All sports photographers have only one goal – to capture a moment that would last a lifetime, a photo that transcends a message to the people who will be looking at it. Sports photography has become the face of the reality of sports. It has been the mirror of many victories and success, as well as the agony of failures and defeats. With all the moments, there is an eye that sees what others cannot. As every great person starts in a humble beginning, same goes with Bob Martin.
Bob Martin is one of the most sought-after sports photographers in the world today. His career has witnessed the drama behind every sports event in the last couple of decades. He has been producing masterpiece after masterpiece. His works garnered many recognitions and awards all over the world. He was hailed as the British Sports Photographer of the Year for the year 1992-1993, 1998-1999, and 2001-2002. Also, one of his photos taken from the Paralympics in Athens and was awarded as the Sports Picture of the Year in the World Press Photo Awards 2005, one of the 23 awards he won in 2005.
His most notable photos are the ones from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics where he was one of the pioneering photographers to capture real-time action photography. Since then, he has been known to be one of the greatest photographers in graphic and editorial photos for advertising and marketing. His range is now limitless.
What makes his photos different from the others is the emotion of his photos. Every image that he captures exhibits emotions that the people can feel. It seems like it has life of its own. Every bit has a story to tell. He was there when Jennifer Capriati won her first grandslam trophy in Australian Open in 2001 and when Lance Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France trophy. Because of its amazing visionary style, his photos are published in many newspapers and magazines.
He has been covering sports events one after the other and according to him, patience is one of the greatest virtue he has learned from being a sports photographer. In an interview he said, “There is an awful lot of waiting around to try to capture that special picture. You would think that sports photographers just turn up and shoot the event, but it’s not like that.”
Though he knows that skills are maybe his best asset, he also relies on his equipments. “Sports photography has become so specialist, with such limited access, and you don’t always get the position you necessarily want,” he explains. “So you need to have a vast range of telephoto lenses – I’ve got everything from a 600mm downwards. I’ll take at least two or three super-telephoto lenses to almost every shoot, so a 600mm, or 400mm and a 300mm.”
Despite all the achievements he has received, he remains humble and enthusiastic in all his ways. He always have the passion of a beginner, getting excited for his turn and patiently waiting for the right moment to capture his perfect shot.
Karen Brook’sphotography showcases the Australian outback in shades of red, blue, green and all the local colour of its pubs, festivals and locals.
Brook is most notably the official photographer for the Birdsville Races and with the next event pending in September this year, her photos might just be the drawcard to get you driving the 2000km (or more depending where you live) to the outback town for a horse race in the desert.
The Birdsville Races is one of Queensland’s most well known, whacky and isolated festivals. Brook’s photos capture all the spirit of the event and highlights such as Australia’s last touring boxing tent Fred Brophys, the action at the famed Birdsville Hotel and all the fun of the races.
Race action on the track
Festival goers outside the Birdsville Hotel
Storm of dust approaching Birdsville
Brook’s work has also appeared in Outback Magazine, the Australian, The Courier Mail and Queensland Country Life. She also runs a creative business Karen Brook STUDIOS that does graphic and web design focusing on corporate identity branding and event promotions.
If you’re eye have been caught by the new Matt Damon – Morgan Freeman movie, Invictus, about South Africa’s emergence from apartheid, you should also check out this photographic exhibition about the country.
The collection is a rather powerful insight into the transition the country has gone through in its road to democracy. Each photographer contributed 20 prints, 10 made under apartheid and 10 made post-apartheid.
The curator, and also a photographic contributor, Paul Weinberg said the project was a dialogue with the eight photographers who have worked in two distinctive periods of South African history.
“… this collection is something of a family gathering – a family with a shared history which has sought to understand South Africa’s changes, contradictions and complexities, both as a community and as individuals”, he said.
The exhibition was first launched in the Albany Museum in Grahamstown, South Africa in 2007 and has since toured to the Durban Art Gallery, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria. Internationally the collection has gone to Duke University, the Ghent Festival in Belgium and the Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne and to venues in Scandinavia.
Nicole and I ventured out on Saturday afternoon to check out what Federation Square had on offer. We ended up looking at the new ACMI Screen Worlds. It was certainly an eye-opener as I discovered some of my childhood during the walk around. And of course I ended up looking at the games and new generation things such as the iPhone. But one thing that I really enjoyed was the old style arcade games from the old C64 with all its old parts such as the tape drive.
About a year ago I did a review on many things in the business, including business processors, applications and technology, to see if they were aligned to our vision for the future.
One important factor we discovered was the ability to do business anywhere at anytime.
This isn’t just one of those throw-away metaphors but a real serious thing to consider given the nature of the work that Blinq photography does. We’re always moving around – either in Victoria or in another state and sometimes overseas. So access to all our records, be it our financials or contracts all the way down to just simple templates for proposals. Its so important that everyone in the business has access to the most up-to-date information. This provides us the vital ingredient for making key decisions at a drop of the hat.
The bright green and gold of the Socceroos fans automatically draw you into the exhilaration felt by the crowd after the Socceroos vs The All Whites World Cup match on May 24th, 2010. The final score was met with excitement after the first quarter team was booed off the field. Brett Holland scored the final buzzer-beating goal making the final score 2-1.
Drobo, for me, to date, was a fairly easy device to get running. The old trusty device which included a share was working fine. But the biggest complaint was the speed. And it was terrible. So slow in fact that some applications that I was using even timed out and through up errors. Terrible experience. This time around I was looking for speed to backup across my network.
Following the instructions was straight forward. Pop some disks into the slots and you are off and running. Well so I thought. That where it went all pear shaped. Once the disks were in, and given I had already had a version of the Drobo Dashboard installed, I thought it would just find it. Not so!
Could this be a firmware issue? Maybe. Scratching my head I thought that the CD, that I actually had placed in the bin, might have some answers. I inserted the CD into my iMac and what would you know, there was a newer version of the Drobo Dashboard. The version that I had running on my machine was 1.6.8. The CD version was 1.7.0. Sounds great now. I thought that was all sorted.
As part of the hype and success of Apple’s iPad launch here in Australia I was fortunate to have a chat with 3AW’s Neil Mitchell about the iPad.
But really, where does the iPad and photography fit in? My initial thoughts for the device is its great for impromptu meetings and being able to show people your portfolio of work. The screen size is perfect for that.
Secondly, being able to have a device that will take notes from meetings. Some may think that is fairly mundane, however, the goal is always to find the notes a few weeks/months later. Maybe there will be a better application coming for meting notes? One that will sync’ to all you machines via the cloud. I believe the guys at Hypnotic Zoo are looking into that.
