Left field

from Photographers Blog:

The fight of their lives

By Kai Pfaffenbach

Steve Marcus, our Boxing expert in Las Vegas, is maybe the one and only photographer within the company who has shot more World Championship title bouts than I have throughout the last couple of years.

I shot “Iron” Mike Tyson in Copenhagen, South Africa’s “White Buffalo” Francois Botha on several comebacks, I got my picture taken with Lennox Lewis after a fight I photographed and I followed the untouchable Klitschko brothers on their way to dominate the heavyweight class as only “The Greatest of All Times” (Muhammad Ali) did before!

But it was an IBF cruiserweight re-match which fascinated me the most. Steve “USS” Cunningham challenged Yoan-Pablo Hernandez from Cuba to get his title-belt back. Cruiserweight is as fast as middle-weight but the punch power is almost as much as heavyweight.

From the first second those two men delivered an absolutely top-level fight with clean technique, accurate, fast hits and the ability to take those punches. It was in the fourth round when a combination and a straight right hand sent Cunningham on the deck twice within a minute.

Technology, Lendl and expectations at the Australian Open

By Greg Rusedski

The big Australian hope for the woman’s title Sam Stosur, the U.S. Open champion, went out in the first round which wasn’t a huge surprise. She said in all her press conferences before the event about how she wasn’t dealing with the pressure and home expectations. In my experience, even if a player is feeling that way they shouldn’t bring it up at a press conference as it could potentially give the opponent an extra belief. Sam will learn from this and hopefully get stronger for it.

On the men’s side, Australia’s big hope Bernard Tomic played well and is the real deal. He loves playing with the Australian pressure and expectation. Unfortunately for Tomic in the fourth round he came up against the great Roger Federer. It was another entertaining match from Tomic but Federer was just too good. Tomic is an exciting player to watch because of the variety in his game. He can hit any shot and mixes the pace of the ball all the time. He is a great thinker on the court and is a natural born winner. At only 19 years of age he should be in the top 10 very soon if he keeps working.

Federer has been sublime all week and there are no more worries about the back problem he suffered in Doha. His quarter-final match against Juan Martin Del Potro will be a repeat of the 2009 U.S. Open. It has all the makings for a classic match.

Former world number 1 Lleyton Hewitt, now world number 181, turned back the clock in the first week by making the second week at the Australian Open. His fighting spirit is as strong as ever, but after five surgeries in four years it will be nearly impossible for him to get back to the top. He should enjoy this magical moment at home. He set up a fourth round meeting with Novak Djokovic on Monday. Unfortunately for Hewitt, Djokovic had too much game and won reasonably comfortably. Djokovic has played great in the first week and is still my pick to win the title.

from Photographers Blog:

The Tebow phenom

By Rick Wilking

Do a Google search on this new celebrity and there are 299,000,000 results. Brad Pitt? No, he only has 187 million. I’m talking about the newest phenom in the world of sports – Tim Tebow.

Being a Denver-based photographer where Tebow plays starting quarterback for the Broncos has kept me in the vortex of the Tebow storm. Going back to his first start late last season and then training camp in August, we’ve been focusing on his young career. Would he start this year or would he not was the hot topic back in late summer. Kyle Orton was eventually chosen as starter but when the team went 1–4 Tebow got the nod and Orton was out. Then the fun really began.

Tebow was a superstar in college at the University of Florida (first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, won not one but two NCAA National Football Championships) but how would he do in the big leagues? He was a first round draft pick in the NFL meaning many had high hopes for him to succeed. But the NFL game is so much different than college there’s no guarantee a player will repeat. Scrambling around on the field can only go so far in the NFL before getting tackled repeatedly by much bigger and faster players will destroy you. Being a rookie in the league with a great pedigree means extra attention to start with but then add this element: religion. I don’t think a sports writer out there can remember any athlete starting most press conferences with “First and foremost I have to thank my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.”

Growing up the son of active Christian missionaries Tebow has always been devout, and very public about it. Now that he's on the biggest stage in American sports he’s not about to clam up. In fact he has said he uses the attention to spread his beliefs whenever he can.

Federer at his sublime best in Paris

By Greg Rusedski

The Paris Masters was going to determine who was going to be the last players to qualify for the ATP world finals in London. The last few places were up for grabs and all the players that were in pole position ended up qualifying. The top eight for the field ended up being Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer, David Ferrer, Tomas Berdych, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Mardy Fish.

The other story of the week concerned Djokovic and whether he would play after shoulder problems in Basel. If he didn’t play he would have missed his commitments for the master series events and it would have cost him over 1 million pounds in bonus pool money. He did play!

