Okay, this is my first blog entry on Pierre Mangez Photography. I thought I would do that to show you what I enjoy doing, what I shoot, how I shoot, how I edit my pictures etc, etc…And to be honest, hopefully bring more people on my website therefore more clients for 2017 🙂
I’ll blog in english. Isn’t it the smartest thing to do? I could write in french, but wouldn’t make much sense as I live in Stockholm, Sweden. I could write in swedish, it would make sense but that would limit my writing…So english it will be, for now at least!
All right, yesterday was about “nordic ice skating” with a group from SSSK. Some of you might wonder what is nordic ice skating? I could explain what is it with many words but I guess you’ll get the idea by looking at the pictures.
So yeah, I usually only bring my phone to take pictures, a Motorola G3 that takes decent pictures if the light is correct outside, as the list of gears to bring for skating is already big and heavy. Last weekend while chilling on Instagram, I saw of couple of very nice images from other guys on ice skating trips…Their pictures could have been shot with smartphones but I doubt that, so I thought I would try bringing my proper Nikon d700 for the next ice skating trip that was yesterday Tuesday.
So here I am, on the ice with 7 other early birds, ready to skate and shoot at the same time. First picture was easy, the sun was just coming above the tree line across the lake. The colors came to life, the ice turned blueish and so I took an easy group shot against that warm rising sun.
After we agreed on where to skate, basically around the lake Norrviken, the group started ice skating, slowly at first but picking up the speed pretty fast – speed 3 on a scale to 5 where 5 ice f*’***ing fast – and things got shaky for me… It didn’t take long for me to realize that having my big DSLR wrapped around my neck wasn’t gonna be easy, it kinda disturbed my balance and balance is everything when skating…And not to help anything I was skating with new boots and new skates which wasn’t a smart move.
Adjusting the camera settings when you know your camera isn’t a big deal. I wanted a kinda blurry image from the group skating along the lake shore. Going manual is the best, even though on the above picture I was on Aperture mode at 1/20th of a second and f/14…that allowed me to get the movement of the skaters as well as my own forward movement. I was pretty happy with the result after editing that image. Ho yeah, I was holding the camera tight against my chest to avoid camera blur. Same same happened on the following picture. With a bit of lens flare due to the sun on the right.
Now I’m getting a bit confused…what do I want to write about here? How to take pictures on ice…What is Nordic Ice Skating…My thoughts while taking the shots…? Well I guess I choose myself what I want to write about, so I’ll just go with the flow.
An ice skating trip isn’t all about just skating on ice, it’s a lot – at least for me – about being outdoor with sweet and knowledgeable people. Every time I’ve been on trips with them, there is always one guy who knows shitload about the ice, the nature, historical facts like who built but didn’t live in that castle by the lac etc etc…When we skate we skate, not much talking, but then we have short brakes. Those pauses are perfect for me to cool down, relax my bum muscles that aren’t use to so much motion, and also yesterday to shot some pictures, playing around a bit with poles, colors, light..
If you guys read this far in the blog I guess you either liked the pictures you saw or want to learn more about skating or want to learn more about how to shoot good pictures on ice…right?!
Well, let’s continue then. Nothing is worse than unwanted blurry pictures, or…? Sure in some case a blurry image works and can vehicle a feeling or atmosphere in a better way than a non blurry image. But what I wanted to come home with was sharp images of both blurry skaters and non blurry ones. My ISO stayed quite low at 250 through out the day. So all I had to do was fooling around with the shutter speed and aperture.
On the following shot, the idea was to come as close to those 2 very talented ice skaters – Erik and Mats – but still get a lot of background / surroundings / frozen lake. So I went all wide – and wild – at 18mm ( I later cropped the image on Lightroom) and shot a couple of shots to make sure to get their legs right. I think that shot as it all right? It has movement thanks to Erik and Mats skating fast and well. It’s pretty damn cool because against the rising sun. It’s blurry where is should be (the frozen lake) and sharp where it should be (again Erik and Mats)
All the above images where taken on the first lake, Norrviken. After an hour skating on it we moved on to the next lake, continuing our journey to Stockholm.
I thought it was a bit funny to see a bunch of guys dressed in a really outdoorsy kinda way with skates and long poles, even helmets for some of them, walking through a suburb of Stockholm, blocking the traffic to cross main roads. A bit…surreal! (Well, it’s actually quite common in Stockholm to see ice skaters or XC skiers using public transports)
And the we crossed a park and a bridge and bridges call for that kind of following pictures with the lens wide open (not that much here actually, only f/4,5)
And after that nice walk which felt almost like spring we went down on the lake.
Above picture was taken when Lars talked about that quite big house by the lake Edsviken – which is technically not a lake but a bay (“bay” is “vik” in swedish) – that was built by “Karamel Kungen” if I remember correctly. That house has a pontoon/dock with a built-in sauna which has a semi-submarine window. I didn’t take any picture of the actual house or dock but caught Lars while talking about it. Neither I have much to say about the actual picture, except that I caught Mats blowing is nose.
All right, that’s it for my first blog post ever. I was very happy to give you tiny tips and show you how awesome is nordic ice skating through my pictures!
If you would like to document your ice skating day with your friends or family with pictures, drop me an email. That can be a great idea for a birthday, a stag party and whatnot…And skating isn’t the only outdoor activity I can shoot for you, it can be running, sailing, paddling, chilling in a park etc.
See you!
Pierre.
Other pictures can be found on my website www.pierremangezphotography.com
