Saturday of Surprises

After finishing editing images at 3am on Saturday morning, I was thinking about a peaceful day ahead with a good lay-in. I was all shattered when waking up at 9ish in the morning - and only managed to edit some more photos (about 150 or so) and return the rental car.

With the back still not good enough - I was not able to make it to the football game in Worcester, as I am not able to carry anything on my back yet due to the injury. Walking and sitting down are getting close to normal, with some pain when walking.

But then early in the afternoon, after a browse to basketball team's website - I noticed that they were playing season's opening game tonight. And with a ride to the game and back organised, I was off (with half empty batteries in my cameras) to the game.
Tricky light at the Leisure centre, and with the A's playing in dark jersey's it was not an easy task for someone half asleep :-)

Still managed to get few semi-decent shots at the game - of which you can see at : http://googabuphotos.zenfolio.com/birminghamathletics

This season promises to be exciting one for the A's - they have started to officially work with the BBL (professional basketball league) in an effort to be able to get a BBL team for Birmingham for the 2010-11 season. So, it should be exciting off the court and hopefully on it as well.

Tomorrow should hopefully be a day of total rest, so looking forward to that.

Sad evening in Manchester

What can I say - I know that as Sports Photographer one should try not to 'live the event' and approach it from purely professional point of view. But personally I do find that difficult sometimes, and tonight was one of those times.

When you have followed/photographed someones career for few years and slightly gotten to know the person/team, you inevitably will feel sympathy for them.

It was only few hours earlier yesterday (it is past midnight now) that Asikainen was measuring the ring at the Manchester Velodrome - and I was having a short chat with him. And Amin has won much during his career - but as a person he is one of the most down to earth people I've had pleasure of meeting.

He seemed relaxed and full of confidence at 3pm when we walked out of the Velodrome into the sunny autumn afternoon.

Next time I saw Amin was as he was making his entrance to the Arena, to the beat of AC/DC's Hell's Bells song. (This song will always remind me of Asikainen's entry to the ring).

From my vantage point at ringside I caught glimpses of Amin getting final instructions from his manager/trainer Pekka Maki - after entering the ring Amin seemed ready to go and was suitably 'agitated' towards his opponent.

Myself and the other photographers all agreed that Asikainen needs to protect himself for the first couple of rounds and wear Macklin down. Sadly this was not the case - before Asikainen had managed to land a solid bunch on the Birmingham boxer - Macklin connected with Amin's jaw and Amin went down for the first time.

With the eight count the fight was allowed to continue, but Macklin was sensing an early chance of a win and was pressing on like mad - and only moments later another hit, this time to Amin's head, brought Asikainen crashing down to the canvas.

Asikainen looked dazed and seemed to even look into his corner (trainer Maki) and shook his head as he was sprawling down in the ropes. As Asikainen rose from the floor he did look fuddled and the Italian referee was quick to stop the fight.

Asikainen did protest furiously that he would've been able to continue - but in all honesty it was probably better that the fight was not allowed to go on any longer.

Photos from the night have been well used on the Finnish MTV3.fi website - this time their 'gallery' is taken from video footage which shows that punch that ended the fight. But my images are appearing in most of the articles related to the fight on their website - which at the latest count seems to be at least around 10 or so.

I will post my own Fight Night Manchester - Gallery later online. But now, at 2am - it is time to hit the sack and get some sleep.

Amin ! If this was your last fight, I have to say it has truly been a pleasure watching you fight and to get to know a little. I hope to see you as a trainer/promoter in the future and wish you all the best.

THANK YOU!

Asikainen - Macklin fight closing in

Manchester - 4pm

Just come back from photographing Asikainen measuring the the ring at the Manchester Velodrome. Asikainen and manager Pekka Maki seemed happy enough with the size of the ring (around 7 meters).

Talking to Amin, he seemed on a good mood - and ready for the evening.

The night before (as could be guessed) was not the most peaceful one for Amin, early to bed but woke up around midnight and went for a walk to relax a little.

(not many people would say a walk after midnight in Manchester is the most relaxing :-) )

After that a good nights rest until the morning - Asikainen and Maki arrived to the Manchester Velodrome around 2.30pm, and spent an hour looking around, while Team GB cycling team was whizzing around the Velodrome at speeds which seemed to impress Team Asikainen.

Dressing rooms were not yet available for Asikainen to inspect - so that had to wait until the evening.

Maki and Asikainen then returned back to their hotel - where Amin will relax before his fight. Which is scheduled at 10.05pm local time.

Once again photos from the measuring are appearing on the MTV3 website at : http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/muutlajit2008/uutiset.shtml/arkistot/muutlajit/2009/09/961953?nyrkkeily

Nothing very special about these - but something that doesn't get seen always before a fight, so nice for fans to see how the boxers are preparing for the evening.

Two more hours for myself before the doors open to the Arena - off to ASDA (free advertising..geez). to get snacks for the drive back tonight. Late night ahead of me - and hoping for a good fight - with Asikainen returning to Finland with EBU-title!!

Boxing and the beautiful game

Thursday saw me traveling to North West of England - Hyde and Rochdale.

First in the program was a weigh-in for the EBU boxing title-fight at Hatton House in Hyde. I've been photographing a Finnish boxer Amin Asikainen for a while now, and by a lucky strike his fight now is in Manchester - which nice for me after moving back here from Finland.

As well as the promoter P3 Boxing - the images went to a Finnish MTV3's website - link to the weigh-in photos : http://www.mtv3.fi/urheilu/muutlajit/uutiset.shtml/arkistot/muutlajit/2009/09/961133?nyrkkeily

Good fun to see the Team Asikainen once again - had a nice chat with the manager, Amin and Amin's dad - amongst others.

