Pick of the Pix Series, Flying Impact

Larger image
Specs: 1/8000s, 47.0mm, f/2.8, ISO: 800, cropped to panoramic format

Luke Thompson and Mark Trotter are practicing their pre-arranged sparring at the Impact Club gym in May 2007 prior to the World Champs.

The image was taken at the same training session as "light impact".  It is a strange composition but there are a few aspects of it that I particularly like.  Taken at a very high shutter speed (the maximum for the Canon 30D) it has frozen Luke's flight through the air.  Mark's facial expression is intense and you can see this in his eye which is showing nicely.  with Luke's head and shoulders in the shaded area, emphasys is focused on Mark.  The contrast of the harsh light coming in through the windows and the shadow of them thrown on the wall behind is nice.  I also really like the visitor sitting on the couch in the background, watching with real intensity.  For me, she makes the image... adding some depth, balance and additional interest to it.

My camera settings were pretty badly set for this image and it is remarkable that so much detail is in focus given the wide open aperture setting of f/2.8 (the maximum for my 18-55 F2.8 IS lens). A better setup for this image would have been f/4.0 for a greater depth of field, a lower ISO setting of 400 to capture clearer detail and a shutter speed of 1/800s or higher.  I think that would have all been possible but I often get caught up with setting the camera us at the start of the shoot and then forgetting to review it again for the rest of the day.

Pick of the Pix Series, Morning Light

Specs: 1/3200s, 85.0mm prime, f/4.5, ISO: 320, contrast boosted in Picasa

The day before the 2008 World Cup began in Reva del Garda the kiwis assembled on the roof deck of one of our hotels and did an easy relaxed final training. The day was really clear and the light bright... very similar to our light in New Zealand - harsh and clean. Most of the time we'd experienced quite beautiful soft light in Italy. Anyway, it offered some cool contrasting opportunities like the one above of Richard Lavin practicing his patterns.

I like the one below of Carl van Roon but wished I'd spotted the guy's head in the background and moved to cut it out. It could be taken out with Photoshop but then I'm too much of a purist to do that (yet).


Specs: 1/4000s 85.0mm prime, f/4.5, ISO: 800, contrast boosted in Picasa

Pick of the Pix Series, Portraits #4 - Hot and Sweaty

Specs: 1/1000s. 185.0mm, f/5.6, ISO: 800

Jeremy Hanna has been training at Impact Club gym and, typical for Jem, is soaked in sweat. This image works nicely with the stong sunlight coming through the windows, emphasising the wetness of his hair, and contrasting him against the dark background.

The complative composition with his eyes looking down or closed tends to draw focus to the shape of his face and the amount of sweat on it.

Specs: 1/125s, 47.0mm, f/2.8, ISO: 1600

The photo above is Uma Goodyer taking a break from training in Quebec City.

Specs: 1/125s, 55.0mm, f/4.5, ISO: 1600, extreme contrast enhancement

DJ Thompson during a pre-tournament training session in Reva Del Garda prior to the 2008 World Cup. The contrast is enhanced to emphasise the sweat droplets on his back. He was working hard!


Specs: 1/100s, 85.0mm prime, f/3.5, ISO: 1600

Erica Germain at the end of a hard 2009 World Champs training session.

Pick of the Pix Series, Portraits #3 - Women

Specs: 1/25s, 300.0mm, f/5.6, ISO: 800 Selective desaturation in photoshop

The photo above is I think the nicest photo I've taken of Erica Germain, taken at the recent World Champs trials. I hope she likes it :-)

I'd posted a couple of articles with portrait images of our men and I thought that I must write something about the women portraits that I've taken. So I scanned through the 19,000 or so of Taekwon-Do images in my database selecting female portraits and only came up with 344. Now I'm cross eyed as it took a couple of hours to do. And 344 is only 1.8% of the photos I've taken and kept. That's poor form. I'd easily have over 1,000 portraits of the guys!

It got me thinking that there must be something scary about me photographing our women folk. I wondered why and thought I'd better figure it out. Everyone is pretty used to me now and when I point the camera near the guys they don't give a hoot - they just keep on doing what they're doing. The other night we were looking through the trials photos with a few mates and Mark Trotter commented about a close up image I took of him and Luke talking. He said "Doug I didn't even know you were there, we just don't notice you any more". That's how I like it and how to get the best pictures for you. So, either I'm scared of them or they're terrified of me getting a "not good" photo of them. Relax ladies, if I get a bad shot I'll always ditch it later and look out for the best ones.

But point the camera towards a female and they often run for the hills. If it is Alex Couling then she always pulls a silly face - so does sister Sam - but usually an amazing big smile. The mothers all turn away or threaten me with certain death. Or cover their face with their hands. And the one nice photo I publish of a mother is brought up in conversation with me many months later about how bad they thought it was!

But all of you ladies are beautiful - and I love capturing that beauty and all of that character in photographs that you can be proud of. Enough greazing... that might be asking too much because I've yet to meet a "normal" woman who likes any photos of her :-)

So look out... I'm going to try to get more "nice" photos of you... ones that I hope you can feel proud of.

