Today's topic: Sports Photography!
Wait? Don't I shoot film cameras that lack motor drives and 300mm lenses? Don't I use crazy contraptions that won't focus for me and often require me to stop shooting while I empty it? Yes! Yes I do! And I'm proud to say that I enjoy shooting sports with them.
I've come across plenty of people on various web forums over the years who will say that nothing less than a fifteen frame per second dSLR with a 300mm lens will do for contemporary sports photography. Those technical requirements may be true for the professional photographer who is trying to make a living from shooting sports. I have no pressure of having to sell my work to pay the rent though, so I can be eccentric and use my sixty year old cameras with the hope that my results look different than what gets printed on the front page of the newspaper's sports section.
I've shot a few sporting events over the past couple of years using equipment like my Speed Graphic & Yashicamat 124G. I'm not sure if the other people who cover these events think I'm crazy or not when they see me walking around, but I don't really care since it is so much fun. Knowing that incredible sporting work is still being done with similar methods by established photographers like David Burnett provides inspiration. It also gives me hope that there is still room left for artistic expression in the genre.
I figure that I've finally got enough interesting sports images to justify creating a new gallery section for them. So I present to you, a selection of analog sports photography of K. Praslowicz. Can you feel the excitement?
Sports Photography
Photography Dreams
I feel like a tourist.
Absence of Ego
Infrared Flash Photography With An Olympus XA2
October 19th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I recall some amazing vintage wide angle photographies of the Tour de France made on some narrow steep road in the Alps. Indeed something completely remote from the contemporary sports-photography you mention.
April 29th, 2010 at 3:08 pm
I completely agree Kip. By the way great pic of wheelchair runner you did. Finally I am beginning to be interested in sport photography, but with the "street" style (to put it simply). I think it is cool, really, and by adding more of the context and specific angles and vantage point you can do with wide angle you come up with something different. Anyway I have now completely forgotten how to use a telephoto....
April 30th, 2010 at 6:44 pm
I think I took a telephoto to one sports outing. The results looked typical so I never tried again.