In 2006, I managed to become an official AIHL photographer, taking lots of photos during many of the games in Sydney, for the Sydney Bears, and the Western Sydney Ice Dogs. The games were exciting, especially since I was often camped out between the teams playing, right on the boards, which gave me unprecedented views of the game, and access to the players. I spent long periods looking down the viewfinder of my trusty Nikon D70s, and 80-200 f/2.8 lens.
I learnt a lot about sports photography, and especially the part where the photo shoot isn’t over when I pack the camera away. I eventually worked out an efficient workflow which I could follow, so that my photos would be post-processed consistently, and get out to the right people at the right times. The hard part wasn’t taking the photos, it was spending the long night afterwards post-processing some 700+ photos, eventually coming away with about 20 to 30 good ones.
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August 4th, 2008 | Category: General News | Comments Off
Yes!
Finally, I decided to “upgrade” this site once more, as it’s needed an upgrade – as you’ll see below :)
I upgraded my website in 2006 to run the WordPress CMS system. At the time, I selected a theme which was based on the typical magazine styles – a big flashy headline, followed by a few less important headlines. All the other topics were “buried” within the guts of the site.
I was initially quite excited by the upgrade to WordPress, and the new theme, but soon discovered that the theme didn’t really suit the site I wanted mine to become. I ended up not writing any topics – though a lot has happened in the meantime, which I’ll catch up on in other posts soon.
So, what prompted my change of heart, and subsequent upgrade?
One word – iPod
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August 4th, 2008 | Tags: upgrades | Category: Site Information | Comments Off
The 2007 Jerilderie LSF tournament will be an event I will not forget for a long time to come, for lots of reasons, one being that my TD Icon “died” during its first flight of the competition. That failure really capped off a very traumatic few weeks for me, actually.
I went into the Jerilderie tournament full of anticipation, and expecting to do quite well, but in the end would rather have not turned up. The only consolation was that I managed to add nearly 2000k’s to my new Subaru Forester XT, and that I finally managed to trim my F3B Icon to near perfection.
But the lasting memory will always be of watching my 6 month old TD Icon literally blow itself apart at the top of the launch on my very first flight in the event. I’d never seen one of these big F3J class sailplanes explode on launch, and (from a disjointed observer’s perspective) mine was quite spectacular to watch, but from a personal perspective, I was shattered, distraught, quite upset, and never really recovered afterwards. I’d lost my beloved Icon, the one plane I’d spent nearly $5k on, and it ended its flying life in an orgy of carbon fibre, balsa, fibreglass, and kevlar.
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August 10th, 2007 | Category: Gliding Events | Comments Off
I attended the Hunter Valley Championships on the weekend, competing in the Open Class Thermal Glider division, and flew some great flights with my trusty Icon. So much so that I ended up flying into second place, which was a huge surprise!
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March 6th, 2007 | Category: Gliding Events | Comments Off
In 2007, I attended the Millennium Cup 2M Glider competition being held at IMAC, and came third, which was a bit of a surprise. It was my first trophy win since I started flying in this competition last year. Given the conditions on the day (strong breezes, some lift bands, passing showers, no thermal activity as such), it was very tough flying, especially since I had no ballast in my First.
My flying strategy on the day was aggressive launches, point her into the breeze, and fly for maximum flight times. Landings were a bonus, but not really required, as just about everyone were landing out. I never considered circling the glider, because it was suicide to do so, but I was slide it from side to side across the breeze.
The strategy seemed to work.
March 5th, 2007 | Category: Gliding Events | Comments Off
