Not everybody is aware that - every four year - the year preceding the Olympic Games, the Americas countries' athletes are busy with the Pan American ones. Their date of birth can be situated in the year 1924 when - at the Olympic games in Paris - the members from Mexico, Guatemala and Cuba proposed to the International Olympic Committee the establishment of regional games in Central America. Two years later then, in Mexico City, the games took place. Today, 42 nations, from North to Central America, from the South to the Caribbean are part of the PASO, Pan American Sports Organization.

Buenos Aires, Winnipeg, San Juan, Indianapolis, Havana, Mar del Plata and Santo Domingo have all hosted the games during the last century. In 2007 it was the turn of Rio de Janeiro. The sports covered are several ones - 34 to be more precise -, among which archery, athletics, boxing, equestrian, rhythmic gymnastics, rugby and water polo, to name but a few. Even though in the North they lost some importance, and "second class" athletes usually take part to the event, the games are still important for the Centre and South America, where they receive plenty of attention.

click here to view Atletismo panorama

click here to view Basquete panorama

click here to view Futebol Feminino panorama

click here to view Encerramento do PAN panorama

click here to view Futebol Mascolino panorama

click here to view Ginástica Rítmica panorama

click here to view Hipismo panorama

click here to view Patinação de Velocidade panorama

click here to view Polo Aquático Feminino panorama

click here to view Vila do PAN panorama

click here to view Vôleibol Feminino panorama

click here to view Arena Multiuso do Complexo do Autódromo panorama

click here to view Maracana panorama

click here to view Handball panorama

click here to view Futebol Masculino panorama

It's thanks to the images taken by Ayrton Camargo and his wife Andréa Camargo Simões during a sixteen days' span, that you have the chance to watch what happened. Ayrton's involvement in the PanAmerican Games started back in 2000 when, with a 280° degrees of Rio de Janeiro, he provided the right imagery to showcase the city for the upcoming event.
During the same year, the photographer and his wife searched for a sponsor, who would have been interested in panoramic images of the event.

In 2005 the couple contacted a photo editor of a well known Brazilian newspaper in Rio. The meeting went well, the people were positively impressed by Ayrton's work, but bureaucracy and the fact that the general editor had just left to go working for another newspaper, stalled the operations.

A year later, Andréa fixed a meeting with Christina de Luca, Content editor of one of the three biggest online newspapers in Rio, called O Dia.
Strangely enough, Cristina de Luca was the general editor which had left the other newspaper.

Cristina was amazed by Ayrton and Andréa work, specially after having seen some panoramics taken inside the world's biggest favela, Rocinha. The collaboration started the day after, with QTVRs inside the churches, during a religious holiday. Some time later, Ayrton caught pictures of the World Soccer Cup. Cristina de Luca left the newspaper and went working for another one, becoming Digital Director for the Jornal do Brazil and calling hence Ayrton for the jobs (Ayrton was then working for two of the three major Bazilian online magazine).

Ayrton was able to shot the Games, in a
mission which was like a war operation, with the city full of police officers and the army, special permits to drive around and a lot of problems to solve: to start with, Ayrton and Andréa had to skim the events they could participate to, in oder to shoot at least a competition in every sport. Moreover, Andréa caught the Army's attention when she forgot a Swiss Army knife in her bag, and Ayrton had his worries, trying to convince a police inspector that he wasn't breaking any law by using a tripod (It was prohibited to the photographers to use either any kind of tripod or flashes during the competition). To tell the truth, the photographer convinced the police that what he was seeing wasn't a tripod, but a monopod with three legs and - for that day - he used it accordingly. Cristina de Luca, at the newspaper, was much more indulgent, and gave Ayrton "carte blanche", letting him decide everything about framing, lighting and composition and the photographer and his wife would hence prepare the pano, the html page, the sound, the text (if any) and send everything off, to go on air.

Ayrton's panoramics were so much appreciated that the newspaper's website went down several times during the competitions.

We asked Ayrton about the techniques and products used to perform the shooting.

During all these 16 days I was using a Nikon D80 with a Sigma 8mm fisheye ƒ: 4.
I did all the panoramas with the Sigma fisheye, shooting only 4 around and using it on a Bo Lorentzen photo bracket
Andréa was carrying a Coolpix 4500 with a fisheye FC-E8 lens too just in case something happened close to her, and a Nikon D70 with a Tokina fisheye zoom 10-17 mm. She was shooting all the sports too, but conventional photos just for our archive and in case something special happened.
She was recording movies for us, so we would be able to get sound from the places we went to use on the Panoramas.

During the shooting I was taking some extra clicks "just in case", to avoid missing something.
On the internal arenas I was using a Nikon SB-28 flash with a Gary Fong white diffuser on it. I knew it was proibihted, but my photos were more important and when the inspectors would come to tell me to stop using it, I had the photos already.
So it was like a game for me too, a chance to get it or not. Everything was shot RAW with jpgs too, just to avoid some problems in case the card had some damages.
I used iView Media Pro to import the NEF files and ACR from Photoshop CS3 to calibrate it all.

PTGUI made by Joost was "THE" software to stich it all in minutes .
The computer was a PAC, or a PC mounted with specific mother-board and Core Duo processor with MAC OS X installed on it.
Believe it or not, just 1 GB of RAM and it was much much faster than a iMac intel Core 2 Duo with 3 GB of RAM that we had at the studio too.

After PTGUI , just lots of retouching at PS CS3 and then Cubic Converter and Cubic Connector.
I was just begining to use FPP at the time, so I decided to use QuickTime as my main player.

Ayrton Camargo was born to be a photographer, an art he was in love with since childhood, when he used to spend his time with a father who was always taking pictures. After winning a bowling championship at the age of 14, Ayrton got a camera and some years later - when he was 17 - had his first paid job for an interstate bus company, preparing posters. This was his beginning and - since then - he never stopped shooting to pay for his bills, entering into a media magazine company, where he was responsible for various kinds of photographic reportage, from journalism to fashion, from tourism to nude. The next step saw Ayrton working in advertising and - in 1982 - he was hired as photographer by Jacques Cousteau, in his Amazon expedition. Ayrton entered into panography in 1996 and - today - he offers any kind of photo service, from advertising to reportage even though his panoramic skills are amongst the most requested since 2006 when - with the shootings of the world's biggest favela, Rocinha, he caught the attention of Cristina de Luca - Content Editor for O Dia. Since then, either O Dia or the Jornal do Brasil calls Ayrton on a regular basis, to freeze in his panoramic images several things: from fashion shows, to sport events.
His wife Andréa Simões is his associate, assistant and also a second photographer in big jobs, where clients need two people shooting at the same time to better capture the event.

Links:
Ayrton360.com
VRfolio.com

Related articles in this issue:
Gisele Bündchen at Rio Fashion Week