Specs: 1/125s, 85mm prime, f/2.8, ISO: 1600
Twenty minutes before I took the Mexican Wave image at the closing ceremony of the 2008 World Cup in Italy, the party atmosphere started cranking up. Flags were waved, everyone was happy, it was a carnival atmosphere.
I took quite a lot of photos trying to capture the emotion, the joy and the colour of the moment. I like this image because it has a shallow depth of field with the point of focus on the faces in the centre, the green colour of the Irish and the framing with the red flag across the top of the image. I think, from memory, everyone is looking at someone on top of another person's shoulder just outside the left side of the image.... but it looks like they're looking at the red flag. Another lucky fluke arising from taking lots of shots of the action!
This image also shows the value of having a very fast prime lens (Canon 85mm f/1.8) which enables a reasonable shot in what was very low light conditions without the use of flash. A prime lens doesn't have any zoom facility and is far less complicated. This means that it can be designed to let a lot more light through making it shoot at a faster shutter speed in low light conditions.
With such a depth in the photo, there is no way that you could do this justice with the use of flash.
