Saturday 31 October 2009

World Champs Training - Mt Wellington



Tried out the new Canon G11 point and shoot camera today. One lot of photos below were taken with it and the other with my G7 SLR kit. Can you tell which lot were taken with the sub $1,000 camera? Leave a comment with your answer :-)

Set (A)...

Set (B)...

Two more weekends after this until we leave. Next weekend is the last Taupo training camp - it will be great to see everyone again... all the supporters are being encouraged to come to this camp so we all get to know each other... should be great!

Wednesday 28 October 2009

Recent Action Images


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/250s, f/4.5, ISO: 800

Sorry about the lack of images lately... I haven't been near a TKD training or event for 10 days or so and have been spending time gearing up with internet, website and learning how to handle my new camera getting ready for the main event. So here are a few favourite recent images to keep the enthusiasm up while we go through the calm before the storm.









Tuesday 27 October 2009

How to get World Champs Team Updates to your Mobile via SMS

Yesterday I outlined the different ways that you can keep updated on the World Champs Team with help from my esteemed colleague and social networker extroadinaire Anthea Whittle have figured out how to get TKDAction twitter updates automatically pushed to your mobile via SMS - cool eh!

This is achieved by getting the twitter tweets from TKDAction pushed to your Vodafone or Telecom mobile phone. (Other NZ networks are not currently supported.)

Here's an overview of what you need to do (detailed instructions are further below):
1. Setup a twitter account unless you already have one. If you don't have one, join the 21st century and hundreds of millions of other users and sign up. It's free and fun :-)
2. Login to www.twitter.com
3. Browse to www.twitter.com/TKDAction and click FOLLOW to follow tweets from this account
4. Configure your twitter account to work with your mobile phone
5. Configure your twitter account to send you a SMS for each TKDAction tweet.

NB: You can turn it off and on again via SMS and can also configure the time of day (within twitter) so our morning tweets from Argentina don't wake you up in the night.

Details on how to setup Twitter for mobile and receive text updates from a specific twitter user:

a. Sign into Twitter and click settings, then the devices tab or go to: http://twitter.com/devices

b. Enter your mobile number, and follow the steps to link Twitter to your mobile device. (+64 is the international code for NZ)

c. When logged in to twitter.com navigate to www.twitter.com/TKDAction and click on FOLLOW.

d. Once you have completed the setup, go to your "following" list - click "Profile" and then "following" in the right hand column of your profile.

e. Next to each person you follow is a little mobile icon under the "Settings" column in the table. Simply click this icon to receive updates from this user to your mobile, the icon will turn green for those users you choose to receive text updates from.

Note that you can set the times that Twitter can text you by going to the device settings page - handy if you don't want midnight texts.

Going a step further, you can also update your own status and respond to tweets from your mobile via @mentions or direct messages using a particular syntax and sending to twitter, more on this here:
http://help.twitter.com/forums/59008/entries/14020

Each text message you send to Twitter costs your standard rate, depending on the plan you have setup with your mobile carrier. From what I can tell so far, txt alerts from Twitter are free.

Any questions, drop in a comment and I'll do my best to answer queries.

Monday 26 October 2009

How to Get World Champs Results FAST

There's nothing like a wet day in a long weekend to get some work done on my coverage build up for the Taekwon-Do World Champs in Argentina.

There's now only 3 more weekends until we all fly out of Auckland... sheesh!

One challenge for me is continuous improvement of the level and methods of coverage since I took up this role (as photographer) with Gwyn Brown as Reporter in 2006 for the Junior World Champs in Honduras and as Photographer/Reporter at the 2007 World Champs in Quebec, then last year at the World Cup in Italy.

So what's new for this year? There are now a few new ways to keep yourself updated with all the action.

1. All my updates will be on my Taekwon-Do Photography Blog which you can get to through the ITFNZ Website or directly on http://www.tkdaction.com. I recommend checking the ITFNZ regularly where you can send team members messages of support and Mr Neil Breen maintains our accumulated results and other interesting information here.

2. I'm purchasing a new, easier to remember domain, www.tkdaction.com from a Canadian - this should hopefully be up and running in a couple of weeks and will take you to my blog. It's easier to remember and shorter to type.

