Workshop: Outdoor Sports Photography

Conyers Horse Park, GA: I was hoping it would rain. At midday, it was completely overcast. Quiet thunder. We couldn’t have asked for better weather for the July 15 Outdoor Sports Photography Workshop, which would specifically tackle the sport of mountain biking. It was a full course, and as I went over introductions in the parking lot, all 12 participants glanced at least two or three times at the impending gloom. (So did I). “If you see lightning, let me know,” I half-joked. A couple folks backed away from the chain link fence we were gathered near. Hopefully it would start raining soon.

You see, the course, through the Showcase School was all about what makes photographing outdoor sports, namely adventure sports such as mountain biking, climbing and skiing so challenging (and fun): dealing with chaos and unpredictability. So, I said to the weather gods, bring it on! Of course, anyone could have predicted clouds and rain for the middle of July in Georgia. But whatever: Cry havoc and let the workshop begin!

Situated about 30 minutes east of Atlanta, Conyers was the site of the ‘96 Olympic Mountain Bike competitions, and though its a little out of date, the course remains very popular. I’ve shot a few races there and ridden it myself, so I chose the “granite side” for our session, which was easily accessible, with lots of varied terrain. One thing I could predict was the mountain biking: I recruited two friends of mine as models, sponsored mountain bikers Eddie and Namrita ODea.

Above: Eddie ODea relaxing at the workshop (c) 2007 Andrew Kornylak

Both are high-end endurance atheletes. I have shot Eddie many times at 24 hour mountain bike races in the area, and I also photographed their wedding. They are both great looking too (“Is she your wife? You did well!” remarked one guy in our class, to which a woman countered, “hey! so did she!”)

We started with a “warm up” session. I always warm up before shooting a big event. I just start shooting. This gets me in the “through the lens” mindset, and also gives me a chance to see if I’ve forgotten anything major (like my camera). Eddie and Namrita rode laps while we stalked them, no rules: just shoot stuff. After about 10 minutes, we dove into the tech talk. The technical and gear aspects of outdoor sports photography are myriad, and we had a lot to cover. Still, I emphasized that the geekery was not the main focus of the workshop, and I promised we would get to the guru stuff later. Flash technique is important for action sports, so we spent most of the time on that.

Above: James Davidson warming up, with Namrita ODea riding (c) 2007 Andrew Kornylak

I was psyched to have a great group of participants who were open to new techniques and ideas, regardless of their skill level. At one point I even got someone to lie down next to me as Eddie and Namrita whizzed past only inches away. Next time we’ll try it with the camera though.

Above: YVette Tolson getting low to shoot Eddie on the granite (c) 2007 Andrew Kornylak

Thanks to Nikon and Canon for both making weather-worthy DSLRs, or the class would have stopped when the rain finally hit. I saw a lot of casual and school-style backpacks out there for those nice DSLRs though. Wrap that rascal in something better! Money is well spent on a good camera bag when you have a camera that serves you so faithfully!

Above: James Davidson (left) and my assistant Bertrand Ducuing at the workshop (c) 2007 Andrew Kornylak

There was a lot of great discussion about everything from high-speed flash sync to business strategies, and meanwhile the class took some amazing pictures. Really, I am impressed! With that, here is a showcase of some student work (click the images to see larger versions. All the photos below are copyrighted by their respective authors and may not be copied or used without their permission):

Jonathan Enck: A great shot showing movement into the frame. Excellent!

Jack Tuttle: A nice tight shot of Namrita using flash-panning techniques. These types of shots are harder than they seem!

Rob Giersch: Experimenting with flash blur, rotation, the works. Cool!

Yvette Tolson, with a great angle, from the ground!

News!

Quick news hits to let you know whats up:

Recent work:

Time Magazine, Mens Health Magazine, Climbing Magazine, MyBusiness Magazine, Shutterbug Magazine, Civic Ventures, Urban Climber Magazine, Frank Creative Group, The Showcase School.

Current and upcoming work:

RedBull, Climbing Magazine, Desiderata Institute

Workshops:

June 30, Foster Falls, TN: “Outdoor Climbing Photography”, Climb Nashville www.climbnashville.com

July 14, Conyers, GA: “Outdoor Sports Photography”, The Showcase School www.theshowcaseschool.com

On the newsstands soon:

Feature articles from National Geographic Adventure Magazine and Rock and Ice.

