Incorporating Motion Blur in Studio Portraits
Melbourne Sports Photography's studio portraits are proving to be popular, and we've been working on incorporating motion blur into our studio work. This is done with a combination of continuous lights, colour gels, and strobes. The effect is achieved by the athlete moving across the frame, and the action 'frozen' by the strobe firing at the end of the exposure. (If you are a photographer you'll know what that all means. If not, it's a clever way of producing coloured motion blur in your photo).
We like the way the motion blur simulates and captures the action in sports.
We also enjoy producing more traditional sports portraits with a twist. This image is created using a filter which fits over the lens to produce the gold streaks.
If you are interested in discussing studio sports portraits for your club, team, or individual athlete, please get in touch. Details are on the Contact page here on the Melbourne Sports Photography website.
Creating Unique Sports Portraits
It's an exciting time at Melbourne Sports Photography as we move into a new office / studio space. The dual purpose space will enable us to expand the amount of creative studio work we do, while also having office space for the team to use.
Thanks to Angus who was the first visitor for a creative sports portraits session.
Some of his images are here.
If you are interested in sports portraits, head over to the contact page here on the Melbourne Sports Photography website and get in touch.
Towers4Change Stair Climb Event
The Melbourne Sports Photography team enjoyed working with Steve and the team for the recent Towers4Change stair climb event. In a fascinating event, runners choose to run up one, two, three or all four towers at Westside Place in downtown Melbourne.
The speed the elite runners went up each tower was amazing, with the highest climb being the 82 floors of Tower 1.
For this event, the Melbourne Sports Photography team had a photographer based at the start line, another photographer mid stair well (lucky Phil!), and a third on the roof of each tower.
Thanks to the organisers and runners for making the Melbourne Sports Photography team feel very welcome.
If you are interested in the idea of stair climbing events, there is another one coming up in May 2025 where athletes will tackle the Rialto Tower. An online search should take you to the entry page. Melbourne Sports Photography will be on hand for that event as well - and hope to see you there.
Kicking Off the Basketball Season
The start of the basketball season has been a busy and fun time for the Melbourne Sports Photography team. We have been shooting player portraits, covering pre season and early season games, doing media days, and doing creative basketball themed content. They have been a lot of fun, and we are looking forward to seeing that content fuelling the clubs social media activity for the season ahead. (And that's all with Big V Championship Division and NBL1 still yet to start.)
Media day shoots are becoming increasingly popular as a way to generate a broad range of content in a short period of time. We typically shoot these on a white background, so that it can be combined with different backgrounds and text.
Our more creative content needs a slightly longer time frame as we work with creative lighting techniques and take multiple shots to get the exact one we are looking for. Again these shoots are a lot of fun.
And of course, game day action continues to be very popular with players and specatators.
With the Big V Championships division starting this week, and NBL1 beginning the week after - we are looking forward to a lot of great basketball this winter. Contact the Melbourne Sports Photography team if we can help with your winter sport image needs.
Hanging Rock Cycling Race 2025
For the third year in a row, Melbourne Sports Photography were delighted to be involved in photographing an event hosted by the Hawthorn Cycling Club. The Hanging Rock Handicap is a women's cycling road race held each February, and as the name implies it is a handicapped event with riders going in groups of similar ability.
While the last 2 years delivered fantastic summer weather for the event, the 2025 version was cold, windy and had a light amount of rain. Very challenging conditions for the cyclists.
Each year, as well as great racing, there has been a terrific camaraderie among the riders. This was perhaps more than ever this year as everyone battled against tough conditions.
First and second place this year were taken by 2 riders and training partners from the St Kilda Cycling Club. They put a fairly large gap on the field and were able to maintain their led. This was quite a notable achievement with the winner riding a considerable part of the race on her own.
Thanks to the Hawthorn Cycling Club for having Melbourne Sports Photography attend again this year. If you would like to see the full gallery of 400+ images from this event, head to the Hawthorn Cycling Club Facebook page.