Why are they all bunched up?

[Lonnie]

Watching the Olympics for the past couple of weeks reminded me of this question.

Why do they put 30-50 photographers all in the same place? They all have similar equipment and many of them have similar focal lengths. They can all shoot at crazy framerates and it seems to me they are all going to get the exact same shots.

I've always assumed event promoters did this for convenience-sake and for easier control. It seems to me they are really doing a disservice to their event to have so much coverage from one area though.

Anybody care to share the wisdom of this bunching?

[timbernet]

Maybe the fact that it is the largest International sporting event and journalists from all over the world want to get their own images.

Not every photographer will take exactly the same image, different news agencies want different crops - some don't want legs cropped off, some want this and some want that...

[aussieskier]

Also they probably want to keep the photographers out of the way the best they can, so they can just stuff them in one place :).

[FlyingPhotog]

Keeps 'em out of the way of the TV Cameras ;)

[Darsk47]

Keeps 'em out of the way of the TV Cameras ;)

And the athletes !