SCC Trail Day at Panola Mountain – NEW BOULDERS!

SCC Trail day at Panola Mountain

Well, the forum at the Southeastern Climbers Coalition website (www.seclimbers.org) is acting up, so I am going to post this report here.

I posted some snapshots here:
http://www.spitfirephoto.com/akornphoto/albums.php?albumId=6923

In case you don’t know, Panola Mountain is a State Conservation Park about 20 minutes outside Atlanta. Its one exit outside the perimeter off I-20 East, so roughly the same distance as Boat Rock but on the other side. If you’ve never been there, Panola Mountain is, on a smaller scale, about what Stone Mountain might look like had it been preserved in its natural state. It is a big granite dome of the same general geologic formation (Nerd alert: correct me if I’m wrong) as Stone and Arabia Mountains.

We arrived on Saturday morning and were greeted by Manager Tim Banks and another ranger (anyone catch his name?). We had a pretty good turn out for a mini trail-day, maybe a dozen folks ready to rumble. Tim went over the ground rules and explained to us that the GA State Parks have been given a mandate to encourage new forms of recreation, especially for youngsters, in the parks. His sentiment (and maybe that of the Parks) was that young people are getting mroe and more of their knowledge of the “outdoor” world indoors, in climbing gyms, for example, and thus missing a lot of the experience, conservation sense and education you can only get outdoors. They want to encourage people to instead experience outdoor sports the way they should be experienced, specifically on our public lands.

The result: Panola Mountain, along with some newly acquired land, is now open to climbing, on a limited basis, with a special focus on getting youngsters out on the rock, and with an emphasis on preserving the natural resources and treading lightly.

There are some boulders you might have already seen on the trails out there, if you took the guided tour. Actually, it must say something about climbers’ affinity for guided tours that very few people had even seen these boulders, myself included, and if so, they had seen them “clandestinely”.

Anyway, this guided tour trail sort of skims the outer regions of the main boulders, so the idea was to relocate a new parking area near a previously gated-off lake and build a trail from this lake to intersect the guided tour trail, and explore some spur trails to the main boulders, especially ones that would be good for kids. (Again, please correct me if any of this is innacurate!)

It was great to see so many people out there! As I followed Zack Pitts down the trail, I looked up and gasped to see a house-sized boulder in my face. Zack laughed, “Yeah, pretty sweet huh?” If you’ve ever had the pleasure of walking around in a pristine, untouched boulderfield for the first time, you know the feeling. I think we built that trail in record time, but the challenge was deciding where it should go, over to those boulders or down to these boulders, or hey check that out!

Then we got to the “real” boulders and Zack and I stood there staring at an immanse, complex, intimidating Hyperion of a boulder. Apparently a couple highball cracks had gone down already from the “preview” or maybe from the bandit days, but we got to work right away on a sweet overhanging sloperfest round back. (after lots more trail work of course). Zack punched through to a high point while Steggo did some recon from the top, but lets just say, “no exit strategy.”

Pretty soon everyone hoofed it back to exchange shovels and picks for pads and shoes, but I had to leave at that point. I sincerely hope that someone topped that problem out. Really, I do.

Workshop: Lightpainting, Februrary 8

February 8:

I taught another fun Lightpainting workshop for the Showcase School in Atlanta. Go here for a lightpainting primer from my last workshop. We gathered at dusk at the Cator Woolford Gardens on Ponce.

As I try to teach in my workshop, all photography is a light painting, but a classical “Light Paint” usually involves a long exposure, where you start from a blank (black) canvas and selectively add light to the exposure. You can also think of it as slow-motion photography: that is, everything is done in slow motion. It’s a great way to learn the fundamentals of exposure.

For the best control over your timed exposure, you will need a digital SLR with manual exposure modes, but one issue that frustrates light painters is the 30-second exposure limit set on most digital SLRs. For anything longer, you will need a remote trigger capable of timed exposures.

For pro Nikon shooters, the this gadget is the MC-36 Multi-Function Remote (for the D2 series, D1 series, D200, D100, F6, F5, F100) . Note that the MC-30 Remote Trigger (for the N90/s, F100, F5, F6, D1 & D2 Series, D100 with MB-D100) and the ML-L3 Wireless Remote Control Transmitter (for the N65, N75, D70, D70s, and D50) and MC-DC1 Remote Cord (For D70s and D80) all are not capable of automatically timed exposures.

