Board sports differ from other individual sports for the way you photograph them: for racing, the action covers a lapse of time, and a good racing photo shows the zing, the dynamic and the movement in a frozen image.
But in board sports, and some athletic sports, there is a proper, unique time to press the shutter in order to document the action; Roland Barthes punctum here is a momentum, just a fraction of second you can’t miss if you want an image true to the sport. To catch the action, you have to understand what the athlet is doing, and learn to anticipate his movements.
Taking photos of breakdance is just the same as documenting action sports. As the very first time I was shooting a breaker, I was lucky enough to work with a very talented one: Cico of BC One.
With patience, he showed me his best movements, slowing down to make me better understand them, and we talked together to see which was the best angle and timing to shoot. When I placed the flashes and got ready for the shooting, I knew I couldn’t ask Cico to repeat the movements too many times, nor I could shoot lot of frames per second and pick the best ones.
You can see the results of the shooting here on the left and on Red Bull website.
