„uppercut” Energy

For the design and concept stage of the new & upcoming energy drink „uppercut” we created studio portraits of Boxer & Combat Sport Fighter Aaron Lukritz.

This has been one of these shoots where I constantly thought: “I should really join the gym too”!

Visit the uppercut Energy Drink website at uppercutenergydrink.com

Bikers, Jumps and Crazy Stunts..

While enjoying a short Easter holiday on the Sunshine Coast, I came across a few kids on a skateboard & bikers park, right on the beach. The guys were showing off their skills and I couldn’t resist to get out the camera out (yes, even on holidays).

Here are a few impressions…

Nikon Super GP

Last weekend I took the brand new Nikon D3s for a spin at the Nikon SuperGP on the Gold Coast. What an event, and what a camera…

Pretty impressive, I must say! I will post some hands-on reviews of this amazing new camera soon. Before hand, for more information, visit the Nikon D3s Miro-Site.

Instead of posting just a few shots from the event, I thought, I’ll put a little video together…

To watch it in HD quality, open to “Fullscreen” view and select HD.

Quiksilver Pro

As promised a few days ago, here are a few impressions from the Quiksilver Pro Surf Championships.

And for those of you who are interested in photography gear: All these are shot with a Nikon D3X and a Nikon 600mm at F4.

Roxy Pro Surf Championships

Over the next few days, I will be shooting at the Roxy Pro Surf Championships on the Gold Coast.
Here are a few impressions from today’s competition…

D3X goes Surfing

Over the last few days I’ve been shooting at the Quiksilver Pro and Roxy Pro International Surf Championships at Duranbah Beach and Snapper Rock, Australia.

(I’ll be sharing some of the shots from these events in a separate post).

For these events, NPS (Nikon Professional Services) have sent me a brand-new Nikon D3X, to try out…

If you’re a Nikon Insider and know your cameras, you might ask: “Why use a D3X for sport?“. The answer is easy: “To truly test a camera, you have to push it to its limits“.

The D3X has produced amazing images in the studio, 24.5 mega-pixels with impressive colours and contrast. This makes the D3X a brilliant candidate for studio work (fashion, still-life etc) as well as landscape photography. For sport however, the D3 is faster (frames per second) and has a better high-ISO performance, and for any night shoot, stadium- or indoor event, the D3 remains unbeatable. For a day event however, the extra pixels of the D3X can produce amazing results, and as I rather anticipate the moment than to shoot in burst, I had an absolute blast shooting with the D3X today. The amount of spray, water drops and fine detail i was able to capture during these surf championships is simply astounding.

Is the D3X worth the price tag? I guess, if you ask this question, you’re probably not the right candidate for this camera. If you are a pro fashion shooter, you’ll have this beast paid with the next assignment, and you will enjoy the advantages (and ease-of-use) of a DSLR with the resolution of a medium format camera. For me personally, the D3 remains my favourite as an all-around body, however I must admit, I am very impressed by the details this camera captures!

I’d like to thank Robert and his team from NPS (Nikon Professional Services) Australia for their continuous support. You do a terrific job, and I truly appreciate it. Thank you!

Federer, Nadal & Co.

After the first few days at the Australian Open in Melbourne, it is time to update my blog and share some of the shots from the last couple of days.

While walking from Rod Laver Arena to Hisense Arena, a spectator asked me, how much fun and how much stress it is to cover such an event. The simple answer is: Taking photos is always fun for me, regardless of the stress involved. What might make the Australian Open more stressful than other events are the long hours and the miles you have to cover, to see it all. Beside the 3 main courts (Rod Laver Arena, Hisense Arena and Margaret Court Arena), there are 21 more courts at Melbourne park, and especially in the first few days, several top-seeded players are playing simultaneously on various courts.

On Monday, I arrived at Melbourne Park at 9:30, to meet with my friends at NPS (Nikon Professional Services), play started at 11 with Andy Roddick (USA) at Rod Laver Arena and closed after midnight with Roger Federer‘s win against Andreas Seppi from Italy. Back at the hotel at around 1:30, it was time to upload (and backup!) all images of the day to the laptop, make initial selections, enter meta-data and keywords, headlines and captions, then upload the “money-shots” to the various agencies and international publishers. At 4:45 it was time to hit the sack. Day 1 of 14.

