Brazil Day 5 - Life sucks, but not for long

One of the benefits of being 4 hours behind the UK is that I get to check the papers while you are all still asleep. And there on the back page of the Mail was my pic of Rooney being unhappy. I was sure it was mine - it's exactly the same. Having been caught out on this sort of thing before, I know to be wary. First you look at the shape of the shot - which matches mine. Then you look at the background, and see that some of the blurred colours are different.Looking closer it's a very slightly different angle. It would have been easier if I'd just looked at the credit on the pic was was for PA, but I'm not sure who was shooting for PA next to me. On my right was Ben Q from BPI, and on my left a guy from South Korea. I'm quite puzzled about this one.Anyway, not mine. Sadness. But at least I'm shooting the right pictures. Happily, my sadness has been significantly alleviated by this view.Today was a busy but different day. I woke up after my first night in my room in the apartment in Rio, which is lovely by the way. A compact room with a single bed and an en-suite bathroom - nothing more required. My hosts Dani and Duda couldn't be more delightful.Once awake I got onto my email to check my FIFA calendar notifications. I get an email every morning with the day's activity listed on it. And there as expected was an England open training session at their Urca base starting at 11:00, with doors open to the base at 10:00. First, breakfast in a cafe downstairs which was excellent, somewhat unconventional, and cheap at about £1.Having not been to the training base before I got there at about 09:30 and joined various camera crews and photographers sitting on the wall next to the sea outside the entrance. There are worse places to be believe me. At 10:00 we were allowed in and made our way to the media centre. This is a superbly kitted out building with workstations, power, wired and wireless networking, soft drinks and food. Very nicely done by the FA - it's an excellent facility.I made myself at home at a desk and sorted out a couple of captions for the day's events. The itinerary was an open training sesion for 15 minutes starting at 11:00 and then a press conference at about 1pm. Obviously they train for more than 15 minutes, but the media are allowed in for 15 minutes before being shepherded away. The captions are needed as each image needs to have a caption to say what is going on, where it is, on which date, and who took the picture. I used the Focus Images caption generator to create the two captions I needed, and stored them in Adobe Lightroom's metadata list so I could apply them to each image when imported from the camera's memory card.Once that was done, and instructions from Daniel back at HQ received on who & what to shoot, it was out into the heat for the open training session. These are quite frantic events, as you've got 15 minutes to get the story of the day. For today it was a firm focus on Wayne Rooney and Daniel Sturridge, the former having not exactly excelled in Manaus, and the latter having been injured in the same game. I also decided to shoot anything on Oxlade-Chamberlain who is trying to get back to fitness for the Uruguay game in a couple of days time, plus the young guys Lallana, Sterling and Wilshere.Wayne Rooney and Roy Hodgson made the shot of the day, with Hodgson putting his arm around Rooney and speaking some kind words ("get some goals dammit" or something like that).This is a great picture as it can be read in so many ways. "Sorry son, you're out" or "OK, your in" or "just relax, you know you can do it" etc. I shot a nice sequence which you can see as usual on Focus Images' website. The key to this sort of thing is to get a picture of an individual looking happy and a picture of them looking sad - that way you've got all the angles covered.See what I mean. The trouble is that there are 30 other photographer's doing the same thing. Anyhow, it was warm, sunny and generally lovely, so if nothing else a good chance to top up (or start) my tan. According to my landlady I "look like a gringo". Thanks for that. The weather is delightful - 28C and sunny - so much more pleasant than the cloying humidity of Manaus.I shot about 250 images of the training session in 15 mins, and sent 90 to Focus.Just about the time I'd finished editing the training images, having sent the Rooney/Hodgson shots first of course, it was time for the press conference. I was delighted to find myself seated next to Gaby Logan, who has the most lovely diamonds. Mrs T would be jealous! For the "pressers", it's good to shoot a bit of variety which is always hard from a fixed position, so I had my 400 and 70-200 lenses with me to see what I could get.Daniel Sturridge and Danny Welbeck were provided as the dish of the day. A moment of amusement was provided by an Italian journalist who asked a question of "Daniel", to which Sturridge replied "we're both Daniels" to general amusement all round. One is after any shot that isn't the subject talking in boring fashion, and/or eye contact. Annoyingly most of the initial questions were from the right side of the substantial auditorium, so no eye contact, but things got a bit better as the event continued.Anyway, there was some good banter and lots of questions about whether Suarez was fit (who cares and how should these guys know) and where Rooney should play (that's the manager's decision). The two Daniels handled the session really well actually - very professional and good natured. You can see the press conference pictures here.Photographically, juggling a 400 and 70-200 without smacking Gabby Logain in the face with either was a bit challenging but successful. After editing all my pics I headed back to the apartment at about 2:30pm (10 minutes in a taxi, 10 reias, approx £2.80) to stow my gear and work out what to do for the afternoon. Being so close to the training base is a real bonus.So, in Rio, a few hours spare, need some "local colour" - hit Copacabana. I "took precautions" which involved my sophisticated double wallet and phone strategy, and put my camera in a plastic carrier bag with some other crap so it wouldn't look like I had an expensive camera, and got a taxi through the tunnel to emerge out on Copacabana, literally 5 mins from my apartment. I could walk it in 15 mins but for Mrs T's sake a taxi is a lot safer.But before I went I took this pitcure for Mick Pritchard - this place is next door to my apartment.See how I think about you all. Anyway, Copacabana. Bonkers.There were a lot of Argenitinians on the beach. It seems that once you get enough Argies together, some sort of critical mass is achieved and they all go bonkers. In this case about a hundred of them congregated and started singing and jumping up and down. This attracted quite a few more, who also chanted and jumped up and down. Before I knew it I was amongst a crazy impromptu beach party as the whole place just kicked off. Fantastic - blue skies, big blue waves, sand, sun, and several thousand really happy people.Unfortunately, sand ingress into my Sony RX100's lens cover has caused "issues" meaning that the lens covers won't close properly. I need to fiddle with it a bit to sort it out. However, a small price to pay for such a super experience. And that was just on the off-chance as I wandered around.Amazingly, I was still alive and hadn't been mugged, stabbed or shot. Who'd have thought it. I wandered around a bit more, situational awareness on full, and found much the same - a whole bunch of people having a really good time. It was very crowded though - I prefer a less busy enviroment as many of you know, but it is a deeply cool place.On the way back to my apartment, I got the taxi driver to go up a hill so I could take some sunset pictures. Unfortunately, rampant vegetation prohibited access to the best views, but I got this one.Sunset here is AMAZING. There's a lot of haze in the air resulting in super colours as the sun goes down. I need to find some excellent locations to make the best of it.My landlady Dani recommended the Bar Urca as the place to go for beer, dinner and a view, and she wasn't wrong. Situated exactly where I started the day at the entrance to the England training base, the beer was cold, the view was stunning, and the food was excellent. I was with two Aussies who I had linked up with. They are off south tomorrow to watch their team get annihilated by Holland, but the were very happy due to the aforementioned cold beer and nice food.So, the day was good. A 9/10 day. Nice work production from the training and presser, with the key shot of Rooney and Hodgson nailed, a bit of a wander around the beach (for work purposes of course) and a very lovely evening in a bar on the water. All that was missing from the latter was Mrs T who would love it.