American Football
A friend invited me to come to one of the American Football games, at which he played for the Kent Falcons, the University of Kent's team. At this game they played against the University of Christchurch team. He told me it was their first season as a team, which might explain why they lost quite badly against Kent.
It was also the first time ever I've seen American Football. It took me all of the first half to figure out more or less how the game works. Once I was able to get a feeling for where the ball was going to go I started to get some decent pictures.
Dudelange on Wheels (DOW) 2009
Dudelange on Wheels is a popular event among the skater community and photographers from Luxembourg and the Groussregioun. Like last year I spent a few hours on the Parc & Ride area to photograph the competitions.
Rugby: Kent Men’s 1st vs St Bart’s & London Men’s 1st
Yesterday I spent an hour on the UKC's sport pitches. The Photography and Modelling Society had its workshop on sports photography there and I was covering some games for inQuire, one of which was our Rugby team playing against St Bart's & London.
Varsity Poster
This is the poster used to advertise this year's edition of Varsity, a series of sport events in which the University of Kent and the Canterbury Christ Church University compete against each other. The original idea for the poster was to have students from both universities facing each other in two rows which through perspective would have formed something like this: ><.
However the Christchurch students left before I arrived; I've been told they took their photo in five minutes, so they either have a photographer who can work way faster than me or, well... I haven't been able to find their photo, the Christchurch Varsity page hasn't been updated since last year and still shows David Cater's 2008 poster.
Change of plans then, I had the Kent students stand back to back in a V formation in front of Westgate (part of the medieval defence system that spans around the city centre), facing east towards Christchurch. Most sports gear is easily distingushable, the only trouble I had was with trampolining, a sport which distinguishes itself through jumps and figures, none of which could easily have been implemented in this picture without breaking the symmetry. So I had the trampolining representative on the right pull one knee up which she said was similar to one of their figures.
I borrowed a Canon 5DMkII with a 24-70 lens for this shot; it was good fun to work with that combination. I metered for the ambient and dropped it about a stop and a half to make high street a bit darker, then I lit the students with four speedlites. I only had three light stands available, so Cai Robbins, the Kent Unions sports sabbatical stood in as voice activated lightstand. You can see her in the original photo. The one thing that still annoys me in this photo is that I couldn't get the lights high enough, as a result of which the light which was in the front camera left cast a shadow onto the cricket player's cheek.
Post processing consisted of cleaning up the chewing gum from the street, removing pedestrians and the lightstands and some cables which were visible in the sky. I dodged and burned the players to give them a bit more edge. With a fifth light behind and in the middle of the players the whole thing would have looked much better, giving them a rim light on the inside to set them off against the background. Time to buy more flashguns, I guess :)
Teams f.l.t.r: Netball, Tennis, Women's Football, Basketball, Women's Rugby (2x), Cricket, Women's Hockey, Trampolining, Lacrosse.
Dudelange on Wheels
The good old Peleng Fisheye came in quite handy for these skate photos at the Dudelange on Wheels skating event. The fisheye effect looks best when you get really close, and one of the bikers (in the second photo) missed my camera by only five centimeters. No risk no fun.
Rutherford Raiders win Cup Final
Congratulations to the Rutherford Raiders who won this year's University of Kent College Cup 3:2 against Parkwood United. All pictures taken with the Canon EOS 40D, EF 70-200 2.8L IS and Kenko 1.5x Teleconverter.
Update: Thanks to Simon for informing me about the final score.
National University Kickboxing Championships
I covered this annual free event for the Student Newspaper. For most shots I used some fill light from an on-camera 580EX flash in ETTL mode. For additional setting information mouse-over the pictures.
Varsity January 2008
Every year, Canterbury's two universities, the University of Kent and Christ Church University compete against each other in a series of sportive events. In terms of photography, the event is challenging in a number of ways. First of all, it's impossible to cover all of Varsity alone, as almost all of the over 30 games happen during a single afternoon at different venues. I decided to stick to the events happening in the University of Kent's sports halls: Dodgeball, Netball, Basketball, Badminton, and Trampolining. Fencing, which I was looking forward to, was cancelled. The next problem is linked to the venue: the main hall is terribly lit, much darker than most sport halls. Which means that I had to push my new Canon EOS 40D all the way up to ISO 3200 at an aperture of 2.8 to get a decent exposure at around 1/400th of a second. I think the new sensor did a pretty good job handling the noise. And then there is the daunting task of covering sport events for seven successive hours. Again, the 40D surprised me, it seemed the battery could have provided power for the camera and the lens's autofocus all day long. I did charge it once in between though to avoid unpleasant surprises.
Sports: November and December
I’ve finally more or less finished my last essay for this term. Which means I now have time to go through the pile of recent photographs on my hard disc and bring the blog up to date. This is a quick video with photos from sport events here in the UK, mostly at the University of Kent, and most of them published in our student newspaper.
Fresher’s Week Sports Day
A few days ago the Park Wood pitches at the
Kent F.C. wins Charity Cup
Yesterday’s football tournament at the University of Kent saw four teams competing against each other for the coveted Mike Wilkins Charity cup. Sports Development Elect won the 3rd/4th place play-off against the Sports Centre Staff. The final ended with Kent F.C. finally beating the Sports Sabbatical Elect during the penalty shootouts. Mike Wilkins himself handed the silver cup to the happy winners.
See the pictures!
5-A-Side
Today the University of Kent Sports Centre organized a 5-A-Side football tournament on the Park Wood pitches. Here are some pictures from the game.
Darwin wins Football Finals
Today Darwin won 2-0 in their final match against Park Wood. Congratulations!
More photographs can be seen here and will be published in the next edition of inQuire.