Snipers Eye View

After having spent months scouring Stratford for a great position to shoot the opening ceremony, that would not charge me the earth for the privilege. Then the kind people at Holiday Inn and Staybridge Suites just kind of dropped in my lap and I thought this is the one. Little did I know someone at the hotel was getting a much better view than me….

Anyway, this being my first Opening ceremony I had not quite realised how deathly dull they are from the outside. It started well with the Red Arrows fly past set against a London skyline at sunset at 20.12.

Then not too much later The Queen and James Bond dropped in. Or rather two stunt doubles got blown by the wind and landed somewhere in Stratford but no matter this was great. Then there was the wait…

Endless unseen visual spectacles followed by a sea of invisible Athletes made for a long night but soon the whole reason for my standing around for 5 hours would start. The fireworks started, then stopped. Then the whole park lit up as the end grew near and out of the corner of my lens I saw them. Silhouetted against a bank of rockets, the people with the best view in the house, the Snipers. All the biggest bursts were happening right behind the roof they were standing on. 

Oh well I am not one to begrudge a police marksman a good view and the Holiday Inn will love me. Apart from there is no I in holiday, but while the Olympics are in town I and holiday were two things that were never going to go together.