Another local boxing meet and another shift for me to get some pictures in for my ongoing local boxing scene essay/exhibition and possible self publish/blurb type book. But, tonight it was different. I took all of my flashguns and set up at the rear of the hall. Looking at the set up, I had a high silver brolly with an SB800 firing into it. To my right was an SB600 lower down, firing through a tranny brolly. The 800 was set to 1/1 and the 600 to 1/32 on the SU-800. Note that I arrived at these F stops after finding a suitable person to help me set my lights up. Yes, a child! I ascertained that 1/640th at F/5.6, ISO 400 gave me the effect I was looking for with the brollies situated at around 45 degrees - ish. I was not looking for a dramatic back drop which may work outside, just balanced light from the left and right. I changed the brollies half way through the night as I noted that most people stood left foot forward thus exposing the left cheek to more light - which the silver brolly was better suited to.
I then covered the bouts and as the referee was winding each fight up I strolled over to the 'rig' and applied a custom change which I had pre-saved in the D3. I also made a solid decision to shoot all night with my 85mm as I wanted as little distortion in the picture as possible. I then went on to shoot a series of 'sportraits' in the essence of strobist - low cost light on the move. The thing about light is allowing yourself to let it fall in different places thus creating shadow and light, giving pictures depth or form as a body builder might call it. You can see the shape and tone of the human pyhsique so much better with good light. Looking at the images caught I think 'next time' I wil gel up and snoot the wall with a 3rd full power flash. But, overall delighted with the images. I shot in RAW tonight and processed the set up shots in Lightroom 2 with a preset I have made for this type of event. I am very happy with the skin tones on my mac - cant speak for PC users. A slight vignette applied to centralise the characters.
The thing that one cannot account for is changes in shape of course. Some are taller than others and this is where an assistant would have helped as a couple of times the ligh source missed the intended target. I could have also used a peli hard case to stand on to get better eye line with the big units boxing later in the evening. Also, managing the poses as a hand to high can change everything. I also questioned whether a solid black scoop or train/backdrop would have helped absorb stray light and give me a lower key look but I like the wall in the background and like the Larry Godfrey archery shoot you have to use what you have. Contextual photography if you will. The hardest thing was taking a picture of a young guy crying after his fight got stopped. I asked him how he was doing and consoled him. He told me that getting hit in the face was quite tiring. I suspect it is....
Finally, the poses are a bit cliched, but it is boxing after all! They look much better on black. Cheers all.
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