Not only were some of the fireworks faked, but the little girl who sang as the flag entered the stadium was lip-syncing to another girl's pre-recorded singing.

A Windows Blue Screen Of Death was also spotted at the Bird's Nest stadium during the opening ceremony.



On a non-Olympics note, some people have re-enacted childhood photos, with interesting results.

Here's a collection of 60 amazing pictures you should see on flickr.

And finally, here's a great collection of 60 incredible aerial photos you must see.

The Beijing Olympics is garnering a lot of media attention, and there's plenty of photos showing up on the web. Here's a selection of great photos from the Olympics:

• The Bird's Nest
  An excellent photo of the fireworks over the Bird's Nest stadium, taken by Jonathan Newton from the Washington Post.
• 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony
  A selection of 24 photos from various photographers from the opening ceremony.
• Visions of China: Day 1
  Thirteen photos from various sports from the first day of the Olympics on newsweek.com.
• Opening Ceremony
  A selection of phtotos from various photographers on the Canadian Toronto Star website.
• The Night is Right
  Some photos of The Cube (officially known as the National Aquatic Center) and the Bird's Nest.

Quite a few photographers in Beijing to cover the Olympics are blogging about their experiences, and here's a few interesting stories:

• In a post titled Lucy in the sky with diamonds, Lucy Nicholson talks about her experience taking photos of the opening ceremony from the roof of the Bird's Nest.
• Vincent Laforet describes his frustration trying to take photos of the Olympics opening ceremony fireworks from the Great Wall in a post titled Fireworks Show Fizzles at The Great Wall.
• Canadian Richard Lautens had a ticket for the opening ceremony, but it was hotter than he expected.

Earlier today, a friend pointed me at an interesting blog post about how many photographers obsess with gear, and always needing to upgrade a body or lens... It's a worthwhile read, and serves as a great reminder for all photographers out there to focus on their photos, and not the gear they think they need/want ;-)

Also from the same blogger, a humorous look at the realisation that he has too much gear, and sells most of it to buy the "dream" camera he thought was too expensive....not realising just how much money he had already spent on gear anyway!


On another note, if you've ever wondered how to tell the age of a Canon lens, here's some info on making sense of the date code that's on most Canon lenses.
A quick look through my lenses indicates L lenses have a date code, but my other lenses don't have one.


Scott Kelby recently interviewed an attorney to discuss various topics, including copyright, model releases, and shooting in public. While it's primarily US-focused, there's still some interesting content for people in other countries.

Every now and then, I'll be doing a Quick Links post, where I provide some brief info and links to interesting stories/articles. This first Quick Links post focuses on photographer's rights.

A Los Angeles photographer recently received a suprise visit from two agents from the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force after a photoshoot at the Port of Los Angeles.
From the original post: Maybe one of these OCAU photography shirts would have helped:

OCAU photographer shirt

John Forrest National Park, Western Australia
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @79mm, 1/3200 sec, f/5.6, ISO200

Do you know your rights as a photographer? If not, then I would strongly recommend you read on to find out more about your rights.