Andre Magarao
December 2024 - Carlos in Ceara
About the Image(s)
Title: Carlos in Ceara
This was shot in Ceara, brazil. The athlete is Carlos Mario, a professional kiteboarder from Brazil. Kiteboarding is a wind sport that works pretty much like wakeboarding, but instead of being pulled by a boat, you are pulled by a kite.
This was shot on a Canon 1dx and a 70-200 f2.8 lens at 135mm. ISO 800. 1/1500 f2.8. I have 2 flashes. One to light up the rider and another one behind to light up the spray while I highly under expose the sky. The idea is to make it look like the rider is riding at night, but it's not that dark, yet the rider needs to see where he is going, and this place has no artificial source of light.
This is a special shot for me, first, because Carlos and I are very good friends and have known each other for a long time, and also because a few weeks later, there was a big storm at this place. The lagoon over-flooded, and all those coconut trees in the background were taken by the water.
7 comments posted
Andre, WOW, WOW, WOW !! It takes a great amount of planing, and a lot of try and error attempts to achieve an image like this. My guess is that this is not an image that just happened. For this reason I believe it would not qualify for Photojournalims, but yes for any other category. Congratulations. Posted: 12/05/2024 15:02:02
Agree with Isaac! I'd love to be a fly on the proverbial wall and see how you accomplished this photo with the lighting. Fantastic photo! Posted: 12/07/2024 14:16:48
Thank you so much, Isaac and Don! I love to shoot kiteboarding and I wish I could do it year around! It does take quite a bit of planning and it's a lot of gear to take around but when everything aligns it's really awesome. To be honest it doesn't even take that many tries but it's also a bit tricky for the rider because they need to be spot on with where they do their trick. Posted: 12/07/2024 19:33:20
Hi Andrea. My first impression of your photo was FANTASTIC, something very different. But the more I looked into it my opinions are the same as Isaac, "for this reason I believe it would not qualify for Photojournalism, but yes for any other category".
The problem I see is the sea, it appears that this photo is either a composite or you have used the adjustment brush to blur the sea. I have seen many photos Seascapes that use the composite to give the sea a creamy look, two photos are taken one in slow shutter speed and another as you have done 1/1500 the two photos are then combined where the sea meets the water spray. Your November photo was a very realistic sea it had waves. This photo would do marvelously in Open or Creative categories, presuming you want to enter competition photography. PJ can sometimes be boring but the key word is Journalism, it's meant to tell as best possible what happened. My photo this month "caught behind", is probably boring, but this happened this way exactly. Posted: 12/15/2024 23:36:43
The problem I see is the sea, it appears that this photo is either a composite or you have used the adjustment brush to blur the sea. I have seen many photos Seascapes that use the composite to give the sea a creamy look, two photos are taken one in slow shutter speed and another as you have done 1/1500 the two photos are then combined where the sea meets the water spray. Your November photo was a very realistic sea it had waves. This photo would do marvelously in Open or Creative categories, presuming you want to enter competition photography. PJ can sometimes be boring but the key word is Journalism, it's meant to tell as best possible what happened. My photo this month "caught behind", is probably boring, but this happened this way exactly. Posted: 12/15/2024 23:36:43
Hey Ronald. thanks for your interesting take.
I can assure you this is not a composite. I think there are a lot of things you are not taking into consideration when you think it's a composite. This was shot with a waterhousing so the water is less than half an inch from the lens which at 2.8 it creates a lot of bokeh. Also 1/1250 is not that fast if you consider that the wind is blowing around 25 miles an hour. The wind moves the water quite fast at those speeds. I'm also swimming so it's not like I can be super steady. Proportionally speaking a subject half an inch from a 135mm lens will move quite a lot if you consider the water moving and I am also moving and that creates the creamy look. There is also the fact that doing a composite with shots from a shaky waterhousing while I'm swimming is really really really hard. I'm not quite sure my photoshop skills would even be that good. hahaha
As far as photo contest goes, I've placed well in many contests with these type of shots. I do put it on "advertising" category every time it's possible because I'm getting paid by the brands that make the kites, boards and/or clothes. So from that perspective it's not photojournalism. But I've also got plenty of covers and articles on magazines with these type of shots. So I guess it could go both ways. These days I actually see very few photo contests that have a super restrictive photojournalism category.
I don't think photojournalism needs to be boring necessarily. Photography is just capturing light. So yeah, if the available light is boring, the photos from said event will probably be boring. But specially nowadays event organizers are taking advantage of really good lighting technology and making events have great light. I think all the formula 1 races that are raced around sunset are a good example. If you follow basketball the lighting scheme at the Brooklyn Nets stadium is quite unique too. I see some cool shots from there. I also feel like with phone cameras being so good the pressure on photographers to do things differently is only getting stronger.
