[Leica] Olympic photo

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (tedgrant at shaw.ca)]

Jayanand Govindaraj OFFERED:
Subject: Re: [Leica] Olympic photo


>I much prefer this one - brilliant timing, great shot.
> Cheers
> Jayanand
>
> On Sat, Aug 4, 2012 at 4:14 AM, Tina Manley <images at comporium.net> 
> wrote:
>
>> This is my favorite:
>>http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/184017/how-ap-photographer-captured-gabby-douglas-olympics-photo-practice-gold-medal-all-around-2012-london/
>> 
>><<<<<<<<

Hi Crew,
The Balance Beam and capturing a moment like this is an amazing feat of 
instinct re-action like a bolt of lightening! Knowing the athletes' routine 
(a difficult thing anytime) as they make slight changes as they feel during 
the workout. But even if the photographer knew her routine down to the 
second, meaning of course he or she spent hours and hours, days and days 
shooting "HER OLYMPIC ROUTINE!"  Not her daily every day work out to keep 
fit and timing.

What we see here is "Perfect athlete and perfect photog reaction!" Trust me 
you are not standing there watching her routine, and "certainly not on a 
live screen!" As each move goes through your mind so you know exactly what 
is coming next! You are looking through the viewfinder finger on shutter 
release almost twitching to fire. Sometimes knowing a bit about the routine 
helps and certainly knowing how the athlete prepares her body before she is 
about to make this type of jump helps.  BUT?

But capturing this exact moment? "So perfectly!" Is truly amazing instinct 
and "A MAJOR AMOUNT OF LUCK, NO MATTER WHOM YOU ARE!" That isn't taking 
anything away from either athlete nor photog. It's simply a fact of life 
when covering this extremely rapid moving sport! Trust me I've been assigned 
gymnastics more times than I remember, caught some nice frames. But never 
ever, ever, ever one as perfect at this one. "IT TRULY IS AN AMAZING MOMENT 
IN GYMNSTICS" photography!

On this one? They should have a "GOLD MEDAL FOR THE PHOTOG!" :-)

cheers,
Dr. ted :-)