3. I'll be doing my best to post real-time Kiwi results to my newest Taekwon-Do updates feed on Twitter. This feed has been setup to automatically tweet all posts made on my blog and we'll also be tweeting as many resuils directly to this feed live from our iphone at the event. So, to keep up to date, go to http://twitter.com/TKDAction and click follow to get all posts coming up in your twitter feed. This feed shows up on the blog site as well, it just saves you pressing f5 in your browser for updates all the time! My existing DougHannaNZ twitter feed will be refocused on Photography and Lifestyle posts.

4. updates to your mobile phone. So you've got an iphone or any phone capable of browsing the web. Browse to the Mobile version of TKDAction to get the feed on your mobile while on the move.

5. updates via SMS. Get all the TKDAction tweets sent to your phone via SMS. Instructions here.

6. Facebook users can become fans of http://www.facebook.com/TKDAction and have the major daily updates come through onto your facebook wall. At this stage, this is a manual process but I'm working on a solution for blogger posts to automatically appear on this Facebook fan page.

Got some good suggestions, ideas or want to help somehow. Leave a comment or email doug [at] hanna.net.nz

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Nibun Introductory Night

Nibun ran an introductory night tonight and had a great turnout. Here's some of the action. Not my best photographic work... (still getting used to my new technology)


And the rest of the photos...

Dreaming of Gold


At the last World Champs New Zealand was ranked third, ahead of rivals Canada on their home turf and behind Argentina and Poland. We won 7 gold, 9 silver and 9 bronze medals.

I wonder how we're going to go this year? We think we're better prepared than in 2007 but the competition may be too.

Tuesday 20 October 2009

One Month / 30 Sleeps Until Lift Off


It is only one month today until we assemble at Auckland Airport to board Aerolineas Argentinas on flight AR1183 bound for Buenos Aires. We take off at 7.30pm so there is time to meet up there late in the day like we have done in previous years.

The image above is of the team, coaches, managers and supporters soon before departure to the 2007 World Champs in Quebec. We had a 12 hour flight to LA, short overnighted there (ie up at 4am) and then travelled all day hitting our beds in Quebec City at about 12.30am. That was one big long day!

Everyone is getting really excited, nervous, sick of waiting, can't wait, anxious... in other words - lots of different emotions as time rushes by. Can't wait - it's going to be so awesome.

30 SLEEPS TO GO ----- BRING IT ON!!!

Sunday 18 October 2009

Only 10 Training Sessions To Go


Canon 7D, 17.0mm, 1/200s, f/2.8, ISO: 1600
Alisa Parker in sparring drills at yesterday's World Champs Training in Mt Eden where Steve Pellow reminded the team that there's only 10 more training sessions before we leave for the World Champs in Argentina on 20th November.

Saturday 17 October 2009

World Champs Training - Mt Wellington


Canon 7D, 23.0mm, 1/200s, f/2.8, ISO: 1600
Stu Maden and Kane Baigent from Palmerston North joined us for training today. Stu spent the first part of the training practicing power.


Canon 7D, 17.0mm, 1/200s, f/2.8, ISO: 1250
Jeremy Hanna and Clint King


Clint and Phillipa Henry


Jeremy with Phillipa (out of picture)

The rest of the selected photos...

Wednesday 14 October 2009

Star Series #3 - People, Pick of the Pix


Canon 30D, 110.0mm, 1/60s, f/5.0, ISO: 1600
Craig Oliver


Canon 30D, 160.0mm, 1/60s, f/5.0, ISO: 1600
Courtney Meleisea (just after she's thrown someone's shoe back up to them - I think it may not have made it and be heading back down).


Canon 30D, 300.0mm, 1/1600s, f/5.6, ISO: 1600
Robert Meleisea caught with the morning light coming through the windows.


Canon 40D, 31.0mm, 1/400s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
Kara Timmers, just after pulling a face for the camera..


A proud yellow belt medal winner.


Luke Thompson is awarded a very special cloak

Rest of the "top" people photos (14)...


And the rest of the people photos (56)...

