Kielivalinnasta: Pekingin jälkeen sain useita pyyntöjä, että muuttaisin bloggauskielekseni toisen kotimaisen - eli englannin. Toivottasti kukaan ei loukkaannu tästä, kokeilen tätä näin pilottina mm. Vancouveria ajatellen.
Berlin 13th August, 2009 / KK
Got here today, accreditation and accomodation went pretty smoothly (hey, this is Germany, that's how it's supposed to go).
Went to see Usain Bolts pressconference and that was a realitycheck. I somehow have this idea that I am doing journalism - although it's just sports and images, but still. I got to the place, crowded, and I was told to stand on the side, as "photographers were not accredited to this event". A finnish collegue of mine got an even more PC-instructions: "Go stand over there, you are not a person, you are a photographer". And then the lady reminded the entering journalists:" Remember, this is for Puma publicity, not Usain Bolt pressconference".
Right. I'm sure the couple of hundred journalists and and TV-crews had gotten there to do just that: promo for Puma... Besides, who cares who wins men's 100m, it'll only last for less than ten seconds anyway?
So, the place was a zoo. Big bodyguards, lots of hassle. Instructions that we would be led inside for a staged photo-opp .... but all went down the drain. Pressphotographers tend to missbehave when there is a bunch of them together - bloody animals, I guess many would call us.
Usain Bolt shows up in a black car, we flock around, bodyguards push us away, he is hurried inside. We are supposed to stand aside as the "real journalists" enter, but we do not: in true Jamaican spirit we just go with the flow... and I guess they realize there is no way they can throw c. 40 photographers out with any dignity, considering that there are about another 30 tv-cameras pointing at us.
But, this is how it looked like:
We had the photographers meeting, so I went to check the stadium. Another realitycheck: this is going to get difficult. Basically we can shoot from the first row and from any vacant seat. There is a small head-on platform which takes some couple of dozens photographers - considering we are here some 300-500 maybe, it's going to be a bit crowded, to say the least. And "head-on" is not really what it is, it is actually situated quite a lot on the side.
No infield entry without written application for it 24h in advance (that's standard procedure), but no entry to the track level either. I guess we were spoiled in Beijing, but boy do I miss that... Check out this image I did there and compare it to luxurious space in one of the images below.
Apart from shooting positions the stadium is impressive. Originally built for the Berlin Olympics (but totally renovated inside), it somehow still has somehow feeling of threatening, monumental power of the old days (two of the images are HDR).
Finally got the games going. Shooting positions are really bad, but I stop whining about it now, one just have to do with what is given.
Karjalainen did not qualify this morning - and also his competition was exactly at the same time when Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt were doing their first qualifications. I would have so much preferred following the 100m but no can do; working for Finnish media means following the Finnish athletes.
Two things I still need to figure out: rate is 24fps and our PAL-standard is 25. How to convert without having a occasinonal one frame doubling i.e. a small jerk in the final output? I wonder if multipass encoding is the answer... but then, the compression will take forever. Second, can one manually control the aperture? Yeah, I know, RTFM, but I did not have one available... and the guys at the Nikon stand did not know either, but I remember reading somewhere that it could be done, I just could not figure it out on my own.
Shot the morning 3000m steeplechase session, Keskisalo barely made it, he was fifth in his own group. Apart from that nothing to write home about. Tested the Canon 5Dmrk2 - with the new firmware - and I was impressed. Usability, button placement, interface, all worked. Very intuitive to use for a photographer. Video quality at 1920x1080 /30fps H.264 is so amazing. Hooked it into a 600mm lens and the ease you could control the depht of field blows your mind. Along with the aperture you can manually control the shutterspeed and the sensitivity of course. Three parameters you can play around with and you get immediate visual feedback on the screen. Nice.
What really is a bummer - and with capital letters - is the fact that the generated file is so-oooo hard to edit. I could not edit it with any RT (real time) settings confortably without prior rendering on my laptop. Rendering of one minute took about eight minutes which is definitely not acceptable for the work I do. One should maybe develop a workflow where the material gets automatically downscaled before it is imported to FCP, but I have to think about that still. Besides, that would strain the computer and CPU/GPU to the same extend than rendering so there's nothing really to be gained there.
Editing in LT and Proxy flavors of the Apple ProRes422 had no significant effect on the time issue.
Bottomline? There isn't one really, depends what one is after. In a years time I'd say both manufacturers will bring either firmware updates or new models, which incorporate full manual controls and more importantly, more variation in the framesizes and framerates.
If you're interested, you might want to check this audioslideshow I did that night, exactly 2 years ago.
It's funny, writing in English: suddenly you realize that there might be people reading who do not live in our country, know the newspapers by name, nor any other household names and I find out that I have to take that into account. Also I just realized, I can not make fun anymore (in a good way) about the big boys (Abraham Getty, Paul Reuters, Gunter DPA, etc.) nor about the Swedes (there is this brotherly love/hate-relationship between our two countries), because somebody might actually - not likely though - read my commentary and take it seriously. Would be embarrasing to say like "can you believe what that Getty guy did..." and then run into him on the coffee line next morning.
