The Solheim Cup Ends..

The USA team managed to retain The Solhiem Cup this time, but only just. It was a fantastic week with massive crowds, sometimes 7 or 8 deep round the greens, and with all the chanting and singing it seemed more like a football match at times. Photography was fairly challenging at times with very dark conditions on Saturday evening meaning a jump to 1600 ISO for the last match, not to mention the 14+ hour days. I'm now in need of a rest as an overnight flight to Heathrow tomorrow should just finish me off :)

The Solheim Cup Starts

This week sees me just outside Chicago at Rich Harvest Farms Golf Club for the Solheim Cup, the biennial golf match between Europe and the USA. The 3 day event pits the 12 best female golfers from the each side against each other. The course has just been evacuated however as there is a tornado warning currently in operation. The competition itself starts on Friday and live scoring can be followed on the Ladies European Tour website.

CDWS Blue Magazine Front Cover.

For a photographer, getting a front cover shot is always a bit of a buzz. This one is especially so for me as it is my first "Underwater" cover. The shot is of World Champion freediver and record holder Sara Campbell. It was taken in January this year an the Giannis D wreck in Egypt as part of a video and photo shoot she was doing for the underwaterchannel.tv. Sara managed to break the 100m depth mark on just one breath on April 9th this year. We had a lot of fun shooting at the wreck as it was relatively shallow (18m) and with just the 3 of us, (Sara, Debbie from Blue Eye FX doing the video and myself doing the stills) it was a beautiful dive.

Even if the water is really clear, as it was on this dive, it is always best to get as close to the subject as possible when taking photos underwater. To this end I used my 15mm fisheye behind an eight inch dome port on a Canon 5D. The full frame sensor gives you a true 15mm, unlike some of the cropped sensor cameras which enabled me to shoot the entire wreck from fairly close on, hence keeping image quality as high as possible. To get realistic colours, I manually white balanced on the wreck at the depth I was shooting and used a Magic Filter in the rear gelatin filter holder on the 15mm to get better blue colour rendition.

For a few more shots of Sara, you can visit my website.

Welsh Win for Karen.

Congratulations to England's Karen Stupples, who won the S4/C Wales Ladies Championship of Europe by one stroke from Korea's Amy Yang.

As you can see from the photo, she was pretty happy with her first win in four years. We managed to get Harlech Castle in the back of the trophy shot just to give the photo a sense of place.

A quick 6 hour trip home tonight to catch up with paperwork, then pack the bags for a trip to Chicago on Sunday for the Europe Vs USA in the Solheim Cup where I am doing the official photography.

Wales for a Week

This weeks sees me in Wales for the S4/C Wales Ladies Championship of Europe at Royal St David's Golf Club in Harlech, Gwynedd. The course itself is a classic links course just yards from the sea. Sadly you cant see the sea from the course but with the 700 year old Harlech Castle standing imposingly over on the escarpment you don't really miss the sea. I am hoping to get some shots of the course, weather permitting and managed to take one photo at sunset of the 13th green and hole. It is always a challenge to shoot into the sun because of flare etc but this one turned out OK. I was lucky with the cloud formation as well as it adds some texture to what otherwise could have been a fairly empty space. I shot this with a canon 24-70 f2.8 L lens at 24mm ISO 250 as I was handholding the camera. The shot was also a challenge as the fairways are roped off to keep spectators off so finding an angle where the ropes and posts are hidden took a little while. am going to keep shooting in the evenings to try and get some shots of the Harlech Castle and the course at sunset as well.

Catriona Wins the British Open

The Ricoh Women's British Open ended with Scotland's Catriona Matthew taking home her first Major victory just 11 weeks after the birth of her second daughter and one week after narrowly escaping form a fire in her hotel whilst participating in the Evian Masters.

I chose the shot on the left as you can see the determination in her face as she sinks a birdie putt on the 13th hole. I used a 70-200 f2.8 IS L lens on a 1DsMkII .