Adaptive Sports for the Disabled

Backstory: I got accepted to be photographer for Access, a magazine published by the Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, which caters to the welfare, education and awareness of people with disabilities. It’s only a temporary position, but it gives me free reign to shoot various styles, from events to studio shots, and the point of this post — sports.

Sports photography has always been for the royalty. The most expensive telephoto primes and fast-acquiring, quick-shooting bodies are required. To get all that gear means you are backed by wealthy employers, limitless endowments or high-paying gigs in the Annie Leibovitz range. I don’t belong to any of these categories.

To shoot this water sporting event, customized for disabled individual, I had to do a little customization myself. I had never shot water skiing before, much less this modified version. Not that it’s much different; a boat pulls someone on a surf/ski board via a rope. It sounds straightforward, but there were unimaginable difficulties that didn’t surface till I put my eye to the viewfinder.

Firstly the speedboat rocked like a raging bull. Looking through a long zoom lens only made the vibrations worse. To round off the disaster, the skiier being towed was also bouncing violently on the waves. It was almost a “spray & pray” scenario, though I tried to refrain from that. But looking back at the images I got, I was somewhat disappointed with slight motion blur (or is it soft focus?) on some of the skiing shots. I had though 1/2000 or 1/2500 sec would be fast enough but apparently not.

If it’s not motion blur, then either my camera or len’s autofocus was out of whack. My telephoto lens had never let me down before and there was no reason to suspect the camera either. So I’m guessing user error on my part, failing to focus accurately on the person instead of the seawater that was splashing all over (especially at the front of the person). The next time I shoot this sport, I’ll make sure to have at least a 1/4000 shutter speed with perhaps more depth of field to make sure everything is sharp and crisp.

See selected photos from the day’s shooting:

[Show as slideshow]