Rob Galbraith's site to keep up on what's happening with digital camera technology.
And a very cool site I look at all of the time to see some of the best newspaper sports photography and how it is used: http://sportsdesigner.blogs.com.
Editor's note: Follow Robert Hanashiro and photographers from around the world as they journey to Beijing to cover the 2008 Summer Olympics. PopPhoto.com's Zach Honig will travel to Beijing from July 1 through August 28 to blog about the Games, the Chinese capital of Beijing, and the city's photographic culture. His blog entries will also cover topics of interest to photographers and journalists traveling to the Olympics, including logistical information about the venues, top spots to photograph in the city, restaurants, and more. The Behind the Lens series will continue after his return in September.
Read other interviews from the Behind the Lens series
• May 2008: Steve Winter
• April 2008: Preston Gannaway
• March 2008: John Moore
• February 2008: Martin Schoeller
• January 2008: Brian Skerry
• December 2007: Jasin Boland
• November 2007: Norm Barker
• October 2007: Cameron Davidson
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