White Water

By Paul Clarke Photography

September 4^th, 2016

Courtesy of the lovely people at Wex Photographic, I was lucky enough to get a day with legend/veteran/top Canon sports photographer Eddie Keogh to learn about shooting sport. With my event work there are lots of ‘action’ moments, but I’d never really thought about what a full-on sports assignment would feel like, or require.

The target was the White Water course at the National Watersports Centre (with a brief foray to the sprint course next to it); the weather briefly sunny and then torrential rain with not a lot of available light. No matter. Job to be done.

I learned a huge amount - head hurting by the end - from shutter speeds to lens and position choices to composition tips. Plus insights into how an agency like Eddie’s - Reuters - approaches the most prestigious sporting events in the world.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves - there’s fast shutter stuff, realllllly slow shutter stuff, including some adventurous panning at 400mm+ and sub 1/15s, and experiments with different lenses. Lots of misses, a few “almost theres” and, yeah, one or two I’m really, really happy with.