  We determine Johnson $B,V$ and Cousins $R,I$ photometric CCD magnitudes for
the afterglow of GRB 021211 during the first night after the GRB trigger. The
afterglow was very faint and would have been probably missed if no prompt
observation had been conducted. A fraction of the so-called ``dark'' GRBs may
thus be just ``optically dim'' and require very deep imaging to be detected.
The early-time optical light curve reported by other observers shows prompt
emission with properties similar to that of GRB 990123. Following this, the
afterglow emission from $\sim 11$ min to $\sim 33$ days after the burst is
characterized by an overall power-law decay with a slope $1.1\pm0.02$ in the
$R$ passband. We derive the value of spectral index in the optical to near-IR
region to be 0.6$\pm$0.2 during 0.13 to 0.8 day after the burst. The flux decay
constant and the spectral slope indicate that optical observations within a day
after the burst lies between cooling frequency and synchrotron maximum
frequency.
