Bradford Archives - Richard Spurdens Photography

More Dragon Boat racing

For the forth year the Bradford Dragon boat festival was held on the river Aire at Roberts Park Saltair. It is the only three day festival for Dragon boat racing in the country. I have covered it of the last few years. as it is a good opportunity to get some different type of sports action images. It can give you some good colourful images too.

Over the last few events I have taken a number of approaches to photographing the Dragon boat racing. If you want the standard freeze the action shot then a high shutter speed does the job. However for me the approach I really perfer is using a show shutter speed together with a panning action to get the background blurred.

I usually start with my shutter speed set at around 1/30 sec ( but it can vary downwards to get the really blurred colourful shapes). I also add an on- camera flash unit, with the output dialled down. (-1 is a good starting point ). But check the images to make sure that you can’t tell that there is a flash being used. This helps to freeze the water droplets spray that you get from the paddlers paddles as they work to propel the boat forward.

Show here a few of the images from this years event:

sport photography - sport photographer -colour image of dragon boat racing on the river aire at roberts park saltaire, a slow shutter speed was used together with panning to give a feel of the speed in this one the boats are all very close in the reave and there is lots of effort going into the paddling by all the crews — Richard Spurdens Photography – Dragon boat racing series – Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, Lens: EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM 1/30 sec @ f-13 / ISO 100

sport photography - sport photographer -colour image of dragon boat racing on the river aire at roberts park saltaire, slow shutter speed was used to give an abstract effect with a flash firing to captured the water spray droplets — Richard Spurdens Photography – Dragon boat racing series – Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark IV Lens: EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM 1/30 sec @ f-14 / ISO 100

General, Photography

April Images

A selection of image taken during the month of April, hence the title April Images.

As I seem to be failing at the moment to get my Blog posts going on a regular basis, I am trying this approach of having a posts each month where I can just add image and a little text about them. I keep taking lots of images but never seem to get them into a blog post.

Lets see if I can keep adding images into the post.

image shot at bradford foster square station on a mist april morning — Model:X-E1 Lens: XF27mm F2.8

Spotted in Leeds

What attracted me to making these images was the lead lines on the platform and the misty red light at the end of the platform, it a long platform and seem to work using the lines to take you in towards the mist in the distance.

image showing the leeds bid team using a steam cleaner of the paving stones in the millinumn square — Model: X-E1 Lens: XF27mm F2.8

Just loved all the blues in this one