As a summary of the last few days, I covered the matches of:
Roger Federer (SUI), Rafael Nadal (ESP), Andy Murray (GBR), Andy Roddick (USA), Novak Djokovic (SRB), Marat Safin (RUS), Ana Ivanovic (SRB), Jelena Jankovic(SRB), Dinara Safina (RUS), Daniela Hantuchova (SVK), Serena Williams (USA) and the Australians Lleyton Hewitt, Jelena Dokic, Samantha Stosur and Casey Dellacqua.

Here are a few of the shots (some thumbnails include more than 1 image):

The World’s Biggest Stage

Covering the Australian Open, I thought I share a few background information about this mammoth event.

Australian Open behind the scenes…

The Grand Slam of Asia/Pasific is indeed an impressive event: A star-studded men’s and women’s singles draw included eight men’s Grand Slam champions and seven women’s Grand Slam champions and all of the top 32 women and 30 of the top 32 men, with a total of 45 nations represented in the main draws. Behind the scenes were over 4500 members of staff, including 319 Ballkids, 365 umpires, 195 courtesy car drivers and 45 statisticians.

The 2008 Australian Open were watched by a record breaking global TV audience of over 1.9 billion viewers. A total of 1654 representatives of the media were accredited, with all the world’s major newspapers, TV and radio broadcasters strongly represented. Of these there were 664 international and 990 Australian members of the media.

Accreditation

As with all events of this magnitude, there is no way to shoot without accreditation, and you have to get your media/photographer accreditation quite a while before the actual event. To get accredited, it is required to provide detailed information about how and where the photographs will be used (magazines, newspapers etc), accompanied with confirmation letters from the image editors of these publications. Access to special areas, such as the side-line of the Centre Court, or the Catwalk at Rod Laver arena is depending on your status and who you’re working for.

Tight security

Once accreditation has been approved, you have to pick up a temporary access pass outside the Stadium, which gives you 15 minutes access to the actual Media Centre, where your actual access pass is waiting for you. Even the temporary pass features your name, photograph and barcode, which will be scanned by security as soon as you access Melbourne Park. At any given time, the event organisers know exactly, which player, coach, photographer or journalist is on site.

Now you’re in the media centre (where you get a nice media welcome pack), and a step closer to the sideline of Centre Court. The access-pass features several symbols, showing what arenas and areas you are allowed to access, and after passing another security check, you finally sit an arms-length away from the players.

The Open Experience…

After I’ve been shooting all the action of day 1, I went to meet with my wife before the night matches (I bought tickets for her, so she can experience the Australian Open first hand as well). I left the media area to pick her up in front of the main gate. Ready to shoot the night action on Centre Court (and not thinking about the fact that I’ll be walking in through the normal Spectators entrance), I had a 600mm F2.8 mounted on a Nikon D3 and Sherpa monopod on my shoulder, and a second body with a 70-200mm on an R-Strap, and I walked her through the gates. In seconds, three security guards came running from behind, to tell me off… “SLR and Zoom lenses are NOT allowed!” they insisted. “You need to have special permission, like… ooh…”, then they spotted my access pass.

Kooyong – AAMI Classics

I always look forward to go back to the Kooyong Tennis Club and the AAMI Classics. Every year, 8 top players are invited to this boutique tournament, as last preparation for the Grand Slam in Melbourne.

What makes this tournament special is its stadium, the stories and history behind it. Some call the Kooyong Tennis Club “the Spiritual Home of Australian Tennis”. Founded in 1892, the former home of the Australian Open has welcomed the greats of tennis eras past and present, from Rosewall, Court and Sedgman to Connors. Agassi, Sampras and Federer.

At this years Classics, Roger Federer won the all Swiss final against his Olympic Games doubles partner Stanislas Wawrinka 6:1, 6:3.

Destined for more

Tonight, at a very nice dinner with friends, I was asked: “what are you doing with all those shots…?”

Most of my editorial/sport photos feed into the libraries of image agencies, which sell them to international newspapers and magazines. Some shots however are “too good” to only end up on page 19 of a regional newspaper. These shots deserve better, they get the “special treatment”! One of these is a shot I took of Fernando Verdasco, celebrating after winning an intense rally…

Fernando Verdasco (ESP) – Photo & Photo Composite © Copyright 2009 by Stephan Bollinger. All rights reserved.