View the full match day gallery here.
South Fremantle stormed home to win the Round 21 WAFL Derby on the back of a 6 goal to 3 goal final quarter for the unlikeliest of stunning upsets. East Fremantle will be ruing missed opportunities in front of goal and the opportunity to hold onto second spot on the WAFL ladder. In a game of contrasts East Fremantle seemed in control at 3/4 time and looked like continuing their recent good form in WAFL derbies. However the never say die attitude of the Bulldogs came through in a nail biting last quater that saw the Bulldogs come home strong to win: 16.13 - 109 to 15.15 - 105. For the home side Rory O'Brien led the way with 29 touches and 2 goals while Mark McGough and Bradd Dalziell toiled hard for 28 and 26 disposals respectively. For the victors inspired performances by Jayden Woods (27 disposals, 1 goal) and Ryan Cook (25 disposals) were instrumental in the win. One of the most enjoyable contests was that of the two ruckmen Rob Young and Sean Tighe. Sean edged Rob on the hit-out count 28-25 but the East Fremantle ruckman worked hard all over the ground to earn 24 possessions and 5 tackles in the losing effort. The Bulldogs now have a six day break to prepare for the second place Swans on Friday night, while East Fremantle have eight days to regroup ahead of a game critical to their top two aspirations against West Perth who sit just outside the top four. August 11th 2012
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This is a quick shot i took from a shoot for the Perth Demons WAFL Club at their end of season corporate sponsors golf day. It certainly looked to be a fun day with food, beer and a social competition that no-doubt turned more serious as the day went on.
This photograph was taken on the T behind the lake at the entrance of the course. I'd never been to Collier Park Golf Course and it certainly appeared to have some challenging holes for amateur hacks like myself through to seasoned pros. Most shots i took on the day focused on getting in front of the player and capturing their face and expression but i like the composition of this photograph and if you look carefully you can see the golf ball in mid flight directly above the golfer. For the uninitiated Roller Derby has been described as Rugby on Roller skates. As part of a commercial job for Voyeur Magazine i shot this series out at the Midland Rollerdome. I must confess while it was highly entertaining and exciting i'm still left confused as to what the "Rules" if any are.
For the publication these shots were provided in colour as was the brief, though as part of my personal photography folio i liked the feel of these gritty shots after processing them with a cool monotone photoshop action. The challenge in this shoot was most definitely the light availability. I found the best compromise was to set my ISO to 800, open up my lens and utilise some of the slow shutter speeds to capture what the sport is about...Speed. I can thoroughly that if you get a chance to get along to a Perth Roller Derby event as they seem to be great fun and great action. Check out: http://www.perthrollerderby.com.au/ or http://warollerderby.com.au/ Sunday 21st August - Judgement Day. The East Fremantle Sharks fighting tooth and nail for the right to compete in the 2011 WAFL finals campaign faced the classy Claremont Tigers who look comfortable perched at the top of the ladder.
Conditions were terrible, strong breeze, intermittent showers were hardly the ideal conditions for a game of critical importance for both sides and perhaps season defining for the Sharks. Lose and it could be curtains for season 2011 given the Subiaco Lions and South Fremantle Bulldogs, teams they will play away games to complete the home and away season sat above them prior to this game. After the completion of the first term, it was clear the league leading Tigers were in for a fight. Kicking with the aid of a 4-5 goal breeze the tigers felt themselves ambushed by an aggressive and determined Sharks team had clearly heeded the words of the coaching department and came out and not only neutralised the breeze but seemed to be the more switched on team. The second quarter saw the sharks arrest the narrow deficit and take a handy two goal lead into the half. The third quarter was another tight tussle between two desperate teams in trying conditions with the rain and wind making a case for back to basic football. Strong tackles, clean footwork and backing your teammates. At three quarter time there was signs of an upset brewing with the East Fremantle Sharks heading into the 4th quarter with the aid of the breeze and a narrow lead. This was when the game turned. A 7 goal to 1 onslaught saw the Sharks storm home to win by 45 points in a stunning upset that would be sure to boost confidence given the tough schedule remaining. Not only did they get the four points but with the upset loss by the Bulldogs the Sharks jumped from 5th to 3rd position, a spot that seemed almost unachievable prior to this round commencing. Luke Blackwell and Thomas Lee impressed again for the Tigers with 27 possessions, while for the home team Rory O'Brien was outstanding with 36 touches and two goals and club stalwart Jamie McNamara had 32 touches of the Burley. Next weekend gets no easier for the East Fremantle Sharks as they face another "Finals" type game against fellow top 4 aspirants Subiaco, while Claremont face the unpredictable Peel Thunder who will be looking to spoil their opponents quest for top spot. Saturday the 17th July saw the league leaders (West Perth Falcons) visit the port city to take on finals bound South Fremantle Bulldogs in a game that would prove to be the match of the round.
