France’s Perrine Laffont during the ladies’ freestyle skiing moguls of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park. The odd look of this panning shot was caused by a volunteer with a brightly colored jacket (at right) passing between the skier I was following through the air and my camera.

Most people would assume that the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics would mark the official start of competition. They’d be wrong. The opening ceremonies are tomorrow, and competition started today. Most people would also assume that checking three bags for a transatlantic flight would result in all three of said bags arriving at your destination. They’d also be wrong, as my colleague Kevin Jairaj found out the hard way.

I ran into Kevin today near my hotel as I headed out feature-hunting (where we go out and find something to shoot on our own), and we agreed to go check out another one of the cable car runs together. Kevin was out finishing an overpriced but necessary shopping spree to replace all his checked clothing (including expensive cold weather gear) that never made it to Sochi. Before we headed to the cable car, Kevin had to make a stop for one more critical item: underwear.

Colleague Kevin Jairaj, with the patience of Job, struggles to explain the correct size of underwear he requires against a complete language barrier.

The sales woman in the store knew about 3 words of English, and Kevin knows about -5 words of Russian, so watching them go back and forth with pantomimes on the appropriate size of boxer-briefs necessary for purchase was amusing to say the least. I swear I even heard Kevin utter a, “Si,” at one point in response to a question. It’s all good though, he was just keeping it multicultural just like the Olympics truly are!

Once the underwear situation was squared away, we hit the cable car and found that it offers a great angle of the alpine skiing course, where the skiers pass directly under the gondola some 150 feet below. This position is hit or miss, however, since it takes about 15 minutes on the gondola to reach this point of the course, which you pass over in about 20 seconds (there’s no guarantee a skier will be on course at that point, let alone under you). Still, I made a cool photo, and I plan on going back tomorrow with a longer lens for a few more rides to try again.

Slovenia’s Ilka Stuhec on the course during the ladies’ alpine skiing training session prior to the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Alpine Center.

Russia’s Marika Pertakhiya during the ladies’ freestyle skiing moguls of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

I wrapped up the day shooting ladies moguls qualifying back at the extreme park, my first actual event that counted at this Olympics. As I mentioned in my blog 2 days ago, bad backgrounds can ruin an otherwise great vantage point. To try and clean my backgrounds up as the skiers neared my position, I tried some “panning” shots, where we slow the shutter speed down and follow the skier very carefully with the camera.

The idea is, if you do this perfectly, the skier will be sharp, and the bad background will turn into a colorful blur. This technique is very unpredictable, and I’m not sure I really nailed anything tonight, but the two I’ve posted here I’m happy enough with.

Team USA’s Hannah Kearney during the ladies’ freestyle skiing moguls of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games at Rosa Khutor Extreme Park.

Guy’s Russian Word of the Day is one I’ve picked up after saying, “Thank you,” so much to people in Russian. It’s ??????????, pronounced, “Pah-shole-sta,” which means, “You’re welcome!” The first couple of times I heard people responding to my thank-you’s with a word I didn’t know, the East Chicagoan in me wanted to immediately squint at them and say, “Whatchu just say to me?!’ Thankfully, I remained cool, and used context clues to figure this one out!