The weight of the crowd is massive. You can feel it pushing in against you from every side. You feel it and yet there is an energy, a lightness to it that pushes back against the sheer mass of people and seems to lift you together with every other person. There are people everywhere, for blocks and block and blocks there are nothing but streets filled with people. The energy that rise off of each of us produces a heady mixture of excitement, anticipation, and joy. It seems so amazing, so wonderful that all of the thousands have gathered in downtown Vancouver to celebrate and we are all, together, happy.
Getting a photograph that captured the miraculous atmosphere that pervaded downtown Vancouver throughout most of the 2010 Olympic games was a challenge. The lights of Granville St. were too large a visual monument to be left out so I knew I wanted to include them. The crowds had to be included so I lifted my camera over my head, luckily I am tall, and prepared to take the shot. I saw a man carrying a flag drift into view. I didn’t want the overt patriotism of the flag completely unfurled, rather I wanted the more subtle statement that I think the partially hidden flag makes. I waited until the guy carrying the flag was in the centre of the frame and the flag was a little lower. I snapped and I knew I had what I was looking for.
-Russell Berg