West Perth jumped straight out of the blocks with a fast start and held a 40 point lead at half time. The comfortable lead would be short lived after the main break with the Bulldogs storming back into contention with the midfield engine of Kris Miller, Toby Bairstow, Ashton Hams providing much of the grunt work while Callum Wilson was sensational with 8 of his 9 goals in the second half. In the end the steady hands and AFL experience of a heavily topped up Falcons team proved too much as they held out for a 135 - 118 victory. Andrew Strijk led a balanced scoring attack with four goals. West Perth return to the comfortable surrounds of Arena Joondalup for an important home fixture vs the much improved Perth Demons while South Fremantle get a chance to regroup ahead of the final stretch of the season with a bye. You can view the full photography gallery here Another shot of a commercial photography job i did late last year for Deltaforce Paintballing in Baldivis, south of Perth. This shot was also taken on the Canon 5D II with my 14mm F2.8 EX Sigma aspherical fisheye. This is an amazing piece of glass and has paid the $1,400 price tag many times over.
With this shot i would of been no more than 30cm away from the closest person. I originally bought this lens taking landscapes though with the development and improvement of stitching software i now use this lens mostly for close-up wide angle shots. Most of my landscapes now seem to be stitches of my 28mm lens. If you're looking for any action or sport photography in the Perth area don't hesitate to contact me for an obligation free quote. Round 13 of the WAFL saw the East Fremantle Sharks take on the Perth demons who after a stretch of great form came into the game with considerable confidence. The game was an arm wrestle throughout the match with neither side being able to gain ascendancy until the fourth quarter when the East Fremantle Sharks turned a 3 point defecit into a 6 goal to 2 final quarter to run away with the game finishing 85-68.
Reece Palmer did his chances of being recalled to the Fremantle Doclers no harm with a tireless display through four quarters gathering 34 touches while former West Coast Eagle & Western Bulldog Andew McDougall impressed for the visitors. Sports photography in varying lighting conditions can be difficult. At East Fremantle Oval the best place to photograph from is near the large Grand-Stand as the sun is always behind you ensuring you don't get any lens flare and players faces are in sun not shadow when running towards the camera. However this same grandstand starts to cause a large shadow over the field in the third and fourth quarters. This means that my daylight light balance needs to change to cloudy white balance to account for the change in light temperature. I prefer to do this manually rather than set to AUTO as i keep more control over the colour tones of the final image. In a perfect world lighting conditions for sports photography would be for a "bright" overcast day. A thin layer of evenly dispersed cloud ensures that you won't have to worry about harsh shadows in faces or bodies and enable consistent shutterspeed and exposure values. My preference is for over exposing by 1/3 of a stop to get detail in the shadow parts of the image then bring back the highlights from my RAW (.CR2) file in Photoshop CS5. If lighting conditions are consistant through the game i can then batch process the images to quickly apply pre-set RAW profiles and watermark's to all images. Round three of the WAFL saw the East Fremantle Sharks looking to build on the success of the previous week with another win over the Subiaco Lions on their home ground. The Lions however had other ideas and turned a tight contest at 3/4 time into a comfortable win over running the Sharks in the last quarter 16.12 (108) / 12.12 (84).
