My UWC Pics on BloodyElbow.com!

EDITED to add: I updated the links below as they were mobile versions that my blackberry inserted. Sorry for the glitch!
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Sorry for the delay in posting. Those of you who know me know this was a trying week for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a severely limited internet connection. Nevertheless, I am happy to log on briefly tonight (thank you Blackberry!!) to include the following link.

Yep, that's one of my shots featured on BloodyElbow.com! Luke Thomas, Editor-in-Chief, was nice enough to let me cover the event for his website. It was a great experience. I had a ROCKIN seat, right up against the cage and within earshot of Luke calling the event for the UWC.

The fights were fantastic, especially the bout between John "The Magician" Dodson and Jose "The Pistol" Villarisco. Those guys are a photographer's dream come true with all their flying kicks and acrobatics. Amazing!

The matchup between LeVon Maynard and Kyle Baker was also pretty exciting for me. It was something I'd been waiting for for a long time as I'm a fan of both fighters. I was torn who to root for, but enjoyed it immensely even though I knew one was gonna go down.

Finally, the fight between Iman Achhal and Felice Herrig was a new one for me. I'd never seen a girl MMA matchup before and wondered if I would enjoy it as much as the men. The answer is yes. It was definitely different but still enjoyable.

On a whole, it was a great night with great fights and good photo ops. I also got to rub elbows with my photog friend and (dare I say?) unofficial mentor, Keith Mills, and schmooz a bit with friends and FighterLink owners John and Jen Tackett. Thanks guys, for looking out for me at this event! I'm still really new to this world so I can use all the Big Brothering I can get! ;)

Pics taken for BloodyElbow.com can also be found here.

Fingers Crossed........

Folks, it's that time again. This Saturday night I will be sitting cageside shooting the UWC Man "O" War event at George Mason University's Patriot Center. I'm especially excited about this event because, if all goes well, my pictures will be featured on another website with a pretty wide MMA audience. I'm a little superstitious so I'm not going to say too much more until after the event. The reality is that a lot of things could go wrong and I obsess about every single one of them. For instance, I may not get a good seat- it's entirely up to the promotions staff. If I don't get a good seat, then all I will get are pictures of a chain link fence and a blur of pink beyond it. So until I know my shots are golden, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed, hope everything works in my favor, and try not to jinx myself by giving too much away.

At any rate, check back on Sunday to see how things went, and wish me luck! Oh! And if you want to watch the event yourself, Sherdog.com will be streaming it live. Here's the link. It's free, and you might even see me.... I'll be the chick wearing the stupid grin and taking pictures.

Welcome home

 

Today was our first day back at our old box and I went straight back to my exploratory photography, lying on the mats, shooting up, down, across, and toying with the exposure settings. It felt good to be back!

Halfway through I noticed a disturbing trend: I tend to favor full-body shots that take up about 3/4 of the frame and lack facial details. Once in a while is ok, but dozens of the same type of shot can get boring. So for this one I got up as close as possible without shoving the lens in Treefrog's face (sorry Treefrog- you were a good sport!) which sort of exaggerated the size of the near olympic plate. I cropped it even closer in picasa so that the plate filled almost half of the frame.

I'm going to try and shoot tighter shots from now on. I haven't used my 50mm lens in a while so maybe it's time to dust that bad boy off again now that we're back in the old gym. Actually, I will be using my 50mm very shortly for another purpose this weekend. I'll give a few more details in a day or two, but if all goes well this weekend let's just say this isn't the only website where you'll be seeing my shots....

The Pointe of CrossFit

 
Betcha don't see this everyday!

One of our athletes studies ballet when she's not CrossFitting. During warmup the other day, I noticed her bag sitting against the wall with one of her pointe shoes tumbling out. It was such a juxtaposition with the surroundings I had to take a shot. I grabbed a kettlebell and a jump rope that were in my path and placed them next to the bag, et voila! Pointe Shoe and Kettlebell still-life!

I submitted it to the CrossFit main site a few days ago but they didn't post it (I'm not upset; it might be a little artsy fartsy for their taste). But I didn't want to sit on it any longer. I'm pretty excited by it and I want to share it with everyone.

Basically, I adjusted the levels in GIMP to build up a little contrast between the pink slipper and the pinkish dance bag, desaturated it, and then selectively re-colored the shoe and kettlebell.

CrossFit Level I Cert - VA Beach

 

Just got back from Virginia Beach where I attended a Level I CrossFit certification course. It was.... humbling. I'm in awe of our instructors and their level of knowledge and fitness. They've given me something real and tangible to shoot for from here on out and I'm grateful for that. The course was made up of both lecture material and break out sessions, with plenty of time to practice the concepts we had just learned in the classroom. I got to try out equipment I had never seen before, and even started to develop the beginnings of a butterfly pull-up! Holy smokes, didn't see that one coming! Yes, I'm sore. Very very sore. And I did see spots after one of the workouts. But here's the thing- most of the stuff we did was all body-weight and PVC-pipe intensive. Very little time was spent carrying loads. And yet they still smoked us completely.

My one regret was that I didn't bring my DSLR. I felt naked the whole weekend without it. All I had on me was my little point and shoot, which I used to capture a bunch of images from the instructors' WOD on the second day. This is one of our instructors, Pat S., attacking a set of 15 push-jerks. Check out those shins! Reminds me of the day a guest athlete came to town and drew blood as well. You can't see it here, but Pat bears an uncanny resemblance to Ben Stiller (think Tropic Thunder, not Zoolander.)

Anyway, thank you everyone, instructors and fellow students alike for an amazing weekend! It was a wonderful learning experience and I can't wait to put all I've learned into practice. Now if only I could straighten my legs.......