So the main highlight is over. And as expected, Usain Bolt ruled. New WR 9,58. Totally unbelievable. I shot from head-on, with 600mm. No raising hands, no jubilation, no nothing... Checked todays papers back home and they went with agency pics: pointing by the clock, extreme wide doing his hand dance at the 200m starting point, etc. In a way, it's frustrating, you work all evening and you get very little; on the other hand, that's just how it is and nothing really one can do about it. And, no way I would like to be there working there with a red bib, trying to keep up my speed up with Usain - and shooting pictures at the same time. Then trying to beat all the other guys as who gets his stuff out first. That's just not me.
But, here's what I saw last night - which is nothing really. The only 2 images I really actually like are of Tyson Gay: one where he is leaving the stadium (with the other girls) and the profile of his face between his hands when he his concentrating for the start.
I realize I am a big fan of hers, never thought of that one before, either. I've shot her couple of times earlier, so I more or less know her routine.
This time she just failed so totally. First attempt 475 then twice 480. God, I realized I was holding my breath when I was shooting her last attempt.
I made this sequential gallery playing on the right. I also made a Finnish version for Iltalehti with captions and headers.
No point really redoing it here in English, I let the images tell the tale. The legend got beaten.
This time I had no time to do audio - and the fact that she did not get any result at all meant that she would not come to the pressconference either, so that was that.
But, I think it works pretty well like this also.
Best images. Right, several days gone by, it's time to show what I've got. Here's about a dozen of images I have liked -for one reason or another. (Captions appear if you bring the cursor over the image). UPDATED 20th AUG.
The famous shoelaces - I mean, famous in Finland. Jukka Keskisalo (3000m steeplechase) had his right shoe untied thru the competition. I did not notice it, but Mika Kanerva of Aamulehti came and told it when I was editing and sure enough, I did have a pretty decent image of it.
In a way, I felt bad for Mika: my image on the cover of Aamulehti next morning; but he had the cover of Iltalehti sports section, so that was good.
This is how it should be between photographers, but being freelance, one gets too easily very self-centered and egoistic.
It'll be interesting to see if the people who have found this come back, regardless of language barrier ("London Dialect" as my good friend Vesa Koivunen called it in his blog). Let me know if it really bothers you, then I'll reconsider. I see some 82 000 hits (different viewers) from Finland on my site this month, mosty naturally from the Madonna concert 6th August in Helsinki (c. 53 000). Total number different viewers in August alone is approaching 100 000.
So majority is definitely Finnish... but I just think about all the friends and family living abroad, people I meet on the job, lots of whom I know follow what I do and don't necessarily speak our language.
And, I've had couple of really nice mails from people I've never heard from before. I wonder if Valentin in Belgium or Andrea in Italy just googled or how did they find this... Anyway, thank you for your kind words.
Jelena Isinbajeva after her defeat
I realize I have to be careful when doing HDR (or pseudo HDR) images for newspaper use. They just don't look so good when printed on the page. I have to sit down with the guys who prepare the images for printing and see if there is anything we can do. I really like this image I took of our javelin team yesterday (they were a bit camerashy and I barely made them stop when I encountered them on the street).
On the right are the tearsheets from today and yesterday. Good work guys.
I did send an SMS to the picturechief ... and I could just hear him laughing behind his answer: "Well, you're just barely covermaterial..."
My students in the Tampere University are so-ooo going to sneer on me on this one...
Man, did I get pissed this morning when I opened the computer and here's why. I did this thing on Tommi Evilä, Finnish long-jumper. It was pretty hard to do, as there was this fence in between. Shot with 70-200mm, vertical frames, trying to maintain focus thru-out the sequence and I had one shot at it, his first jump, six frames total.
Personal pride aside, takes totally all the credibility out of the image. Maybe journalists should sign their own work by "Lies and hearsay by Yours Truly"?
No, seriously, one of things I've noticed has changed is that one sees light differently, just appreciates the forms and the tones it takes. And sometimes the best images are not of athletes, but of something else. In Beijing I remember the little girl in the yellow raincoat.... and here, it is the image below. Sun was just setting outside the stadium and a volunteer, maybe fifteen, the last rays touching her face, sitting down and taking her break. A beautiful girl, beautiful light.
Darkened the background little, took the mid-tone contrast down to draw attention a bit away from the freckles, added a pinch of soft-mask to the background. I just liked it... and maybe I am also tired of shootint Usain Bolt every day ;-))
I'll post this immediately as I am a bit proud of this. Finnish javelinteam made history and all four guys fought their way to the final on Sunday. Five minutes after the qualifications were over, I had this slideshow out and about - i.e. playing on Iltalehti's front page.
Last weekend I was really happy when I saw the papers in the morning. Today - I''ll be silent. You do the math.
Got couple of emails in the evening and during the night. Two good friends of mine - a photographer and a graphic artist - who both work in the media, each sent me one. I 'm sure they do not mind if I paraphrase their words here to illustrate a point:
"I did not like that, just webtricks, no focus on images". This is the photographer. Ok, fair enough.
