Teaching Sports Photography
I stopped my own career as a sports photographer in Sotchi about five years ago… reasons being many, but the most important one probably that I saw the end of professional sports photography in the nearby horizon and I wanted to concentrate on the life and things coming after that.
And it has been truly interesting a ride — more about that later.
But I have a soft spot for this what I did — like 15–20 years — for a full time living… and having been teaching for a while in Lahti I have had the pleasure of teaching what I have learned over the years in the Olympics and World Championships to the next generation of visual professionals studying in LAMK.
Two years ago I organised the photography of Lahti World Championships for the LOC and had fifteen photographers in my team. This year it is much more small scale and the team is only half a dozen.
It is very rewarding seeing them attack the task ahead. Motivated, eager, taking initiative and responsibility.
We had the great honor of Canon Finland giving us couple of really cool lenses for testing… including the new 600mm (like three kilos only!!!) and the 200–400 and 100–400 zooms — along with couple of 1DX 2’s.
No more babbling from my side… let the pictures tell the story.
First a small BHS-video, then couple of my personal favourites and finally a gallery with more images.
And here’s a gallery which I will update during the games:
======
The team:
- Mathias Foster
- Anastasia Sorokina
- Jon Norppa
- Mikael Niemi
- Onni Aaltonen
- Antti Turunen
- Julia Siven
- Kari Kuukka (editor)