World Champs Pick of the Pix - Special Delivery

Canon EOS 7D, 85mm prime lens, 1/160s, f/2.5 ISO: 800

Not that great an image but a really nice head kick delivery by Carl Van Roon in his lead up to the heavyweight final. Even at 1/160th of a second the foot and target (head) are moving!

Here's an image taken [ages] 13 seconds earlier... showing Carl's accuracy with those long legs of his...

Canon EOS 7D, 85mm prime lens, 1/250s, f/2.5 ISO: 800

I feel a headache coming on :-)

World Champs Pick of the Pix - Mark Silhouette

Canon EOS 7D, 85mm prime lens, 1/4000s, f/1.8 ISO: 800

Soon after trying for ages to get a good Silhouette image of Carolina (see previous post), I asked Mark Trotter if he'd like to do a posed shot in the "corridor of light" at the World Champs Venue in Mar Del Plata. He was happy to do this and our only problem was a security guard who would walk across the background every now and then. After a while I think he got the gist of what we were trying to do and disappeared for a couple of minutes which gave us the opportunity to get this unobstructed image.

World Champs Pick of the Pix - Golden Silhouette

Canon EOS 7D, 85mm prime lens, 1/800s, f/1.8 ISO: 800

The day before the 2009 World Champs tournament got underway we had an opportunity to explore the venue and get familiar with it. New Zealand team members did a little light training alongside competitors from Germany, Canada and a few other countries.

There wasn't much light in the venue... a problem that lasted the whole tournament and was a challenge for the photography. There was an entrance corridor that was open for shipping in equipment which allowed a shaft of light into the venue and offered a back-lighting opportunity.

Carolina was practicing her patterns as she had done literally hundreds of times before. I’ve many good images of her in various patterns stances, from almost every direction and angle. This image took me ages to capture as she was naturally moving around a lot during her patterns and the corridor was small, requiring me to move even more than her to get her framed with the light source in the background.

I like this image for a few reasons. The reflective stance is meditative, the image looks like it was taken in black and white and it mostly is monochromatic with just a touch of red and blue colour coming in from outside the venue doors. Carolina’s face is slightly visible with a touch of one of her eyes showing plus her tell-tale multi-tied pony tail able to be made out. This image is straight out of the camera with no further enhancement.

Carolina went on to win Gold in Senior Female 1st Degree Patterns!