The world’s easiest to access roda!
For the past couple of years, I’ve been the main photographer HiRO sensei, and she teaches the Brazilian martial art known as capoeira. The Japanese name for the event is 世界一敷居の低いホーダ or ‘The world’s easiest to access Roda’. The capoeira roda is where practitioners of the sport come together and test their skills with one another, sing, play music and come together as a community.
The atmosphere is generally full of energy and the newer people are a bit nervous but it’s great to see them coming out to try something new. Hiro has done a great job of welcoming people of all skill levels and made it a safe place for them to show off what they’ve learned so far and get a sense of what things are really like outside of their class where they learn the basics.
Now, let’s talk photos. Generally, when I go into taking the photos for this event I’m personally interested in capturing one of two things, the motion in the movement, meaning I don’t tend to take high shutter speed images to ‘freeze the motion’ or the emotional expression on people’s faces while they are playing or spectating.
For me those are the main things from my artistic eye, that I’m looking for. Now with the slower shutter speed and fast movement it can be tricky and burst mode can be helpful but the framing is also something that plays a big part in drawing people into the image. I think most people who have seen my work knows I like to take tight pictures. I don’t know if I’d say that’s my ‘style’ or not but it is what I like to see in my own work.
Another special thing about this event was that this was the first event where I got to use the Nikon Z8 for the first time. It’s not my first mirrorless camera, that honor would go to my Fuji Xpro3 but it is my first time using a Nikon Mirrorless system. For the previous events I’d been using the Nikon D750 or the D810. The 810 was good for portraiture if I got someone alone or wanted to get detail shots of the musical instruments but it couldn’t cut it with the highspeed action and its slow burst mode. In all honesty I knew that going in since it’s really a studio camera and was built for slower paced work. The D750 on the other hand worked well. The burst mode was good and my favorite 70-200mm lens always did the trick even in the smaller working space. The main reason I wanted the Z8 though was the autofocus. Sometimes with the athletes moving in so many different planes of focus so quickly, the autofocus was hard for me to keep up with. I can always make a case to ‘get good’ but predicting when and where two people are going to move or throw a kick, duck, block, slide, jump, roll or do acrobatics was a bit too tough for me. Especially since I don’t practice this martial art myself lol.
I can say that the Z8 held its own, did what I wanted and hit focus even with the slower shutter speeds. I’m looking forward to getting better with the camera and making even better images this year. Thanks to pascal.vo a French wedding photographer I met at the event who is also a high level capoeira teacher I have a bit clearer idea on some things I need to do to improve the business aspect of my photography journey. For years people that know me say they love my pictures and that I’m good at it. To me all of this is just what I see and my own personal taste of photography. I guess I need to find better and more ways to share my vision so that others can see what I see and experience life through my lens.
Thanks for checking out the blog post, reading this far and checking out the images. If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment. If you have and inquiries on bookings head to the contact section and shoot me a message. Until the next one. Have a good one!