Photojournalism is a tricky box to put things in. I think we could make an argument that one of the most famous photojournalism shots ever is the shot of the afghan girl from Steve McCurry. Not that I have a lot money but I would bet a lot of money that he placed the girl at that spot because the light was amazing. Posted: 12/16/2024 16:08:58
I can assure you this is not a composite. I think there are a lot of things you are not taking into consideration when you think it's a composite. This was shot with a waterhousing so the water is less than half an inch from the lens which at 2.8 it creates a lot of bokeh. Also 1/1250 is not that fast if you consider that the wind is blowing around 25 miles an hour. The wind moves the water quite fast at those speeds. I'm also swimming so it's not like I can be super steady. Proportionally speaking a subject half an inch from a 135mm lens will move quite a lot if you consider the water moving and I am also moving and that creates the creamy look. There is also the fact that doing a composite with shots from a shaky waterhousing while I'm swimming is really really really hard. I'm not quite sure my photoshop skills would even be that good. hahaha
As far as photo contest goes, I've placed well in many contests with these type of shots. I do put it on "advertising" category every time it's possible because I'm getting paid by the brands that make the kites, boards and/or clothes. So from that perspective it's not photojournalism. But I've also got plenty of covers and articles on magazines with these type of shots. So I guess it could go both ways. These days I actually see very few photo contests that have a super restrictive photojournalism category.
I don't think photojournalism needs to be boring necessarily. Photography is just capturing light. So yeah, if the available light is boring, the photos from said event will probably be boring. But specially nowadays event organizers are taking advantage of really good lighting technology and making events have great light. I think all the formula 1 races that are raced around sunset are a good example. If you follow basketball the lighting scheme at the Brooklyn Nets stadium is quite unique too. I see some cool shots from there. I also feel like with phone cameras being so good the pressure on photographers to do things differently is only getting stronger.
Photojournalism is a tricky box to put things in. I think we could make an argument that one of the most famous photojournalism shots ever is the shot of the afghan girl from Steve McCurry. Not that I have a lot money but I would bet a lot of money that he placed the girl at that spot because the light was amazing. Posted: 12/16/2024 16:08:58
Thanks Andre for your reply. You have introduced a whole new criteria not familiar to me in your explanation. I can only say keep doing what you are doing and if someone pays you money that's even better. The most happiest and fulfilled people in life are those that get paid for what they love doing best, it's not a job to them. Your capacity of just being able to get into the water creates a new perspective that probably is new to kite surfing/racing. I remember the closeup photos and video made during the 1980's 1990's of guys surfing the big waves of Hawaii. The photogs, people often did not realise were on the same wave without a board, they had to time their exit perfectly or else they would join the list of the many wartime photographers killed doing the job. Keep up the good work don't even worry about competitive photography. A pro photog gave us a talk about his field of photography, photographing big events and high-profile people. He took photos of Bill Clinton in Australia, he said never entered 1 photo into any competition anywhere, he used the client's reaction to his work and if they came back for more that's all that matters.
My greatest photo type was submitted by our very own Isaac Vaisman I think his first submission to this group from a boxing match he attended in Las Vegas, others have taken similar but Isaacs is second to none.
PS If Isaac reads this entry perhaps, he could point us in the year and month he submitted this photo. Posted: 12/16/2024 22:11:24
My greatest photo type was submitted by our very own Isaac Vaisman I think his first submission to this group from a boxing match he attended in Las Vegas, others have taken similar but Isaacs is second to none.
PS If Isaac reads this entry perhaps, he could point us in the year and month he submitted this photo. Posted: 12/16/2024 22:11:24
Hey Ronald, I'm happy to help. Waterhousings have evolved a lot since the 80/90s. nowadays you can get carbon custom made ones. So they are pretty light and float quite well. I'm a pretty light dude and I can almost lean on my housing to float. It's still not the most pleasant thing to swim with but I'm sure it's a lot easier than it used to be.
Photo contests have opened a few doors for me. Every now and then I get a new client because he or she saw my work because of a photo contest.
I've never shot fighting, but I grew up in Brazil, in Rio, where MMA is quite big. I regret not shooting at the MMA Gym close to where I used to live. I'm sure some famous guys came out of there. Posted: 12/16/2024 23:32:59
Photo contests have opened a few doors for me. Every now and then I get a new client because he or she saw my work because of a photo contest.
I've never shot fighting, but I grew up in Brazil, in Rio, where MMA is quite big. I regret not shooting at the MMA Gym close to where I used to live. I'm sure some famous guys came out of there. Posted: 12/16/2024 23:32:59