Photography Assignment 2

We finally got around to chatting about our second photography assignment in class. The brief for this was "Power, Patriotism & Wealth". I skipped the wealth part, and for power I used a couple of the photos from the karate competition down in NSW:

For patriotism I got together some Bavarian icons - my brother's Schariwai that I made my boyfriend wear on his Lederhosen and some beer steins we bought in Munich, all bearing the Bavarian crest:

AKF NSW Open 2011

Last weekend we participated in the AKF NSW Open in Sydney. My photos (and some that Ton took whilst I was in the ring) are up at the dojo website now.

I had the dubious honour of having to fight the World Karate Champion. Here is some footage of her winning said World Championship last year:

A scary idea, but it was a fun fight and definitely a good experience.

Karate Photos

Our dojo participated in a Queensland competition a couple of weeks ago. My photos are now up on the dojo website.

I was very relieved

to find out today that both of the girls from Mitani Sensei's Dojo have won Japanese and international karate competitions, and have both been training for 10 years. This makes me feel a lot better about getting beaten by a 14yo girl..
They both did some kata for us tonight as well, and it was very impressive! We definitely all have a gold standard to reach for now.

Getting school by a teenager, again

This is a special week for our Dojo as we have are hosting Mitani Kazuya Sensei of Seitokukai, his wife and two of his students this week. We had our first training session with them today and did mostly sparring. At this juncture I should point out that the two students are diminutive 14-year old girls. The one I sparred is a good head shorter than I am, but she is fast as lighting. I only managed to score on her once; I lost the match 1-3. It was very interesting to watch them spar each other, they have a slightly different style of sparring to what most of the members of our Dojo do. They're very light on their feet, don't balk much, and are in and out in a flash. I hope to spar the other student on Thursday to see if I have learnt anything from my observations.

Bad lighting = so much post-production!

Anyone with a semi-decent DSLR surely knows the 'joy' of somehow being anointed 'official photographer' by a family member or friend, even if one is a rank amateur, who sometimes, somehow, manages to put out some decent photographs. Our sensei recently asked us to "bring the camera along" to training to take some snap shots (possibly for the website??), despite the fact that the lighting is terrible in the dojo (particularly at night when training is on) and we have no external lights, just a detachable flash.
Two of the shots turned out ok, but I had to do an enormous amount of post-production on both of them to get them to this standard. I REALLY can't wait until I get my new 50mm (1.4f) lens, which will allow so much more light into the camera and hopefully solve this horrendous noise problem. (Lucky for you, the images are rather small, so many of the imperfections are hidden!) Without further ado:

Empty Hand - The Movie

One of the funniest 30 Rock moments for me was Lutz doing karate and getting absolutely belted. Sadly I couldn't find this video on youtube, but I think it's in the second or third season.
For a much better representation of karate, I am very excited about this movie. The trailer looks great, and every time I watch it, I want to put on my gi and head down to the dojo for a bit of kumite (sparring). This is fairly close to the type of kumite that we practice, no headgear though. Enjoy!

Sparring Comp - Edit

On Saturday we had a little sparring competition at our Dojo, in which I participated and Ton took some photos:
(Also, since a few of you seem to have difficulty recognising me, I'm wearing the white headband)