Tuesday 13 October 2009

Star Series #3 - Sparring, Pick of the Pix


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/320s, f/2.5, ISO: 800
Courtney Meleisea can see what is coming from Phillipa Henry - too late now!


And another hit from Phillipa sends hair flying. Courtney won.


Alisa Parker vs Daniel Drylie.


[Thanks Michael Onland and Jeremy Hanna for the feedback that this is probably Erica Germain vs Freya Thomson!]


Shane Black vs Mark Hanna - ouch.








Robert Meleisea


Amy Reeder taking and giving a punch to the head.


Estelle Speirs and Erica Germain.

Here are the rest of the "top" sparring images (69)...


And the rest of the sparring images (249)...

Monday 12 October 2009

Star Series #3 - Pre-arranged, Pick of the Pix


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/640s, f/2.0, ISO: 1250
Simon and Michael Davis


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/500s, f/2.0, ISO: 1250


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/500s, f/2.0, ISO: 1250
Helen Caley and Angela Barltrop

Pick of the Pix (6)...


And the rest of the pre-arranged images (29)...


Tomorrow I'll have the sparring images...

Sunday 11 October 2009

Star Series #3 - Patterns, Pick of the Pix


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/320s, f/2.2, ISO: 640
Maddison Black - my favourite patterns image from the day.


Canon 30D, 90.0mm, 1/500s, f/6.3, ISO: 100


Canon 40D, 54.0mm, 1/125s, f/2.8, ISO: 800
Helen Caley


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/640s, f/1.8, ISO: 640
Rebecca Styles


Canon 7D, 85.0mm, 1/500s, f/1.8, ISO: 640
Amy Reeder

The rest of the Pick of the Pix patterns images...


And the rest of the patterns images...


Tomorrow I'll have the pre-arranged images for you followed by Sparring Tuesday and Portraits (with one or two hilarious ones) on Wednesday so be sure to come back for more.

Saturday 10 October 2009

World Champs Team Patterns Training with Master McPhail



Today Master McPhail took a World Champs Team patterns training session at Mt Wellington to sharpen up the team members patterns. All those competing in individual patterns benefitted from one-on-one critiques with Master McPhail before performing in front of a panel that also included Steve Pellow, Matthew Breen and Mark Banicevich.

World Champs Team Tracksuit



Kara Timmers models the new Adidas NZ Team Tracksuit. They look awesome!



Thursday 8 October 2009

Only Six Weeks To Go!!

Time just flies.... it is only 6 weeks tomorrow when the NZ Team departs for Argentina for the 2009 World Champs. And the six weeks will just fly by super fast too!

The team members are pretty pumped. At the closing ceremony of the Nationals 10 days ago Mr Mike Yates introduced the team members individually to the Nationals audience. As the ceremony ended they formed a tight ring joining hands to give a massive high five to our success this year. I rushed in too and captured this image...


Canon 30D, 17.0mm, 1/30s, f/4, ISO: 640

This last weekend saw the team assemble for their second to last Taupo Camp before we head off. After the Nationals and a week travelling up and down the North Island I took the weekend off and stayed home with my feet up. Although to be honest, I spent most of the weekend on-line and tagging NZ team members in my image library for this year to date. I've now finished 2006 through to 2009 so can pull up the best images of this years team members who have ordered photo books in seconds. It was a painful job and I'm glad it is done.

Anyway, this was the first camp I've missed for a while but by all reports it went well.

A lot of practice was put in on team patterns and on Monday night I saw the junior male and female team patterns performed at a special training at PaulM and they were very impressive. Naturally I can't give much away because I'm sure other countries are following our news updates too!  Hopefully we can show you video on youtube as well as pictures after they have performed at the event.

The camp saw the presentation of the team track suits, doboks, bags, polo shirts and the like. We're in Adidas gear this year and it looks stunning. I'll try and get some photos from reluctant models in the coming days to show you.

Cheers,
Doug

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Nationals Happiness - Pick of the Pix



Here's the Auckland North team just after the closing ceremony where they won "Best Region". All smiles!



Impact Club members line up to show off their booty.



Wellington Region team.