Here are a few favourites, in square format:


And here are a few more in normal landscape format:


I'm thinking of publishing the whole 344 images for all to see. Most have been published before but spread over the last 4 years. What do you think about that? Leave me a comment or abuse or whatever by clicking on comments below...

Pick of the Pix Series, Portraits #2

Specs: 1/60s, 70.0mm, f/4.5, ISO: 1600, contrast enhanced

These images were taken at what I recall was the  last pre-tournament training session in Quebec City prior to the 2007 World Champs.  Above is Daniel (DJ) Thompson.

The portraits that I wrote about yesterday had the opposite contrast between subject and background. The above image has DJ's face highlit with a dark background against his profile giving a nice contrast. His posture emphasises his powerful shoulders and his tattoos.

Specs: 1/60s, 80.0mm, f/4.5, ISO: 1600, contrast enhanced

The image above was taken at the same time is head coach, Mr Dave Ballard. Note also the background contrast against his face which makes the image work.

Pick of the Pix Series, Portraits #1

Specs: 1/100s, 235.0mm, f/5.6, ISO: 400

I'm lucky that the NZ Taekwon-Do community are so used to me pointing a camera in their direction and that they put up with it! I get some amazing opportunities to capture portraits. And for now I prefer to capture portraits without any set up where those being photographed are just going about their business. I have set up studio-like environments to capture portraits with a large studio flash and a mottled material background and they can look pretty good. But my favourites are always those taken without any set up or posing. They're just quietly taken on-the-fly and are completely natural.

The photo above was taken during one of Luke Thompson (foreground arm with tatoo) and Mark Trotter's Impact Club training sessions where I've featured a few other photos of them.

It was taken from a distance with my 300mm zoom lens zoomed in for a tight crop and abstract high contrast image.

Here is another portrait image of Luke Thompson taken at the same session. He's hot and sweating and is about to repeat their routine:

Specs: 1/50s, 235.0mm, f/5.6, ISO: 400

And this one of Mark Trotter featuring his tattoo and wrist band:

Specs: 1/60s, 150.0mm, f/5.0, ISO: 400, contrast enhanced

And another of Mark lining up to begin a section of their routine:

Specs: 1/100s, 115.0mm, f/5.0, ISO: 400, contrast enhanced

The three portraits above work well because they all have a bright background against the most important part of their profile - their face. However, they're not just siloettes - they show a lot of detail in the darker parts of the image to make the image informative as well as graphic. Because they're taken at a distance with a 300mm zoom lens I get the benefit of being out of their way as well as the telephoto lens throwing the background completely out of focus, removing distractions from the subject.  Also, enhancing the contrast in black and white makes their amazing graphic tattoos jump out at you. 

Luke, Mark and others in the team knew I was there taking photos like crazy but they were completely focused on what they were doing and, being used to me, ignored me.  With my telephoto lens zoomed in I was able to capture these natural portraits without them becoming self-conscious in front of the camera. So, one aspect of getting great natural-looking portraits, is to have the subject completely comfortable with you being there with a camera.  

When I prepare to photograph a world champs event, I start at least 6 months before the event by taking lots of photographs up-close to them during the training sessions.   At the beginning some are very self-conscious but, after a few sessions, get used to it and end up pretty-much ignoring me.  The guys don't care much but the girls take a while to loosen up and relax.  The coaches and managers can be the most self-conscious... they tend to hate being photographed.

Pick of the Pix Series, Backlight

Specs: 1/80s, 300.0mm, f/5.6, ISO: 800

Training sessions seem to be when I get opportunities to capture nice creative images. This image of Mark Trotter was taken in the internal arena used for the 2007 World Champs in Quebec City a few days prior to the event. At this stage the mats hadn't been put down and the floor was completely covered with a black synthetic heavy vinyl type of product. The contrast created was nice. At one end of the arena they'd opened some huge doors to let in ventilation or maybe to move in equipment. Mark took a break in the training to watch the senior female patterns team run through their patterns.

I was miles away from him and zoomed my 300mm lens right in to maximum and hand held the shot at 1/80th of a second. The chance of the image being sharp at that slow speed and distance is slim but this is an image stabalised lens so it gives the equivalent of three times the shutter speed in terms of camera shake reduction.

I moved to get him backlit against the door opening and took a few shots at different exposures to try and get some detail in his face. If you leave it to your camera to decide the exposure in a situation like this, with the bright background the shadow areas will be underexposed so you need to adjust your exposure compensation. I was lucky that the overhead lights helped light his face and arms. I could have used flash to provide some fill light, but this look is more natural. Besides I was way too far away!

The great thing with digital is that you get immediate feedback and can adjust the exposure, reshoot, review and repeat until you get the result you like.

I like this image - it is in my top 20 favourites.  

The challenge is to describe why I like it so much.  I'll try...  Firstly it is Mark Trotter - a good friend and he's watching the female team sparring routine looking for faults or areas of improvement.  I like the high contrast of the blown out back lighting. It reminds me of those couple of days prior to the World Champs - the intensity, nervousness, and hard work and also this one training session where we were in a place we weren't supposed to be, with the black vinyl floor which for me was graphically exciting for image making.  I captured a lot of good images in this session.

Here's the original image in colour as it came out of the camera, ie no retouching:


Here are the senior womans team doing their patterns which is what Mark is watching: