Taekwondo Grading

Very proud of how everyone performed at the grading.

Xander successfully graded for his second dan with United Taekwondo

And here is a photo of a happy group of sweaty people.

...and sometimes you cannot get it right...

The boys had a sick day yesterday... and I was not sure if I was well or not... so I used it as an excuse to take a couple of photos at training instead of doing any real work.

So I wander in with three quarters of a metric tonne of gear (two flashes, a couple of flash stands - even an umbrella) and set up to take some photos of one of the black belts while he trains for his second dan grading....

Yeah...

did not work so well.

The question now is... after such and incredibly spectacular failure... will I be brave enough to ask people if I can do it again?

My hands

Couple of photos from this week.
One - playing with a couple of flashes and a punching bag (and Xander - whose timing was impeccable on these shots!) 

Some of the outtakes from the bag punching shots will never see the light of day.... lets just say that skin is not meant to be seen at highspeed under impact.


Photogeeking: punching the bag.  A flash well behind the bag as a rim light (also gets my face), another at the bottom of the back pointing up where my arm will hit....  then I dipped my hand in some flour to get the dust.

Second one - flash on the table raking across my hands to get all sorts of texture, and a much less powerful one above spotlighting down on it...

Karate Grading

The boys and I did a Karate (Zen Do Kai) grading over the weekend... all very fun.
We are now all extremely lethal blue belts (which for some reason comes before green in this style...) - so watch out, we are all likely to accidentally break you in half while trying to shake your hand or something!

Here is a photo of the two boys in full flght.
There are also photos of me, but I just look like a grey haired old man who should be watching from the sidelines rather than participating!