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Photo Assignment #6 : ‘Peak Action’

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DiscerningPhotog

New Orleans, LA

posts 89

8:49 am January 4, 2012

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Here’s our new photo assignment at The Discerning Photographer’s Forums: ‘Peak Action.’ What exactly does that mean? Well, it’s not just about catching the quintessential sports moment (although certainly qualifies as an example). It can be the absolute split second of surprise on a person’s face. It might be the exact point that a lightning bolt cracks through the sky. It can be the instant a jumping fish’s nose hits the water. It’s all about the true ‘decisive moment,’ as Henri Cartier-Bresson was fond of saying: the point that everything else leads up to, and falls away from.

So take your camera gear, crank up the shutter speed (peak action usually does involve some very small fraction of time), and make us some ‘peak action’ photos!

We’ll keep this assignment up live in the Forums for about two weeks.

I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

–DiscerningPhotog

New Member

Nefastis

Utah

posts 1

11:55 pm January 4, 2012

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Above: Jozef Sabovcik (1984 Olympic figure skating bronze medalist) performing his split jump at the Sun Valley ice show in Ketchum, Idaho (2011). Below: Ryan Bradley (2011 US figure skating champion) performs his backflip at that same show.

Shooting ice skating is a great and painful way to practice panning and action shooting — the lighting is almost always both low and painfully contrasty while the skaters are moving really fast.

The light conditions and lack of a really fast lens (70mm-300mm provided the best working range for this rink but left me with F/4.0-5.6 wide open) means high ISO's and their accompanying noise while still trying to balance exposure limits and motion blur. Tripods are not feasible in this location, so a monopod with a pistol grip had to suffice for support. On the photo above, panning limited blur on Jozef's face but couldn't do much for his feet which were swinging up to full elevation. On the photo below, Ryan's speed (linear and rotational) outgunned my shutter speed. That said, I liked the sense of motion conveyed by the blur (and explosion of ice chips from his take-off) enough to feel that the loss of sharpness was a pretty decent trade.