Table tennis and mud0
neil posted in Photos, Neil, Sports on February 28th, 2008
My round trip of sports union clubs happened on the SU presidents own this week. I was rewarded with the enthusiasm of two players (including the aforementioned president) who were happy to play the same shot again and again. Always a little quicker than my flash would recycle! I was using ceiling bounce on manual mode to trigger a SB800 slave. I used the slave to backlight and highlight while my bounce flash filled the world with soft but dull light. It did the job but revealled far too much of a rather dull background.
Working with lighting has changed how I view a “perfect” exposure and made me think more dramatically about my use of light. Even with available light I’m interested in pushing the boundaries a bit, unless its for news print. News print has the unfortunate consequence of printing shadows and darker sections like mud. Have a look at David Alan Harvey’s images sometime, indisputably good but their low key low light charm would be lost entirely if printed on newspaper. One thing I have learned to do is think about the medium of publication as I’m shooting. This does go against the advice “shoot only for yourself” that aims to prevent a “rut” developing, but it is still something to take into consideration. My current strategy is to shoot “bankers” meaning “in the bank” images before moving on to the fun stuff. I think it was Chris Johns who said “If every single one of your images is perfectly in focus and perfectly exposed, you’re not pushing yourself”. Meantime, enjoy the shots here.
