With the next World Champs being in Wellington we are going from previously having a photojournalist team of 1 (yours truly) to a co-ordinated team of 7 that will cover all aspects of the tournament!
Let me introduce our team:
Neil Breen
Neil Breen, II Dan. "I started TKD in 1988 at Meadowbank club with Mr Peter Graham. In those 22 years since I have been an assistant Instructor, Director of the Tournaments Committee, and for most of them the ITFNZ IT technical SysAdmin (and won the President's Award and been made a Life Member). Connection with the coverage of World Champs goes back to Russia in 1997, when I did the write-ups from faxes and phone calls from the team onto my then relatively new ITFNZ website. I successfully lobbied the ITFNZ Executive in the new millenium to have a formal subsidy for a dedicated World Champs journalist. Eventually I got to travel as Worlds journalist to Italy in 2004 and Germany in 2005. I have toted my trusty Canons around various Nationals since then for those brief free times between running the Draws. Looking forward to another big tourny with that golden press pass :o)"
Some recent Taekwon-Do images from Neil...
Craig Oliver
Craig Oliver. "I started Taekwon-Do in 2007 training at the Riccarton club under Mr David Oliver. I'm currently a red belt and train at Pulse Taekwon-Do Merivale under Ms Angela Barltrop (my Fiancée). I purchased my first camera in April of 2008 and began covering all the tournaments I competed in, as well as any other TKD related event in my area, such as seminar's, gradings etc. I have had a number of my images published in the TKD Talk magazine, most recently for coverage of the 2009 National Tournament, where one of my images was used for the front cover. At the moment most of my photography time is spent dedicated to Taekwon-Do. However, I really enjoy photographing motor sport and capturing candid portraits. I have recently been coerced into the odd wedding, which has been a bit different and has provided some good feedback. The camera now goes pretty much wherever I go, and whenever the opportunity arises to get a good shot, be it action, portraits or just an awesome landscape I try to make the most of it."
Some sparring images from Craig (from the NZ Trials)...
Doug Hanna
Doug Hanna. "I don't practice Taekwon-Do but my three sons all have. Mark and Jeremy are both 3rd Dans. I've always been keen on photography and it was through photography when I was at Lincoln College in Canterbury that I met my wife, Jan Hart. When Jeremy made the 2006 Junior World Champs team I changed my photography focus from coastal landscape work to document the 2006 World Champs tour. I got such great feedback and encouragement that I became hooked and went on to win the official job of being ITFNZ's photojournalist for the 2007 World Champs in Quebec, Canada, 2008 World Cup in Riva Del Garda, Italy and last year the 2009 World Champs in Mar Del Plata, Argentina. If you are familiar with the www.tkdaction.com website then you are already familiar with my TKD photography exploits!"
Some images of Doug's from the 2009 World Champs...
Support Crew
Jan Hart, Doug's wife, will be on the laptop sorting through and posting images on-line which the photographers will deliver every 1-2 hours.
Mark Hanna will be assisting Jan, using his laptop to download images from the camera memory cards while Jan sorts and selects them.
We're expecting to capture about 200GB of photo files so will have two laptops networked to a 2TB NAS network drive. Both laptops will be running Telecom XT 3G data cards for posting to the www.tkdaction.com website. Syndicated feeds will populate the official world champs website and the International Taekwon-Do website simultaneously via Google's feedburner service.
We plan to publish two feeds for the first time: International coverage and NZ Team coverage.
Erica Germain is on the iPad connected to Telecom's XT network and will be tweeting out tournament and result updates to our international audience watching the tournament remotely around the world. And if you will be at the tournament then follow www.twitter.com/tkdaction for live updates.
TBA, we will also be appointing a radio telephone operator spotter who will be up in the stand ordering the photographers around the floor to ensure we capture all the best action.
