After writing out my Roadmap last week, I thought I’d explain further my wish to do more sports photography.
Sports photography isn’t something that I have a great amount of interest in, but I think it can teach amateur photographers like me a thing or two about shooting in ‘tight conditions’. As I said before, the recent Winter Olympics sparked my interest in this. Which just happens to go well with my wish to do some ski photography this year.
I’ve done very little sports photography before (exactly: 2 sessions in Europe and touch footy last year) with a mixed bag of results. Some shots were good, others not so.
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| Good | Bad |
Shooting a sports event requires a lot of precision and accuracy. The main challenges to overcome are fast moving subjects and the fact that you are usually far away from them (on the sideline). These challenges are partially solved with some good equipment (specifically long-range, fast lenses e.g. 200mm f/2.8)
Being quick and accurate leads to the styles of photography I’d like to specialise in, namely, live events and music.
Now, to the Winter Olympics influence. As I discovered in Europe, shooting in the snow produces a sharp subject almost every time, because cameras can not find a focus on white backgrounds. (Un)fortunately this is a little cheat one can use to create the illusion of stunning photographs. This in turn leads to a morale boost! It also has led to a desire to shoot in the snow more.
There’s probably a million other insignificant reasons why I’d want to do photography in the snow, but I’ll spare those for the time around the warm fire in the lodge.
So this is why I want to head down to the slopes this winter. To sum up, it is part of the learning experience in becoming a great photographer.