Could Murray continue his unbeaten run since the U.S. Open and win his fourth event in a row?

Also worth noting that Nadal pulled out the week before the event to concentrate on the ATP world finals and the Davis Cup final. With all the other big names playing it wasn’t a big loss. This was a smart thing for Nadal to do because he needs the rest.

In the quarter finals against Tsonga, Djokovic pulled out the night before with shoulder problems. This is starting to become an issue but hopefully he can have his shoulder fully fit for the ATP world finals in a weeks time.

After 18 straight wins following the U.S. Open Murray lost in the quarter-finals to Berdych, who played a really great game.

Shooting the Rugby World Cup

In the latest installment, South Africa-based photographer Mike Hutchings describes the gear he can’t live without and what makes shooting rugby different from his usual assignments.

Reuters RWC Photographers #4 from Tim Wimborne on Vimeo.

In the xxx third installment, Sydney-based photographer Tim Wimborne describes what is necessary to keep the file fresh throughout the tournament and to satisfy different client needs.

Reuters RWC Photographers #3 v2.0 from Tim Wimborne on Vimeo.

In the second of a series of multimedia pieces, Bucharest-based photographer Bogdan Cristel talks about the focus required to cover the Rugby World Cup.

from Photographers Blog:

Climbing Eden Park

By Bogdan Cristel

After 40 hours of flying Bucharest - Amsterdam - Beijing - Auckland, I arrived in New Zealand; my first time in the Southern Hemisphere.

The first nice surprise here was that both my check-in pieces of luggage arrived on the same flight (I expected it to take a week and to be on the safe side packed a toothbrush in my hand luggage).

After a day of adjustment, with serious jet-leg (New Zealand is 9 hours ahead of Romania), slowly the Rugby World Cup started for me.

The first big assignment was the RWC opening ceremony and the first match. Reuters had three photographers covering it – Jacky Naegelen, Nigel Marple and me. When Tim Wimborne, our photo editor, asked if I wanted to be in an elevated position for the opening ceremony, I said yes without any thought. I had no idea what it meant.

Organizers held a dress rehearsal two days before the opening ceremony giving photographers a chance to check shooting angles and identify highlights. For me it was different – I was one of four photographers shooting from the stadium roof.

We were all equipped with harnesses and safety cables to attach working gear. All our equipment, about 20kg (44 pounds), was carried to the roof in a box, secured with rope, to our shooting position lest it fall on any spectator below.

from Photographers Blog:

Swimming in a sea of pictures

Several weeks back I was told I would be having a serious case of the blues for a fortnight - processing pictures of the swimmers, divers and water polo players competing in the FINA World Championships in Shanghai. Pictures from the event would be edited by China chief photographer Petar Kujundzic and sent to me and my colleagues Karishma Singh and Allison Ching in Singapore to process and transmit to clients.

For two weeks, I would be looking at a sea of images where the main color was blue. So it made me nervous whenever I saw my least favorite color - green - appear on skin tones. It took constant communication with the on-site photographers and editor as well as the Picture Desk team here in Singapore, not to mention close scrutiny of the histogram in Photoshop, to ensure the athletes didn't look jaundiced or ill. In fact, correcting the color on pictures taken in the swimming pool in Shanghai was as challenging as it was in Beijing three years ago when I processed aquatics images at the Olympics.

Speaking of challenges, I wonder if processing swimming pictures and physical "hardship" go hand in hand. In Beijing I was at the Water Cube, cut off from my colleagues at the media center and having to make a daily trek up 115 steps to the top of the press tribune area. I worked on a 14-inch laptop with barely an inch of elbow room, often perspiring in the warm environs. Here in Singapore, I was banished to a corner affectionately called Siberia because it is cold, quiet and almost hidden from view from the Picture Desk team. The lighting was rather dark, too. Editing images was done on a 17-inch monitor, which still cannot compare to the 22-inch Macintosh screens that the sub-editors on the Picture Desk work on every day. But despite my complaints about the Water Cube, it was absolutely thrilling to watch the events unfold live before my eyes. Working on the FINA Championships pictures in a country removed from all the action lacks such excitement, but there still exists an adrenaline rush from subbing and sending them to the wire in the quickest time possible.

Beijing opened my eyes to all the possibilities of making images in a water-based environment. The beauty of water is that it creates almost other-worldly effects in a still image, making it look like a painting or sci-fi scene. It then became easier for me to identify and mark these pictures from Shanghai as top pictures.

from Photographers Blog:

Tour de France 2011 – A long way to Paris

This year's riders of the Tour de France covered 3430.5 km (2131.6 miles), divided into 21 stages, according to the Tour's official website.

