First go at Skateboarding

Decent first attempt. Lovely blue skies.

One piece of advice I remember seeing about extreme sports like skateboarding etc is to put the subject in the sky - separate them from the jump. Will help show off the height and trick better. You've pretty much done this in the first image there.

A nice low down wide angle lens helps with this.

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Seba said:
Decent first attempt. Lovely blue skies.

One piece of advice I remember seeing about extreme sports like skateboarding etc is to put the subject in the sky - separate them from the jump. Will help show off the height and trick better. You've pretty much done this in the first image there.

A nice low down wide angle lens helps with this.

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Cheers. It was really tricky shooting with boards and boarders everywhere. I've had one of the guys contact me so hopefully I can get a session where I can control what trick and then think about the best spot to get separation but also show the entry and exit points. Positioning of the flash also make life very difficult and the light was very harsh. I want to do more with flash now I have the A9iii but this also means I have to work out the delays etc. Lots to learn which is always a good thing. Thanks for the Insta link. Some great shots there for inspiration and I tagged them into my Insta post
 
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Really like the first one. I would try a few where the boarders are a wee bit further back as well.
Something I would fancy trying one day, these sort of posts always inspire me.
 
Such a hard subject but the pay off when you get "the shot" is definitely worth it.
 
sk66 said:
Good start for sure.
Looks like most of your exposure was ambient and just using HSS for fill... I don't see any big benefit to going with OCF for that.
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Sun was very high in the sky and I was low shooting pretty much right into it from what I recall. You can see the direction of the ambient in teh background trees and railings etc so at the very least teh flash lifted shadows on probably the brightest day of the year in full sun around midday
 
Get yourself a cheap Chinese fisheye..... dial down the flash power a bit as well. 1st shot is great! 2nd you've gone slightly too early.

Do you have any experience with skating? It's one of those subjects where if you have a little bit of experience it makes it massively easier as you can pretty much guess what they're going to do and where from the position of their feet on the board.
 
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sk66 said:
Good start for sure.
Looks like most of your exposure was ambient and just using HSS for fill... I don't see any big benefit to going with OCF for that.
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With skating you ALWAYS want OCF. You need to quickly be able to move the flash to light the skater wherever they are, which a lot of time might not be directly in front of your camera or there might be a board/leg/limb between the flash and the face and you'll end up with odd shadows. It will also help to stop the flash from blowing highlights on the board (as in second photo) as the surfaces can be quite reflective.
 
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keety said:
Get yourself a cheap Chinese fisheye..... dial down the flash power a bit as well. 1st shot is great! 2nd you've gone slightly too early.

Do you have any experience with skating? It's one of those subjects where if you have a little bit of experience it makes it massively easier as you can pretty much guess what they're going to do and where from the position of their feet on the board.
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No experience of either skating or photographing it. I've got a fisheye lens and also a 12-24 so plenty wide options. Moving the flash was tough as it was so busy and areas off the park were sloped and full of nettles. It was great fun but my preference would be to work with a single skater in a quiet park
 
wookie6262 said:
No experience of either skating or photographing it. I've got a fisheye lens and also a 12-24 so plenty wide options. Moving the flash was tough as it was so busy and areas off the park were sloped and full of nettles. It was great fun but my preference would be to work with a single skater in a quiet park
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Hold the flash in your left hand, camera in the right, job done!

Re-lenses, a fisheye and 70-200 is all you really need. Fisheye for close up stuff, 70-200 for the “skater in the environment” shots.

If you want to check other photographers out check out Grant Britain in the states (he’s got a great book out) for some iconic 80’s stuff and and others of his Ilk.
 
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keety said:
With a fisheye you’re normally 1m or less from the skater or the board.
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Short working distances emphasizes distances/spatial relationships... i.e. it makes a small jump seem much higher (if shot from lower). But I would not use a fisheye lens for an entire event; not even most of one. Overuse it and it just becomes a gimmick; trying to make something not very interesting/dramatic into something more interesting. A rectilinear WA/UWA would be my usual choice for short distances.

But then again, I rather dislike fisheye distortion in most cases; it's pretty seldom where I think it works well and serves a useful purpose; kind of like selective color...
 
Fisheye is very common in skateboard photography/media.
 
sk66 said:
Short working distances emphasizes distances/spatial relationships... i.e. it makes a small jump seem much higher (if shot from lower). But I would not use a fisheye lens for an entire event; not even most of one. Overuse it and it just becomes a gimmick; trying to make something not very interesting/dramatic into something more interesting. A rectilinear WA/UWA would be my usual choice for short distances.

But then again, I rather dislike fisheye distortion in most cases; it's pretty seldom where I think it works well and serves a useful purpose; kind of like selective color...
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Just so you know, I’m a multi published (commercial and media) skate photographer with over 10 years of experience and funnily enough I sent yesterdays post whilst I was stood on top of a ramp shooting some of the best skaters in the UK.

A fisheye is a standard (main) lens for skate photography.
 
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