Black Belt Test

[mmroden]

Hi everyone,

I decided to experiment a bit when shooting our most recent black belt test yesterday. Rather than go with a traditional, see-everything fairly wide angle, I went with an 85 to get a much tighter perspective. What do you think?

Here's the candidate for Black Belt whomping on her partner:

http://www.markmroden.com/photos/168283324-M-1.jpg

Here's one of the candidates for instructor certification explaining some of the finer points of staying on the ground:

http://www.markmroden.com/photos/168374052-M.jpg

And here's one of the third dan candidates after deflecting a sword strike, disarming his partner, and the flipping him:

http://www.markmroden.com/photos/168365576-M.jpg

Since this is a much tighter view, I was having a much harder time finding focus, especially at f/2.5 or f/2.8. From one angle, they were strongly backlit, and that coupled with their monochrome uniforms made autofocusing on the right point practically impossible. Plus, their constant movement meant keeping people in frame and well composed was not easy.

But fun, though!

Thoughts? Comments and critiques welcome!

[mmroden]

Many views, no comments. Or is this just what people expect of martial arts pictures, and so aren't particularly impressed?

[DJ-S1]

I think the 1st is the strongest - good exposure and facial expressions! That's very tough conditions to shoot in, nice job -

[mmroden]

I think the 1st is the strongest - good exposure and facial expressions! That's very tough conditions to shoot in, nice job -

Thanks for the kind comments :) Yes, she really liked it-- I don't think she realized she looked like that when testing.

[TristanP]

I think the first one is great!

[mmroden]

I think the first one is great!

Thanks! She's quite photogenic, isn't she? Especially with the grimace :)

[gsgary]

I think the first shot is best but may have been better shot in portrait so you could see her stance