Rumble in Rush - Mixed Martial Arts C&C if you please!

Dragan

On saturday night just past i had the chance to cover the Rumble in Rush MMA show. It was great fun and i learned a lot of lessons about shooting this particular sport. Hopefully, the chance comes up again and i will continue to improve in this field.

On top of covering the fights themselves i gave myself the very specific challenge of trying to find the "human" side of the sport, the joy of victory and the bitter defeats that make these events so interesting, basically moving beyond the simple capturing of biomechanics in the same way that i think the really good sport photogs on this board do so well.

Anyway, here is what i came up with for my first attempt. I hope to make this a consistant part of my work in this area and at each show i will be trying to capture this.

I had the ISO up nice and high, both to deal with the very low light in the building and also because i wanted that kind of "grainy" feel as i was trying to add mood and tone and imply the dirty, physical side of the sport. The shutter speed is pulled back a bit to try and convery some elements of movements and dynamics.

Basically, tell me if you think i had any success or if you think i should stick to the more "clean cut" style of sport photography.


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I'm using a dodgy monitor at the moment which normally makes images crap, but those look still amazing on it. Well done, great shots.

mrboswell

I like them.
I think that the venues are horrible for MMA and you need to do something so they wont take from the photos - I think you took a nice angle to do that.

Fight images can be plain but I like they way that you personalised them with each fighter.

dakar

They're all good, but #2 is a superb shot. Human emotion captured brilliantly.

I'd be in no hurry to see 'clean cut' if you keep producing raw and gritty ones like this.:)

AnCatDubh

Great work Dragan - very impressive.

#2 is a killer (pardon the pun) shot worthy of adorning the wall of any dojo - smashing stuff. Well done.

#1 is ok - have you left some saturation on it? It just looks a little neither here nor there in terms of colouring so maybe completed desaturated would work better. Least favourite of the 3 for me.

#3 is a very interesting shot - can i enquire as to your b/w conversion process? If you decomposed to the channels then I wonder is this the product of the blue channel? It's dirty and gritty all right and perhaps this is the desired effect but you might find the red channel gives you a bit better contrast on the skin of the chap which would lift it. The red channel might be too clean though for your particular brief but it might be worth trying. You can go clean and then push the post processing in the direction of destructive practices to invoke the mood. Of course it may have simply been shadow cast from the room lighting which isn't translating cleanly in your b/w conversion.

Just my 2c. You are putting a longing on me to return to training. Gah!

Dragan

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Great work Dragan - very impressive.

#2 is a killer (pardon the pun) shot worthy of adorning the wall of any dojo - smashing stuff. Well done.

Thanks very much, this is my favourite from the night.

#1 is ok - have you left some saturation on it? It just looks a little neither here nor there in terms of colouring so maybe completed desaturated would work better. Least favourite of the 3 for me.

This one is more of a faded sepia affect than a black and white conversion. I'll give it a run through some BandW processes and see how it fairs.

#3 is a very interesting shot - can i enquire as to your b/w conversion process? If you decomposed to the channels then I wonder is this the product of the blue channel? It's dirty and gritty all right and perhaps this is the desired effect but you might find the red channel gives you a bit better contrast on the skin of the chap which would lift it. The red channel might be too clean though for your particular brief but it might be worth trying. You can go clean and then push the post processing in the direction of destructive practices to invoke the mood. Of course it may have simply been shadow cast from the room lighting which isn't translating cleanly in your b/w conversion.

I think the main issue with this was that i had been shooting up into the lights as they were standing, then a sudden takedown put them right in front of me and i snapped before a quick flick of the finger upped opened up the Ap, as such, the shot ended up being very dark to start with and there was a lot of messing around involved to get any real light in it at all. Good advice though, and i'll run it through a different process and explore it a little more.

Balfey1972

Great Shots Dragan. My cousin was one of the fighters. His fight lasted about 40 seconds. A couple of his mates went to the toilet, came back and missed it.

I couldn't get up to it even though it is 2 mins from where I live. Bought the missus Take That concerts tickets for Crimbo so was left babysitting while she and the sister was at the concert.

Love the set of photos. Some great images there. Love the rawness and non standard look.

Borderfox

Second one really hits the spot, first one is still great but I think there is more to look at in the desparation of defeat. I have said it in a previous thread that a bit of harmony in the processing goes a long way to bringing it from three seperate pictures into something that is a story but thats from a more commercial point of view.

humberklog

Fantastic, beautiful. The three of them. Brilliant work. Moody and sore, really feckin' sore. The three of them really take you to the moment. Third one's getting my vote but that neither here nor there.

I'd like to see pic three turned 90 degrees to the left. So that the guy's head is on the bottom of the frame and the canvas runs up the right side of pic (if that makes sense?). Rotated 90 deg to the left.

Deliverance XXV

Great shots.

One of the lads were fighting and you got a few nice shots of him on your Flickr so I'll send him on the link. Unfortunately, he tapped out in the second round.

AnimalRights

#2 is def the best but it is too tight/cropped for me.

Also ta very much for the heads up on the LR Topaz type preset, got it last week and can now see myself using this lots...maybe too much.