"Perfect javelin display in the net, amazing stuff, how did you pull that off? This is what people want to see. Your personal touch gives a true sense of presence." This is the graphic artist.
Point being, people look at different things, focus differently. Personally, I try to see the final outcome as single entity, not just collection of pictures showcasing me as a photographer. Use sound, layout, presentation - whatever I feel suits the case in hand - and whatever I master. In this aspect I have to give credit to Iltalehti: they have let me play around quite freely. I don't think there has been one single time they have refused something I have tried, usually for the first time for me as well. 360° degree of the Lahti skijumping hill was a case like that and when I did the javelin final in Osaka, that was for the first time as well.
Printed media is in crisis, we all know that. Some might not have realized that this has very little to do present global economic crisis - the recession is working as a catalyst only. Simply put: once the economy recovers - be it this year or the next - the printed media will continue its steady downhill.
What has this got to do with anything and how does that relate to what I do? Well, the above mentioned slideshow is just a tiny example of my personal fight against that: trying to come up with forms of expression that people might appreciate , develop workflows which enable me to get my work out practically the moment I hook my laptop to the ethernetwire. Something for my client(s) that their readers might appreciate, something different, something original. A competitive edge in a tiny, tiny scale.
But in a way - and let's throw in some big words now - one feels a bit like Don Quijote - and yes, I know, he was crazy too. Big windmills, slowly doing what they have always done. An idiot banging his head against the status quo. But, honestly, I feel it has to be done. We have to try new things, new forms of visual expression. Try and fail - try and sometimes succeed.
I threw in Cervantes already, so keeping up the same frame of mind, let me now quote Lord Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses:
I agree, though, that too much bells and whistles is - by definition - too much. It's a thin line, "writ' in water" as Keats said. Focus is off the image. Four 320px images vs. a single 780 px image. No question there, the latter showcases the photographer better. But is that what one should be after? Showcasing the individual photographer?
Does it enable you to relive the moment any better? As a whole, as a viewing experience?
You'll be the judge of that. Here's the original slideshow one more time and below my standard 14 images in one frame (some contrast added), in random order.
I promise, no more quotes, no more big words flying around. Just images. Last day of the games and I am ready to go home - I'm sure we all are.
As my paper does not come out on Sundays, I had practically a free day yesterday. Shot only one image, but I like it. Different, suits actually to what I said above: "Ready to go home". He looks that way.
I saw he had been busy shooting motorbikes - his passion, I know. I really liked the images in this audioslideshow he had on display: his touch in potraits with saturation taken down, the use of moderate shutterspeeds to show the speed; I'm pretty sure he used strobes to light the bikes flying against the sky, but you really cannot tell... Worth seeing, definitely.
No real story, just images with short captions from us. Personally, I think my own images do not actually merit this kind of space this time - they are somehow too clean, too detached - but it was a really nice gesture from Aamulehti to give such credit to our work.
If you want to read the captions, you can see the page in PDF.
I better get myself to the stadium well in advance. Two days ago I almost missed it, since they changed the starting time and I had no idea of it. Almost lost my accreditation, when I went infield on my own, following the others already there. A definite no, no...
I have also applied for an infield position today, but I'm not sure if I get it. In Beijing I didn't...
What an anticlimax! Fifth and sixth - Pitkämäki and Ruuskanen that is. Wirkkala and Järvenpää out after the first three rounds. Had all kind of multimedia plans - and all went down the drain. Did my trademark, a sequence-image of Pitkämäki. Played around with shadows, that's all. Well, good news: I will get to bed early tonight.
I cannot but smile when I saw the covers this morning Face it, a photographer gets his reward when his images get shown. Sure, this is a job and a profession, but it is also a passion for me. I simply love images.
Especially I am content that Lapin Kansa shared my vision: that is how I thought yesterday it should be shown. A big "thank you" to Rovaniemi.
Maybe we should have done the classic Aftonbladet/Expressen trick: show a blank spread with a black frame and as small text in the corner: "These pages were reserved for the Finnish Javelin Success. Didn't have any."
Or, even better: take the shadowimage, make it centerfold and with a gothic font write to lower corner: "To remember Finnish track and field in Berlin 2009".
Please note: my sympathy is totally on the side of Tero Pitkämäki. The moment he stepped on the field, you could see that he was really sick and taking that into account his performance was extraordinary. "Not to yield" i quoted earlier. He didn't - and one cannot but admire that.
I will not know the webstats until tomorrow, but the visitorslist on my server (August) broke 100 000 couple of days ago, so I have to be content. Over 3,5 million views of images... naturally a lot of these come from the Madonna concert and the WRC I did, but still; makes you humble - and happy.
AN EPILOGUE TO BERLIN
Got home and have been busy getting back to business as usual.
I decided to give WordPress a go, and started a dedicated blog which I will try to update to my best abilities as often as I can. Depends naturally on the feedback I get, what do I do, etc. So please visit it, it is in English in order to reach a bit wider.
The last chapter of this blog will be written there - and I hope to get some dialogue. Maybe...?
Porvoo 2nd September, 2009 / KK
heard