Raw Strength

I've been given a new opportunity to do a little bit of work as a photographer.

Seems the guys running the Crossfit box I train at liked my photos of their last in-house competition.

So, they've asked me to pop into a few of the classes and grab some shots that they can use. They'll mainly be used on social media, but I imagine a few will get used in their flyers / posters for attracting new members.

It's been interesting and good fun so far. The lighting conditions are a challenge as the box is not well lit, so it's been difficult to find the right settings to get some good images without the ISO getting too high.

So far I'm finding that shutter speeds of 1/125 - 1/160 with an aperture size of around f4 seems to be working okay and ensures I don't get too much blurring of the athletes faces. Particularly with some of the speed involved in some of the movements. A little blur around their feet, hands or the bar does look good though.

The higher ISO's do add a nice bit of grain to photos which adds to the atmosphere. It is showing some Raw Strength afterall.... :-)

The other challenge that has been good to have to think about is angles as the box is small, so gets crowded quickly.... particularly with a full class and it can be quite cluttered. All good experience and stuff to think about when grabbing shots during action vs. trying to compose a few!

Here's a few samples that I've played around with.... hopefully they are happy with what I have got so far!

Diwali: Take 2

I've been playing around with some of my Diwali photos and tried a bit of a different way to finish them in Lightroom.

Basically I've cropped in a lot closer and then used some gradient / radial filters to bring out the subjects. Have gone for a higher contrast than normal as well.

Also tried a few basic borders to see how they look. The simple white outlines seem to work well with these photos since they have a black background. Not fully convinced on the border I've used on the last one though.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how the images have turned out and am very happy with my 70 - 200mm lens :-)

Always keen for others thoughts though.

Diwali!

The Auckland Diwali festival has been on again this weekend.

For photographers, it is a great festival with all the bright and vibrant costumes.

So.... Mark G and I popped along to have a look. f2.8 was going to be perfect for this event! :-)

Enjoy all the colour.

 

We'd timed our arrival quite well.

The PM got things opened...

And then the international (I think) act came out! They were pretty good... :-)

Then the dignitaries left and the local acts started again...

I'm just glad I'm tall otherwise most of my shots probably would have been like this....

It wasn't all song and dance though... plenty of food, henna and even a puppet show...

A couple of treks up and down Queen St gave me a chance to try my skills as a street photographer.... not sure I'll make the best street photographer... :-)

The boat in the harbour was pretty impressive too....

All in all a good fun day (even with the extra exercise).