Krav Maga Summer Camp 2015

An ongoing hamstring injury meant that I couldn't participate in this Summer's Krav Maga weekender, hosted by Krav Maga Nottingham.  So, the next best thing was to take the camera along and shoot some photos!  Whilst I had shot a training session back in May (blog post here), most of that had been outdoors rather than inside, so this was a bit different.

The venue has florescent strip lighting, skylights and a loading bay door (it's an adapted industrial unit) that was sometimes open, sometimes closed.  Combined with patchy cloud conditions outside, this meant that the light changed a lot.  And, some of the walls have murals on them, whilst one side is painted bright white.  Needless to say, the shots against the murals came out miles better.

The weekend consisted of a series of sessions, covering subjects such as multiple attackers, gun threats, and surviving active shooter scenarios.  It finished with a mock hostage survival exercise on Sunday evening, putting into practice the subjects covered over the weekend - a bit of stress to finish the weekend.

So, lots of opportunities for interesting photos, albeit in a fairly challenging environment.  Apart from the usual issues around balancing ISO, aperture and shutter speeds in low light conditions, the action was fairly chaotic with participants training in pairs or larger groups.  If nothing else, I had to make sure I kept aware enough of what was going on around me, so that no-one clattered into me (that was as close as I got to practising my Krav Maga skills...).

135mm f2.0 @ ISO3200, f2.8, 1/400s 

135mm f2.0 @ ISO200, f4.0, 1/800s

Apart from the weight, I think that the Canon EF 70-200mm f2.8 lens would have been ideal for this shoot, but, hey, I haven't yet found the funds to buy one of those...  However, the longest lens that I do own (a Canon 135mm f2.0) was the ideal prime lens to use given the size of the venue.  It meant that I could shoot people from far enough away to not be too intrusive, but still get tight enough shots.

And that's really important to me.  I have been to a few seminars where a photographer has been in the way and causing a distraction, sometimes even getting in between the participants and the instructor (that really annoys me!).  I inevitably lost some shots by not being more bullish, but I'm comfortable with that.  People attend these events to learn something and have fun.  Having some decent photos as a record of the day is nice, but it's not the reason for being there.

Overall, I think it was a success.  I got some decent shots, I learnt more about shooting action in (changing) low light conditions, and people seem happy with the results.