Mon - November 19, 2007

How to Photograph Indoor Paddling Action by Björn Olin - Tomi Ritala Training



Indoor Pool Training of Tommi Ritala
This spectacular picture of Tommi Ritala comes from a new portfolio of Björn Olin, a Swedish paddler, racer, and photographer. You can find more information about this picture set and indoor pool training of the Finish marathon champion in Fitness Paddling blog, but you really need to visit essingen.com to see 11 full size images from this series.

How these pictures were shot?

The key to the pictures is artificial light (flash) and fast sync speed. As you can see on the images, the drops of water are very much frozen in the air. Slower speed would generate blur (which also could be photogenique - however, not a technique I've mastered). So, to be able to get really fast sync speed I had to put my Nikon D200 on the shelf and borrow my girlfriend Maria's much faster D70.

I used two flashes in those images. No flash straight from the camera because I wanted shadows.

When Tommi enters the pool makes me think of the great artist John Bauer (1882-1918). He was truly the master of mystique environments.

Björn Olin

Björn was shooting paddling related scenes indoors before. See his pictures of a Swedish kayak racer, Anna Karlsson. However, it was not such a mysterious environment like that old basement pool.

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