After a strong finish to the third quarter the sharks looked like they were going to march on for their second consecutive win but inaccurate kicking by the port team and the impressive midfield engine for the Lions stemmed any hope of victory. Over the coming days there will be a full match day photography gallery in the WAFL section of the folio. I've been trying to capture some interesting photos during the team huddles at 1/4 and 3/4 time as its a great opportunity for portrait, or natural sports portraiture. The emotion in team huddles can be electrifying with coaches and the leadership group revving up their fellow players to chase victory over their opponents. I particularly like this abstract photograph of Subiaco coach Chris Waterman. Staring straight at Fremantle Docker recruit Jack Anthony, his stare was intense. With a selection to choose from i thought the one with just one eye visible and the blurred foreground of the Subiaco player made for a striking composition. Click Here to visit full game gallery East Fremantle Sharks got their first points of the season on Saturday over the Perth Demons, at Brownes Stadium. The match was played at a frantic pace in stifling heat. With the game in the balance at 3/4 time the East Fremantle Sharks tore the game open in the final quarter slamming on 9 goals to 1. Leith Teakle lead the visitors on the scoreboard with 6 majors while Mathew Moody added 3 goals for the home side. In the end East Fremantles depth and healthy number of AFL listed players stood tall. West Coast's Koby Stevens andBrad Dalziell were impressive and Fremantle Docker recruit Jonathon Griffin dominated in the ruck for the blue and white with 31 hit-outs. Perth were led well by ex-West Coast Eagle Andrew McDougall and Casey Sibosado in the back line. The Perth Demons showed a lot of good signs with a young list and certainly look poised to make a march up the ladder in the wake of former coach Andrew Jarman leaving the post at the end of last season. After two solid performances, East Fremantle may lose the services of Daniel Kerr due to injury problems with the West Coast Eagles midfield with Marc LeCras and fellow Shark Chris Masten both getting injured in the Eagles round 1 victory over the North Melbourne Kangaroos. The East Fremantle Sharks are to play Subiaco at East Fremantle Oval on Saturday 2nd April at the earlier start time of 1.30pm to accomodate the 5.40 bouncedown of the AFL game between the Fremantle Dockers and Geelong Cats. Meanwhile the Perth Demons head to Fremantle Oval to take on the Bulldogs in what should be a tight game on Friday night. Click here for the full skateboard gallery The 4Sure Youth Festival was held on the Nedlands foreshore in Perth, Western Australia. It was the was also the site for the latest round of the YMCA Perth Skate competition run with the generous sponsorship from Odyssey sunglasses and the legendary Perth skate company GMTA as well as Healthway, Drug Aware and Department of Sport and Recreation. Skateboard photography is always a challenge due to the speed these guys can move at. I like to up my ISO to 400 even on a bright day such as when these photos were taken. This allows me to really freeze the skateboarder in the moment. There are exceptions to this such as when try to capture the movement and emphasise the movement and speed when i will go for a slower shutterspeed such as 1/25 of a second and try and take a panning shot. If done correctly panning photography will keep your subject sharp at the point of focus and blur the surroundings. Another tip i suggest with skate photography or any sports photography for that matter is to change your focus mode if you are using a DSLR to "Servo". This mode constantly adjusts its point of focus to account for moving objects. It takes a bit to get used to but is really the only way to photograph fast moving action or sports photography. With these shots from this series i have chosen to include the skaters surroundings to help indicate to my audience how high these guys can get and the type of moves they're performing. I find a low vantage point is best in general for skate photography as it can create really dynamic scenes. The problem with this is that your camera will normally account for the sky in the light meter and adjust accordingly. If uncorrected your photos will come out with varying degrees of silhouetting with little or no detail in the body. To correct for this I set my base camera exposure to over expose by 2/3's of a stop. This allows some detail to be registered when shooting against a bright background such as the sky. In some instances i want to create a silhouetted image such as the last image in this blog. If this is the case then i would expose for the sky and in this instance i have used the dodge tool in photoshop to bring out features in the skateboarders face. If anyone is interested in purchasing any photos of the day please feel free to contact me and I will happily send through a price list. I also have hundreds more photos if you were there and wanted to know if i had any photos available of you. Please contact me with details |
AuthorChris Bishop professional commercial, landscape & travel photographer based in Perth, Western Australia. Archives
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