WH Yeo Photography

Portfolios: Youth Olympic Games 2010

This gallery displays some of the pics I have shot over 10 days at the YOG 2010. Not one who has done a whole lot of action stuff before, it was an eye opener for me and definitely pushed myself in a whole new direction.

It was the only shot amongst the group of photographers. I was just really lucky to be at the right position, at the right time, with the appropriate lens. This was the onlyshot that had Schneider (right) of USA looked up while his North Korea counterpart looked to the left in disbelief.
   
Was one of the latecomers on the shooting platform and what a tight squeeze it was. There should have been about 15 shooters squeezed onto a small platform with little room for maneurvering. Fortunately, diving is not a sport when alot of movement by the photographer was required thus a small space was all that was needed. A fast shutter speed coupled with a high ISO setting on the D3 was used for this shot.
  
Sticking in a single venue for days has its advantages. It allowed me to experiment from different shooting positions and this was gotten from the highest angle possible. I wanted the 5 Rings in the shot and waited till there was a worthy moment before firing off.
     
  
Handball is such an amazingly fast and exciting game that looking through the viewfinder was adrenaline-pumping as well. It was important to move here and there to grab the best angle and I never shoot for long in the same position.
  
With time to spare before the medal matches, I climbed onto the media stands and whipped out the slow 5D Mark II and got the 24 TSE on for this shot. Focusing was always a pain but that is what has to be dealt with to get the unique look.
   
This was my final basketball match and was the best I have watched. The crowd was screaming away and every toss towards the hoop was cheered. Here, the Lithuania coach reacts to yet another missed chance by his team that was leading by 3 points. Final score was 33-31 and Egypt won.
     
  
With nothing much to do during the prelims, I slowed the shutter down and waited till the Mongolian grabbed and attempted to throw his Korean opponent on the ground.
  
Knowing that my lens was too short to catch the action on the other side of the field, I setup for a shot of the goalkeeper in case she celebrates and by a stroke of luck, the Dutch scored and she and the stands erupted.
   
The Italian shooters was eliminated early in the competition and had to be consoled by her team. Standing way back with a long lens was necssary to give the team some respect and also to compress the perspective.
     
  
I was perhaps the only local assigned photographer to cover Equestrian. It was for magazine usage and not press use thus shooting in RAW with minimal cropping was essential. The D3 and Sigma 300-800 was deployed here and it was a wonderful combo to work with.
   
Archery was a challenging sport to shoot. There were not manyangles and everyone was too close to one another that shooting wide open was not helping much. A thousand shots from the same angle later, I went up the stands that was not opened yet and got a high angle shot.
   
Hockey was something I have never watched before, much less shot or played. Thus arriving early for the matches to practice was needed. Fortunately, it was not as fast I thought it was but the games were all great and I did wow at some of the stick-welding skills the youngsters had.
     
  
High up in the stands and using a long lens, one could isolate the players and get very different work done. I had enough action for the day and decided to shoot for colour and composition. The players black outfit stood out nicely from the rich green turf.
   
From the high angle, the rings were clearly seen and ladyluck came and had the girl lie in the frame when the match was over.
   
A hard-earned victory over New Zealand gave this Greek basketball player something to cheer about. The light was good and I could stop down one stop which is something I do whenever possible to get better image quality.
     
  
Panning with a slow shutter needed a lot of bracketing. The shutter speed had to be just nice so that we can still recognize the human form and yet blur enough so that it really shows the pace of the game.
   
An aerial view of the Hockey venue was something I wanted and it had to be during the magic hour period. That will give some much needed colour to an otherwise black sky. Rushing across the road after the match, I got up the apartments and fired off 3 frames in succession. 3 for HDR usage.
   
The American player takes the freethrow and I went up to the second level to shoot from a higher angle with my longest lens to bring everything together. Firing on burst to show the ball going through the hoop was required.
     
  
Scoring the second goal to give Argentina a 2 goal lead over Netherlands, Agustina Alvarez celebrates and drops her stick to the ground. To me, the stick floating in mid-air made the difference. WIthout it, it would just have been a very normal reaction shot.
   
A last second 3-pointer saw Egypt overcome Lithuania 33-31. Romeh Elsadani then ran off screaming in joy.
   
Judo could have been the toughest sport to shoot. No, they were not as fast as handball and no, the lighting was not that bad like at the corner of the hockey pitches. It was the simple fact that a throw can simply come out from nowhere and the match will be over. The shortest bout was over in less than a minute....
     
  
The 7D was great for daytime, low ISO (400) shooting. The focus was good enough and the framerate was fine. WIth uploading required after each event, shooting in RAW was not an option and thus, I had to manipulate the jpegs with Picture Styles in the camera. Of course, given a choice, I would have gone the RAW route.
   
Part of the intense 3-on-3 basketball game was all the shoving and pulling that went on all the time. That added to all the excitement and with such a small court, long lenses were not required. A 70-200 was about as long as you could get though a 24-70 range is the usual lens for shots like this. Next to me was a photopgrapher with the organisers and he had a 600/4 with him. Needless to say, he look through the viewfinder, put the camera down and whipped the 70-200 on.
   
This was a class act of sportsmanship from the Serbian judoka. After his German opponent won the bout, the Serb promptly bowed and they shook hands later on.
     
  
The Irish fought every minute in the game against the Argentinians but it was not enough. The whistle blew and the girls wept in despair. I was aiming for the girl in the foreground when her teammate appeared in the background. Her bending summed up the entire team's emotion.
   
This was no gold medal match but seeing the 2 huge teenagers battle it out was equally exciting. There were a couple of angles at the judo venue but only the higher position could see the 5 rings at the centre of the battleground.
   
Photos of the action in the game was just part of the story. What I realised was reaction shots were more likely to tell what happened. In this case, the juxtaposition of players from both sides worked better than a shot of shooting or dribbling.
     
  
It was a break between matches for me and I headed across the road to a block of apartments that I knew will provide a high vantage point of the pitches. It is a very different view from what the rest have shown but shots like this are not appealing to the press as they are more eye-candy than event reporting.
   
Surely that was what was needed when you are awarded freethrows. Using a long lens, I isolated the background as much as I could.
  
Argentina has scored again and what made this image one of my selects was the Irish player on the right. Her look just provides the contrast that is needed to show both elation and dejection in a single shot.