The big fight in on tomorrow evening at the Manchester Velodrome... look out for the photos!
The days second trip was to the Spotland Stadium (Spotland..funny old name for a football ground.) to photograph the emerging talents on the Women's football.

Final qualifier for U19's EURO 2010 in Macedonia - game that was to decide the group winner between England and Norway.

Photos from this one can be seen at : http://googabuphotos.zenfolio.com/englandvsnorge09

Norway had the slight edge going into the game, thanks to their 12-0 trashing of previous opponents. So a draw was good enough for them - England on the other hand are the reigning U19 European Champs, so they were confident of a result in the game.

The first half saw England dominate the game and scoring a goal - but the Norwegians took the game to the English in the second half and deserved their equalising goal.

For photographing conditions - both events were pretty good. Hatton House had good lights and wasn't needed to crank up the ISO too much. Also there was pretty free movement to get the shots needed, so a big thanks to the Hatton Promotions for making it easy !

Rochdale stadium was a pleasure to work with - compared to the darkness I usually encounter at Worcester. ISO 2500 was OK to keep me going through the game, could've upped it to 3200 by the end. But decided not to - Norwegian celebrations were nicely right in front of me,so good set of images from that one off to the clients!

Back problems are still there - taking things very easy and being careful with it. Still very stiff and not able to do lifting or bending down normally. But with photo-work this won't effect me so much - most of the time you get to sit pretty comfortably anyways :-)

Aston Villa 1 - Cardiff City 0

Nothing to do with work really - not that I wouldn't mind photographing at Villa Park!

Went to League Cup game - which Villa scraped with another Gabby-Goal.

Nice set-up from Big John for the goal.

Second half was just hanging in there (with another missed penalty - it's two scored from the last four.

Cardiff were unlucky to have their goal ruled as off-side, in all fairness they probably would've deserved the goal. But, that's sport - bring on the next round!

World Cup of Judo - Birmingham

Photos : Ville Vuorinen / www.xit-images.com (for Finnish Judo Association)
Photos : Ville Vuorinen / www.xit-images.com (for Finnish Judo / Press)
Photos : Ville Vuorinen / www.xit-images.com (For Finnish Judo/Press)

World Cup of Judo 2009 - Birmingham

Still suffering big time from the back injury - but more able to walk now, so decided to have a go at trying to photograph at the World Cup of Judo at the NIA in Birmingham.

Got my wife to carry the camera gear to the venue - as my back isn't taking that yet. But standing/sitting down was OK for the couple of hours of Judo over the weekend.

Judo was one of the sports that I had never tried to photograph before, so it was a big learning curve to try and get anything useful out of the weekend.

To be honest - I gained a lot a respect for people who do Judo photography (and do it good) - there are so many obstacles to consider with this sport.

You have the referee walking around the mat, players are facing this and that way, lighting is quite poor... the list would go on and on if I wanted it to.

But - as a photographer you are supposed to find ways to overcome these issues, and when you put your mind to it - it is quite possible.

First positive aspect was the angle you photograph from - with the mats being raised from the floor. Even standing up you will be looking up to the fighters on the mats, giving you a nice perspective of the action.

The poor lighting also worked to photographers advantage, with the mat lit so well and rest of the arena quite dark. You get the fighters nicely isolated from the background - sometimes the dark hair gets a little too much blended into the background. But in general it gives some striking images.

I hope you do spare a moment or two to visit the gallery to view some of the images - as Judo is a sport that does not get much coverage in the main stream media.

Good example of this being the local media in Birmingham which had nothing of the event in Monday mornings papers - despite some of Europe's best judo players being in town.

But - the fifth tier of English football still manages to find plenty of coverage - despite these games only attracting few hundred spectators (where as the Judo had thousands). This is what you have to fight against sometimes as a sports reporter/photographer.

BBC on the other hand did have short reports from the World Cup - but the photos they used were not from the tournament. I am sure one of the eight or ten photographers at the event would have been happy to provide them with up-to-date images.

Now - it is back to trying to get my back functioning so that I am able to operate normally - and also give a hand to the better-half with some housework... She has been working too hard to keep me happy for the last weeks.

Luckily she can escape me for few days as she hits Dublin for a long weekend at the end of this week.

Long Silence

So - I was forced first to be without my cameras due to the cleaning, which ended up costing a tad over £400 (ridiculous money :-) ).

And what happens as soon as I get the gear back?

Well, of course I manage to injure my back...

Old injury which first surfaced about three/four years ago, when carrying a washing machine up the stairs and I managed to snap the back badly that time.

Since then it hasn't taken much to get it snapped again - and about ten days ago at work I felt it twinge a bit. But I was still able to keep working, and kept going for the next week or so. Then last Thursday at the end of the shift the back just felt very tight and I was having trouble walking - I did manage to get home and was about to go to visit a GP. When I started to get these really strong cramps/spasm in my back and wasn't able to move.

During the next couple of days I was stuck to bed/chair and every time I tried to walk - I just fell straight back to the floor with the cramps.

Calling the NHS helpline they told me it was 'mistake' to walk back from work that last day, and I should probably take it easy for a while.

Weekend went pretty much with minimum movement and lots of pain when I did move. On Sunday I've started to move around a lot more (relatively speaking) and am able to keep walking for longer periods, without spasms/cramps.

Today I've even been for a little stroll outside - and managed to keep walking for almost an hour. Now all that need to be resolved is the occasional cramps when walking and trying to be able to bend-over a little..

As to when will get to take some photos again...hopefully soon.