A second with the gymnastics and disaster struck! Just as we were ready to start, one of the coaches dragged a mat across the cables, pulling the light down. Ouch! It was setup for the rings so they were pretty high up, 3m maybe. And the light came crashing down from that height. My heart dropped about the same height too. The damage? A cracked light, but thankfully still working and a semi-circular reflector. The reflector was really soft, which is probably a good thing: it cushioned the impact and made it easier to bend back to shape. Here’s what they look like:
The imperfect one on the left, after some work on it
The cracked light
I’ll probably have to send the light in to have it checked out, else, it’ll gaffer tape all the way.
Here’re a few prep shots:
SFooling around
Setting the right width for the parallel bars
This is the angle I decided to shoot from
Tiring day today with shoots at Siemens and Google, before the YOG shoot. I can almost see the light at the end of this long YOG tunnel. It’s been taking longer than usual, with a lot more logistical than technical hurdles to cross. Today was the track and field team’s turn. We had a sprinter and a few long distance runner to model for us. The long jump was a no-go as the athlete was resting and couldn’t give us what we would like. So that’s slotted for next week.
I must thank Liz for being so sporting. We did this to test the lights before we got the athletes to do the same thing. I wanted a more edgy feel instead of even lighting. And Liz had to run a couple of times to get this perfect. We got what we wanted in the end. Thanks Liz!
En Garde, Prete, Allez….it’s a good thing I had Joel to assist me today. At least as a fencer he was able to communicate what Claire and I had in our minds to the fencers. Very useful to get good shots fast. Technically, it wasn’t too difficult as most of the action happened in the same plane, so fix the focus and watch the action happen. And if they were required to lunge towards the camera, it was “hang on, hang on, stay there…” until my 5D can catch up on focusing. Visions of a 1D Mk IV always cross my mind in situations like this. Man, am I seriously considering this camera…but for now, I’m just happy to tell them to act and hold for the camera.
The girls were great and played their part to try to hold their balance as much as possible for the camera. I just used as little power from the elinchroms as possible to reduce recycling time and just time my shots well when they were competing. After awhile, I got the hang of it and it was plain sailing after that.
Briefing the fencer. On the left is what you did...on the right is what we like to see.
Locking focus on Joel
After a hard day's work with a few of the fencers
I got burnt after this shoot last week. Spent a few hours in the sun on these sports. It was a welcome change from the morning rain. I put an old unused cardboard box to good use as a sun shade for my computer. This was a box that was on its way to the rubbish dump but I thought it might be useful for the shoot and it was great! perfect size for my notebook to fit in. If I do more of this, I could invest in a proper shade…..or I could just paint the box black. I might just settle for the latter.
Barbara and Claire, with one of the swimmers going through the images
Diving was fun. And also quite difficult to shoot. Good thing was the diver repeated many times and anticipating her moves became easier. Nevertheless, I just wished my 5D can shoot 10fps at 21Mpix. That’ll be my dream camera!
Diver waiting for instructions from Claire and coach
I’m very excited with these images. The strongest I feel. Good lighting, great action and good colours. Can’t wait to see them exhibited after Claire and the designers use them. Hopefully these get used. We were afraid that the boys will be too small to have strong images but they put up a great performance and I was more than happy to snap away. In the end, they looked great.
Two lights shooting into the umbrella provided all the lighting we needed. Setup in a sandwich layout with the action right in the middle and we got great lighting to define their lean, toned muscular bodies. Suddenly, they didn’t look all that slim afterall.
The wrestling team trained in this huge building just above Punggol-Choon Seng Seafood Restaurant in Aljunied. Good place for training, no?
Here’s what the place looked like:
Nice colours right?
I suddenly learned a lot about equestrian. I must admit, when watching the Olympics, I usually give at most 5 minutes of my attention. That’s what happens in our ignorance….we fail to appreciate the complexity and beauty of the sport. Kind of like the uninitiated wondering why 22 grownups would chase a ball on a field. But sitting beside Claire who’s into horse-riding (like many caucasians I know), I got a detailed rundown on human-horse interaction. I’ll never look at equestrian the way I did before. It’s actually beautiful the way the rider controls the horse.
