A Weekend Photographing Regional Figure Skaters in Kelowna

We spent the weekend photographing Figure Skaters in Kelowna, we are the craziest photographers. 🙂

Fiona and I decided we were going to take on the Kelowna Figure Skating Regionals. It was a ton of fun, and there were a lot of very talented skaters. Spending the weekend photographing Kelowna Figure Skaters close up might sound crazy, but I certainly had a new appreciation for them in the end!

It was also one heck of a project. We had a four person team, including Bobby Hook and Calvin Draht, to help us with these. Two arenas, 390 skaters, and in the end 45,000 shots. Our gear was up to the challenge as well.

Two Canon 5d Mark 3’s, 70-200 f/2.8L lenses, and a lot of memory cards. We had Calvin check on us every fifteen minutes (2 skaters) for the duration of the 14hr days. While we were taking the photos, Bobby was uploading them to the online galleries. It was a monstrous project for sure, and the largest we’ve ever taken on.

In addition to the uploading, we would take about 200 photos per skater. The images needed to sorted out, organized, named, and they needed to have their separate galleries. In the 30 seconds between skaters, we would go through our files on the back of the camera and do the best we could to make sure it was all well sorted and accessible.

Here’s Fiona photographing a skater. It was really tough, because the camera, heavy jackets, and lens weighed in at just under 7 pounds. You had to keep the camera up to your face at all times for both landscape and portrait shots. Sometimes your arms and shoulders felt like they burned with the fire of a thousand suns, but we kept going!

This was my home for the weekend. Note the warming pads (Thanks Fiona!) and Red Bull/Water. Calvin kept it coming! Not shown: On the left was the skater’s schedule, extra batteries, and extra memory card.

Note the great form. Arms back, head forward, straight spine. That’s the only way you’re going to get through the weekend.

Fiona was getting some amazing, mind blowing shots too. We had the gear, and the talent.

Would I do it again? Only time will tell. On this monday, I feel pretty spent. To add to it, on sunday afternoon when I got home, I realized I had left my computer power adapter in the hotel! Just call me Mr. Butterfingers!

For a bit of fun, check out our photographer workout! We used it to keep ourselves limber over the four days. You can view it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfoVyEBcPXU&feature=youtu.be here.