If you are shooting the D70 or similar camera for Nikon, the ML-L3 or MC-DC1 triggers plus a watch will do just fine.

For Canon, use the TC-80N3 (for the EOS 1v, 1v-HS, 3, 1D, 1Ds, 1D Mark II, 5D, 10D, 20D, D30 and D60).

Not only will this give you long timed exposures, but it will allow you to take pictures at automatically-timed intervals – yeah, like you do that on a daily basis. Definitely read the manual before trying this at home!

Can I get a head count? A quick class portrait: Nikon D2X at ISO 100, Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8 lens at f/18, exposed for 1 minute using the MC-36.

Student Photos”:

Genia Roberson:

James Davidson :

Yvette Tolson:

More gym shoots and a PMA sighting

March 3:

First, a sighting at PMA – A photo of mine at the Nikon booth. It’s a shot of Sandor Josza on the GEM Roof (5.12) at Mount Lemmon, Arizona. (the cube on the upper right of this photo from dpreview :

One thing leads to another. After shooting the ABS comp at Nashville last month, Climb Nashville hired me again to shoot general gym shots, a sort of “day in the life,” including a kids camp. We will also be putting together a Climbing Photography Workshop at the gym – details will be announced soon!

I was also hired by an Atlanta gym, Adrenaline, to do the same: photos of the climbing team practicing, facilities, and so on. These gigs are fun, pay the bills, and are good practice for indoor lighting and rigging for climbing photography. Adrenaline just built a fantastic new lead-climbing cave and bouldering walls. Check it out!

Jennie and Jason

February 7: I had the pleasure of shooting an intimate wedding (a dozen guests) in between all this traveling. The setting: Butterfly Gap Retreat, a beautiful little place nestled in the hills outside Knoxville, Tennessee.

I loved the pace of this day. The sun was out, and everyone was relaxed and happy (Jennie, the bride seemed especially carefree which made for great portraits).

At one point, everyone was just standing around chatting (except me) and someone said, “well, lets get started,” to kick off the ceremony. They did, they kissed, and Grandma read a poem, at which point an old tandem bicycle was brought out for the bride and groom – both cyclists – to take a lap around the lake.

I shot with a Nikon D2X and mostly with the AF-S Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 lens. Lighting-wise, I let the sun do its thing with the help of a Nikon SB800 for fill (and as in the portrait above left, a handy white table). I broke out the Profoto 7b near the end of the afternoon for some complicated portraits near a stream but I prefer the more spontaneous feel of the earlier photos, which more accurately reflects the feeling of the day!

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada

February 25:

Shot summer material for eyewear company WileyX. More at Josh’s Blog. A quick summary:

Feb 15 – Los Angeles. Found a snowboard. Hit the road with Josh Fowler, Cooper Roberts and my sis Christine, en route to the Mojave Desert. Camped in the desert.

My God. It’s full of stars.

Feb 16 – Kelso Dunes, Mojave Desert. Sandboarding. Shot some trail running at the Cinder Cones. Cool pocketed rock formations, for the most part unclimbable, but great for throwing stones at. We did find a living gourd though. On to Vegas.

Christine and Butterfly

Cooper

Josh Fowler’s Shoes

Feb 17,18 – We are welcomed to the Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada by the sound of a beating taking place in the room below ours at a Motel 6. The city has grown at least 10 blocks since the last time I was there. Nice to escape Randall Flagg & co. (The Stand – read it.) and finally make it into Red Rocks NCA. I had forgotten how brilliant the climbing is here and how solid the sandstone is back East. You feel me? Dawn to dusk bouldering, climbing, forced marches..

(l-r) Hillary, Christine and Christina at Red Rocks. Perfect hair AND they can pull down.
Feb 19 – Some morning climbing, back to LA in the PM when the rain hits. Wish I could take RR back home.

Feb 20 – Shopping for trinkets and seriously overpriced kids t-shirts in Santa Monica. The best veggie burger ever at a place that shall remain nameless (because I forgot it), and we are off to Atlanta.

Scenes from Santa Monica:

Rewind to ABS

January 20:

I headed to Nashville, the hippest town in Tennessee west of Chattanooga (and east of Memphis) to shoot the American Bouldering Series (ABS) Regionals for Climb Nashville. I was contracted by the gym to cover the comp and provide advertising material for future competitions.

