Skateboarding - Lesson learnt - Off Camera flash - Sponsored riders

[Martin.D]

I posted some skate board photos back in April - link here (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=671931). Since then I have taken many more photos and learnt a great deal, it's not just about taking a nice photo's but timing the shot just right.

The skaters themselves tell me it's important from a shot to identify the following:

Take off point
Skater
Obstacle
Trick (from the photo most riders can tell the trick)
Landing point

I have built up a huge relationship with our local team by creating them a web site (http://www.skaten-paderborn.de) for hanging out and a chance for them to to see them selfs by means of a photo..

With all the above in mind we decided to set up a photo session in our local park so that I could put my next step to the test, off camera flash.

I had a great time and had the chance to shoot some cross lighting into the sun and some late night flash

Here are some of my final images..

C&C Welcome, all click able for a larger version..

I allow the skate boarders to download the original photos from my second Flickr account (http://www.flickr.com/photos/skaten-paderborn/), all photo's below are cropped and on my main account..

Slide Show for the following pictures can be viewed here (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/sets/72157615729910024/show/with/3684073884/)


1) - Action Shot (Guy with the video camera released his first DVD a couple of months back, now working on his second)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2602/3684073884_4f49b6b565.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684073884/sizes/o/)


2) - Alex Siegfried - Nose blunt slide

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2580/3684162444_392335221c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684162444/sizes/o/)


3) - Oleg - Front side smith

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2648/3684397258_085d61e5c1.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684397258/sizes/o/)


4) - Olaf

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2621/3684450348_c7ec7f1154.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684450348/sizes/o/)


5) - Alex

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2423/3684491364_fb265045a6.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684491364/sizes/o/)


6) - Alex

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2508/3684513090_9b3d455b7b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684513090/sizes/o/)


7) - Oleg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3578/3683738303_efb8a1d576.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3683738303/sizes/o/)

[Martin.D]

8 ) - Kevin

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/3684549621_97f3ec98aa.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3684549621/sizes/o/)


9) - Olaf

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2520/3685440578_54a47f2b31.jpg


10) - Oleg

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3619/3685468188_0d65bb26ab.jpg


11) - Ingo

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2549/3684688001_ed391c81f4.jpg

[Biffbradford]

I really like the lighting. Don't like the bare pavement on the bottom each shot so much.

[Martin.D]

Thx Biffbradford - I had to keep the rider in the top quarter, if not I would have had to crop both lower and upper levels and I think this would have made them too narrow..

[leitch]

Thx Biffbradford - I had to keep the rider in the top quarter, if not I would have had to crop both lower and upper levels and I think this would have made them too narrow..

Nice lighting, and crisp shots, but 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 could all benefit from being cropped tighter from the bottom left - it would serve to eliminate some of the unnecessary dead space at the bottom of the frame as well as bringing the skater more to the left of frame rather than being dead centre.

[Martin.D]

Nice lighting, and crisp shots, but 2, 4, 5, 6, 9 could all benefit from being cropped tighter from the bottom left - it would serve to eliminate some of the unnecessary dead space at the bottom of the frame as well as bringing the skater more to the left of frame rather than being dead centre.


Point taken, I shall see what I can do with my next session - Thank you..

These next shot's are using a much slower shutter speed - from 1/250th down to 0.8 :grin:

Creates a little motion blur, not sure I like this kind of photo but I thought I would share..

12) - Oleg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2632/3686023051_f7c19e241e.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3686023051/sizes/o/)


13) - Ingo

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2594/3686079463_f90509be3f.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3686079463/sizes/o/)




Back to normal:


14) - Kevin

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3642/3686117459_78a3eb2d3b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3686117459/sizes/o/)

[jbergdoll]

Chill on posting so many shots, just post a few so we can crit accordingly. #2 is really good. #14 would've been nice with both skater and board framed in the sky. A lot of these are the same comp, though: off to the side and vertical. Shoot more horizontal and get some sandwich lighting going. An unlit portion of the skater is bad, and in many of these you only lit his back. Also, the timing on the kickflip is way off. Try to get it JUST before the catch. Keep progressing though, and try shooting some street.

[Martin.D]

Chill on posting so many shots, just post a few so we can crit accordingly. #2 is really good. #14 would've been nice with both skater and board framed in the sky. A lot of these are the same comp, though: off to the side and vertical. Shoot more horizontal and get some sandwich lighting going. An unlit portion of the skater is bad, and in many of these you only lit his back. Also, the timing on the kickflip is way off. Try to get it JUST before the catch. Keep progressing though, and try shooting some street.

Thx for the info, tip's like your's really help me and I hope tonight I can put it into practice.. - by the way this was my first attempt ;)

Tonight we do some street..

Another..

15) - Kevin

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2485/3689725950_e0af98437e.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martins_album/3689725950/sizes/o/)