Grit, Strength and Determination Photo

Photographer’s Note

The Olympic canoe and kayak slalom qualifying events for the British team provided an extremely cold but interesting photographic challenge. I don't often photograph sports events but a friend works through a local university in support of the British team and analysis of their performance. This was one from a series of trying to find suitable positions to catch the action on the water more at the level of competitors....great fun when you have all that water thundering at you!

Floydian, bostankorkulugu, Dpbours has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

jasmis (50184) 2008-06-27 12:27

Dynamic, impressive. Good report photo. Just for sport newspaper.
Regards.

Floydian (30970) 2008-06-27 12:41

Hi Kev,
Action, can't be enough seeing such sports pictures on TE. I did a lot of sports in the past but never saw a 5D along the track, but seeing this it seems to work very good. I heard always the focustracking was to slow, but that was probably compared to a very fast 1D. I will do tomorrow some motorsport with my 1Ds, will see how that goes.
Here you caught some great action but it is the timing which makes it special. The waterdrops, his pose, his struggle with the elements, you really caught it at the right time.
Of course a regular colour version doesn't work for you, so this b&w is not such a big surprise ;-)
Have a nice weekend, Henk

MarcT (21093) 2008-06-27 13:27

Hi Kevin,
Superb sports picture. Great sharpness and excellent rendering of the effort and the power of the water.
BW
Marc

casperduppy (1462) 2008-06-27 13:34

Hi Kev,
Great action shot, and a very fitting title. Nice detail and a good separation between the canoeist and the background. I like the perspective - the eye goes straight to his gritty determined face before flitting around the shot. TFS, Casper

joscel1975 (489) 2008-06-27 17:38

Hi Kev:

I am so impressed that you captured this amazing moment. In his face, the splashing water... It creates thrill to the entire composition. Nice action indeed!

Joscel

bostankorkulugu (33514) 2008-06-27 21:45

impressive one grandpa... but where were you while taking this, in one of them, sitting backwards?!?... makes me feel like i was there in the water, so cool... the expression on his face could only be called as "Grit, Strength and Determination"... spot on kev...

cheers;)... korkut

eswohnai (23) 2008-06-28 0:44

b&w really works and the face says it all

Dpbours (218) 2008-06-30 4:32

Hi Kev,

I do really like the moment you have captured here. Determination, power, action, motion, the struggle, it is all there!
But I do feel that the entire compo is too much on the left edge and there was enough room to the right of the compo. But hey, I know how fast you have to react. With the car racing in Eindhoven and with the jetskiing, I took hundreds and hundreds of shots and only a few were (luckily) in the right position in my compo. ;-)
Thanks for sharing!

Greetings, Dennis