This gym is HUGE. It has tons of space for kids camps and parties, but doesn’t skimp on radical bouldering structures and lead-able walls that provide training space for serious climbers. The elevated deck allows people to view the action without crowding the climbing floor, and doubles as a workout studio for evil-sounding classes like “Abs/Core” (its pretty fun actually). There is also a full weight room downstairs and a raw-looking Inner Strength “chains” facility in the back that looks like something Conan might have milled grain in before escaping and conquering an empire. I love this gym.

Oh I wish I had a pencil-thin moustache… The crew at Climb Nashville at the tail end of a ’stache pact.

Photographically, shooting indoor climbing shares some of the same challenges with shooting other indoor sports like basketball or volleyball. Lighting is tough, with big flourescents or incandescents directly overhead, and it might be hard to get clean shots without an exit sign or something in the background. For competition climbing, getting the right angles is tougher because the routes are usually kept secret until the comp starts. However I was also able to run some of the routes beforehand and work with the routesetters to see where the action was going to be, and set up appropriately. And its a climbing gym after all, so I could rig lights or myself pretty much anywhere to get close to the action.

I shot with Nikon D2X and D200 bodies at nearly every ISO and a variety of lenses up to 200mm. I lit with Profoto 7b and Nikon SB800 strobes with Quantum batteries, sometimes gelled for flourescent. Enjoy the pics

Routesetters Mike Moelter and Kyle Musgrove

Sunlight not included.

Limbs.

Horseplay during the youth comp.

Women’s champ Kate Reese getting her ABS workout.

Check out the comp results here.

onward

Quick update

Shooting winter sports in Salt Lake went well. What can I say, the snow was about the worst ever – no pow, thin and skied out on the slopes and mush-crust in the backcountry, but I think we still got some great ice, skiing and backcountry material in! It was great working with some old friends! Check out Josh Fowler’s blog for some fun pics.

On a sad note, on our last day of the trip, my friend Chris Hunnicut was killed while ice climbing in nearby Provo Canyon. I knew Chris from Arizona, and I knew he had moved to Salt Lake to work for Black Diamond Equipment – his dream job. In recent years I always ran into him at the BD booth at the Outdoor Retailer show, psyched as ever for some new adventure. We always made plans to hit the rock soon. Super nice guy and a great climber. Chris, here’s to the Dream. Be careful out there guys.

Headed to LA tomorrow for some more shooting for WileyX. We’ll be shooting in the Mojave Desert and Red Rocks. My friend Josh Fowler is joining me again to help out. I’ve gotta get as much out of j-fo as possible before he is pulled off to some big National Geographic project! We are putting up some sick problems in the gym too, climb them if you dare.

Coming up: a couple shoots for Climbing Magazine are in the works, looks like the South is going to get some good press.

Did a BMX shoot last week. The track was in heinous condition (what’s with the Conditions thing? Throw me a bone here.) but some great night-time action went down. Way down.

Spray

News for January 07: Nikon Props, Wiley Ops, Camera Shops.

Above: Watch the pinky, dude. My Hero Shot on Nikon’s website – thanks to Corey Rich for the headshot that keeps on giving.

The Winter 2007 Nikon World Magazine features my shot from the Granny Gear 24-hour mountain bike race in Conyers, GA. If you missed it, also check out my profile on Nikon.net (Above) on the “Learn->Inside The Image->Sports” section. It’s a new feature with mouseovers explaining each image in depth. Cool!

Above: HOT! My shot of Jennifer Jenkins in the 2007 Women of Climbing Calendar. She will keep you psyched throughout October.

Fresh off assignments with National Geographic Adventure, Climbing (ongoing) and Rock and Ice Magazines, all due out in spring-summer, I will be headed to Salt Lake City and So-Cal in the next month to shoot a major campaign for Wiley-X Eyewear. Standard-issue eyewear for our troops. These guys are hard core. Check out the Commercial online. Diesel! I don’t know about you, but thats how I feel when I am behind the camera.

Been doing some exciting work with Aurora Photos recently, and I’ll be shooting BMX, climbing and paddling regionally on that front… expect more big things from Aurora soon. Spring is wedding time as well, so the calendar is filling up.

Keep an eye out at the Showcase School for an upcoming workshop (tba) in April. If you are in the southeast, visit their retail store in Atlanta. Whether you are a pro, amateur or just someone who likes looking at cool camera and video toys, I guarantee you can get what you want from the super-cool experts at Showcase. Got a Nikon question? Ask Phil. He is the man.