Blast From the Past: 1980 Winter Olympics @ Lake Placid

 

 Photograph © by Russel Alan Considine

https://russ-considine.pixels.com

www.russconsidine.zenfolio.com

I was fortunate to have shot photographs at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. You can view more of my photos from that Olympics at: www.RussConsidine.zenfolio.com This was, of course, prior to the advent of digital cameras. I used a "Konica Autoreflex T" SLR (single lens reflex) camera. Konica was the first camera maker to use a "through the lens meter" to set the lens diaphragm automatically after the user selected a shutter speed. 35 mm film was used, primarily Kodak or Fuji film. The photographer was usually limited to a roll of 24 or 36 exposures. Thus, the eventual number of photos that you would take was totally dependent on your personal or business budget. You needed to purchase one or more rolls of 35 mm film and then either develop the film yourself in a "dark room" or drop off at your local camera store for developing. When you shot a photograph, you had no idea what the resulting photograph might look like until you viewed the developed photo, often 3-7 days later. Thus, with the photo shown above (my favorite of all of my photos taken at that Winter Olympics), I had no clue at the time I was shooting the photo, as to what it might eventually look like. Honestly, the portion of the USA flag flying (perfectly framing this shot in my opinion) above the United States' celebrating hockey players, I did not even know that it would be a part of the final photo. A person standing in front of me was apparently waving the flag &, in my haste to capture frozen moments of Olympic history, I was not even aware of the flag flying above my head! I owned numerous lenses for that camera and I believe the lens that I used for this photograph was a Konica 200 mm lens.