The most bizarre thing during the shoot was the filming of an accident scene just outside the fence. It involved a car ramming into barricades, minus the Hollywood-type pyrotechnics. But it was enough to shock and traumatize the horses. So we had to stop when the camera outside was rolling. What made matters worse was they had to do a few takes and we could only shoot in between takes. So it went shoot, shoot, stop, bang….shoot, shoot, stop, bang, shoot.
Setting up the obstacles before shoot
Like shooting on a beach
The shoot was fairly straightforward but nevertheless challenging. For one, we can’t do many reshoots. The horse needs to rest for another competition, so we have to get the shot we want fast. For another, using the 5DMk2 on a horse charging at you and flying across sideways, can be very tricky in terms of focusing. This is where back-button focusing is a clear winner. Focus on one point, fire away, and pray you got the shot. The 5D just does not come close to the speed of the 1D. But I needed the Mpix. Throw in the ‘accidents’ happening outside and losing light fast, there were enough complexities to the shoot. But we got the shot, and I got to know so much more about the sport.
With the erection of new facilities for the Singapore Equestrian Federation, hopefully we can see more locals learning this sport. It’s going to be more accessible to the public, especially school kids. That’s going to be a big boost for the sport in Singapore.
The 2nd day of the YOG shoot brought us to this row of warehouses housing the Singapore Weightlifting Federation, opposite the National Stadium (the same one that was supposed to be demolished but never got to meet its fate after all this while). It’s a beautiful quiet area facing the Tanjung Rhu condos. So this is where the weightlifters train. Liz and I got there early to setup the black backdrop and lights. I was shooting tethered since I didn’t have to move around a lot. This series of images were different from the gymnastic images since they are more static and no one’s flying around from one end to another.
The space was a huge relief. No problems with power points, positioning lights, camera and notebook. Wouldn’t it be nice if the remaining shoots were like that….
Setting up the camera and notebook. Image from my iPhone.
Test Shot
Yesterday was a start to the series of shoots involving athletes from various sports. The images will be used to publicize and introduce the Games to the public in a few months time. We started with gymnastics, in my opinion, one of the most challenging sports to shoot. I remember having such a hard time when shooting in the SEA Games. The speed of the athlete coupled with the low lighting sent shivers down my spine.
The good thing was yesterday’s shoot was not in a competition environment and we could direct the gymnasts to repeat certain routines. But the speed was also a challenge. I wish I could ask them to stop in mid air but defying gravity is not one of their strengths. So we encountered all sorts of tech issues but the most tricky ones were the most basic. Logistics. The gym was fully occupied, both with gymnasts and equipment and power sockets were at the walls far away from the action. Mental note: bring plenty of extension cords. Halfway through the shoot, we had to move because our power cord was lying on the runway for the vault. And we had to figure out how to wire up the lights again. This and other problems took a lot of time to resolve.
Getting ready for the shoot
Continue reading 'YOUTH OLYMPIC GAMES SHOOT 1'»
I need some help in the Youth Olympic Games project I’m working on these few weeks. The project involves shooting athletes of various disciplines at their training location. It’s a good mix of sports and studio photography. Because of the nature of the shoot, assistants will only be informed at the very last minute due to the availability of the athletes and venues. Hence, a few are required.
Experience with studio equipment will be an advantage although not compulsory. Training will be provided of course. Great opportunity to learn since each location and each discipline presents a different challenge.
If you are interested or know any who might be, please let me know. I can be contacted at 97616405 or eulee@photographybyeulee.com. Thanks!
For some information on what the shoot is like, please refer to the post on Youth Olympic Games Shoot 1.
Goodbye 2009. Hello 2010! After a season of festivities, everyone’s back to work with, I hope, a fresh perspective to work, life and perhaps a zest, zeal and enthusiasm to make this year count. But take a moment to have some reflection on the past year, and use that as a guide for this.