What you may not know is that the Reuters pictures team covering 2011's most-watched sporting event managed to tally up some 10,000 km (6213 miles).

I was excited to cover the race but aware that despite careful planning, any big job can have its moments of near disaster. After meeting at the Reuters office in Paris with team leader (and Italy chief) photographer Stefano Rellandini and French photographer Pascal Rossignol we checked all our equipment, made sure our laptops were working, that our passwords were valid and that Mifi was setup. We picked up our local phones and configured wireless transmission devices from cameras. One thing's for sure -- the planning stage is essential on a big job like this, and a good team spirit never hurts either.

The next day we drove to Vendée in the east of France, where the race was due to start and met with our veteran bike drivers Jacques Clawey and Michel Vatel. This year's team consisted of three photographers. Photographers on bikes take two types of pictures during the race: postcard (landscape shots) and action. When you’re on the postcard bike the rules are clear: you can only take photos once the bike has stopped. Take a pic when the bike is moving, and you could be out. The ‘action’ bike’s rule? Don’t crash.

Tales from tennis’ fifth major

Greg Rusedski writes exclusively for Reuters thanks to Thomson Reuters’ sponsorship of the Lawn Tennis Association.

The Sony Ericsson Open tournament is considered the fifth major by most of the tennis fraternity. It became a week with many story lines:

- Could Andy Murray regain form? - Would Juan Martin del Potro continue his great comeback form? - Would there be a new American number 1? - Would Roger Federer be in the mix for his 2nd title this year? - Could Rafael Nadal win Miami for the first time? - And finally could Novak Djokovic continue his unbeaten season?

Murray was even worse than last week and lost to Alex Bogomolov Jr. in straight sets in his first match. This is now two weeks in a row losing to players outside the top 100. Following his defeat he parted company with his part time coach Alex Corretja. He said by Monte Carlo there would be a new coach appointed who has won a major or coached a player to a major. There has been lots of speculation from Lendl to Connors to Wilander, nobody knows. Also on April fool’s day Murray announced on twitter that his friend and doubles specialist Ross Hutchins would be his new coach. Sky Sports, BBC and the world press ran with the story and were not impressed by his Aprils fool’s joke because of the proximity to his parting of company with his coach. I believe he needs to stay away from these sorts of games and appoint a top coach or top psychologist to get back to his best. This is turning out to be a very difficult period in his career. It is only going to get more difficult with clay court season about to start. He needs to just concentrate on his tennis.

Juan Martin del Potro continued his great comeback form this week by defeating world number 4 Robin Soderling. It is great to see one of the best strikers of a tennis ball and former US Open Champion getting back in the mix. He will only continue to get better with Clay court season about to begin, having grown up on clay in Argentina. Unfortunately he lost a very tight match to Mardy Fish in the 4th round, but is getting better each week. This is great for men’s tennis because we need more players in the mix at the top with Djokovic and Nadal dominating.

From the American point of view with defending Champion Andy Roddick going out early, Mardy Fish would become the new American number 1 if he could get to the semi-finals. It would be a first for the American. Mardy Fish made it to the semi-finals and at 5-3 down in the first set to Djokovic he had 2 break points and should have broken. Djokovic looked tired for the first time in his incredible run at 5-3 up, but managed to hold the game to win the set 6-3 and then mentally he ignored his fatigue from there to win 6-1 and win his 23rd match in a row this year to make the finals. Fish had a great week and became the American number 1 for the first time in his career which is a great accomplishment. It is great to see a player attacking and coming to the net. A style I miss seeing on tour.

from Photographers Blog:

Shooting the perfect dunk

Kids playing streetball or millionaires performing in a highly choreographed show? Sport or showbiz? Welcome to the NBA All-Star weekend slam dunk contest.

One of the most satisfying moves to watch in basketball, and one of the easiest to photograph is the dunk, as the player soars above the rim and jams the ball through the net.

The contest pits some of the most athletic NBA players against each other as they compete to execute the flashiest, most difficult, or original dunk.

We’re only given one floor photo position next to the basket, so the challenge is to capture the winning dunk from the best angle. Previous winners have leapt over other players, twisted 360 degrees in the air, extended the height of the basket with a forklift, and jumped over tables.

I mounted a camera with a 400mm lens in the catwalk in the roof of the arena, which I triggered with a Pocket Wizard radio transmitter, to give an overview of all the dunks. I positioned another remote camera on the floor to the side of the court with a wide-angle lens. I was sitting on the baseline to the right of the basket, Gary Hershorn was up in the stands with a 400mm lens and Danny Moloshok was shooting the action from the far end of the court.