For myself, this blog was started as a kind of social experiment and i must say I am hooked on it. I started in May 2009, after many years of deliberation and fears that I will not get pass my first post. I eventually discovered a love for writing. I can’t say I’m very good at it but at last I don’t dread it. So my first post was on packing for an overseas shoot in a reply to curious questions on what I always bring on my shoot. At that point of time I was already overseas and that was the perfect moment to talk about it. From then my blogging went on to discuss techniques, equipment, workshops, current work, book reviews and now with my new iPhone, a bit on apps and its camera. After the first post, ideas start popping up and since then, I’ve logged 140 posts! I try to go for higher value content and not just one-liners so I think I’ve done decently looking at my workload.
Continue reading 'A YEAR IN RETROSPECT'»
Baby Photography, Event, Family Photography, Kids Photography, Musings, Overseas shoot, Personal, Portrait Photography, Pre-Wedding Photography, Pregnancy Photography, Product Photography, ROM Photography, Sports Photography, Tips, Understanding, Wedding Photography
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book review, camera, iPhone, Kids Photography, learning, Photography, Portrait, Pre-Wedding Photography, product, studio, technique, travel, Wedding Photography, workshop
I learned something at the Deloitte shoot. Shooting with the 5D MkII at full 21Mpix and a frame rate of 3.9 fps, without a good deal of luck, there is almost no chance to get everything in place. I’ve learned the most fundamental thing in sports photography involving a ball is “get the darn ball in the picture!”. Since this is not a actual game, I had the luxury of asking them to repeat their movement until everything fell into place, and the ball sitting nicely in the frame. That is actually harder than it sounds in a real game. So I started trying my luck and after a whole series of shots, I didn’t get the ball in the frame, nor had it at a nice spot. I itched to use my 1D Mk II but I needed the pixels. So I shot a series of images without the ball, and then with the ball and then superimposing the ball in. A big no-no in reportage photography but hey, let’s compromise. So here I am in front of my mac putting the images together and trying to place the ball at a nice spot, with eye-contact with the ball, racquet ready to receive the ball, body posture in anticipation for the volley, etc. Then for the fun of it, I put it all in an animated gif file. One of those in the series will be the perfect one. So here it is:
Animated gif of tennis player
Here’s how you can do it in photoshop:
1. I lasso-ed the ball from another picture and pasted it. Then moved the ball into the various positions while creating the different layers. I had 25 layers for this file. Continue reading 'HAVING FUN WITH ANIMATED GIF'»
Yesterday was a sort of mini olympics for me. Shooting sports like track and field, football, swimming, tennis, basketball, boxing, taekwondo, badminton and table tennis. All in one day but thankfully, all around NUS sports center and the Table Tennis Association in Toa Payoh. The shoot was for Deloitte & Touche who is the official partner for the Youth Olympic Games 2010. The weather was extremely kind to us. The rain stopped just as were to get started and started just as we stopped. And the cloudy day was perfect for outdoor portraits which was what the shoot was about.
Joel helping with the reflector
One of the requirements were that the images selected will be printed as posters so that meant high Mpix and so I chose to shoot with the 5D Mk II. Of course nothing compared with the 1D Mk II in terms of speed but since it wasn’t really a competition and I could get them to repeat their action, that worked quite well. So firing at full 21 Mpix, I ended with nearly 40Gb of images at the end of the day. Some of the shots had to be posed and done in slow motion. The toughest was boxing where we needed to show the boxers sparring but we had only a pair of gloves. It was the most hilarious time to get the right expressions in slow motion, while hiding the fact that only one of them had gloves on! For the boxing and taekwondo shoot, it was in the hall. Well lit but even, a bit too even for my liking so I fired a flash into an umbrella just to add a bit of contrast to the image. It was positioned to accentuate the outdoor lighting into the hall.
Taekwondo
In preparation for a meeting to discuss photography for a Youth Olympic Games exhibition today, I looked through some of my images taken in the 2003 SEA Games in Hanoi to knock together a portfolio. Those images were shot with a Canon D60 and 10D, dinosaurs, compared to the 1D Mk II I use now for sports. And even that camera is old. In the Games, I was fortunate to have Canon support me with a 300mm F2.8 lens with a hood that looks like a white tin can. The lens doubled up as a weapon when fixed on a monopod. And in the hands of Iraq and Afghanistan-trained photojournalist from EPA, Reuters, etc, it made a very lethal weapon. Continue reading 'Images from SEA Games 2003'»
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