Caption this!

Feel free to offer your caption to the picture below, taken at Staglands, near Waikanae, New Zealand.

My own caption:

- Tell me that you love me!
- No.

Tags: animals, New Zealand, pictures

Cygnets in Waikanae, New Zealand

Funny, how one can miss celebrated photo spots and find small and almost unknown places with plenty of interesting subjects. These cygnets were with their parents in a small lagoon near Waikanae, on the West coast of New Zealand's North island.


Tags: animals, New Zealand, pictures

Kaikoura, New Zealand: a whale, a seal

New Zealand. Great place. Leaves you speechless.





Tags: animals, New Zealand, pictures

The Helix Bridge in Singapore

A picture of the new Helix Bridge in Marina Bay, Singapore.




Tags: pictures, Singapore

One more month in Singapore

After nine years, I have left my job as webmaster for a large logistics company. That job took me from Turin to London, to Atlanta, then to Singapore. I am grateful for the opportunities I had in these years and for the people I met, ... and let's cut this thing here, since this is not an Academy Award speech.

I will be in Singapore all May and in the first week of June, thanks to a bureaucratic mishap, and I will try to make the best of these extra few weeks here. I am trying to improve my sports shooting skills, so - if you are in Singapore and know of a competition that is not listed at redsports.sg/sports-calendar/ or in other online sports calendar, please let me know using the comments form at the bottom of this page.

Also, if you practice cricket, rugby, squash, football, tennis, hockey (field or ice), volleyball, basketball, dragon boat, and any other sport, and you would like to have you and your team's pictures taken for free during a competition or in training, please provide me with details with the comment form here, or contact me using the About page.


Tags: photo opportunities, photography jobs, Singapore, sport

Car racing near Marina Promenade

Sunday morning. You plan to sleep well into the morning, and maybe even reach that long-sought after goal, waking up at noon, to make up for a long backlog of lost sleep.
And at ten o'clock an unbelievably loud noise, akin to somebody switching on all the 100,000 Toyota Corolla recalled in Brazil, wakes you up. It comes from the other bank of the river, a few hundreds meters from your flat.

You have two options:
1) earplugs, sleeping mask, and you will yourself back to sleep;
2) camera, long lens, bicycle, and you ride across the bridge to see where all the noise is coming from.

I took the second option, and rode on the Benjamin Sheares Bridge towards Marina Promenade. And surprise... it wasn't Toyota testing 100,000 cars. 'Twas just a simple car race. Very simple, actually: sports cars started in couple, ran for a few hundreds metres in a straight line, then accelerated sideways through three bends, often bouncing against each other, and made it back to where they started from. There was a ticket a queue, designated areas, designated footpaths. No thanks, just give me the cars.

And indeed they gave me - and everybody else, paying audience and freeloaders on the bridge - the cars.











A green car, but is it a green car?


Tags: car racing, pictures, Singapore, sport

Six-a-side in Singapore

Tags: football, pictures, Singapore, sport

Do we need subject permission before snapping a sports picture?

I will be returning to the UK after two years in Atlanta and two in Singapore, and I better get used again to the "you will filmed fifty times a day by CCTVs, but damned if you take a picture" approach. Here in Singapore it does not matter where I am, there are always at least a dozen chaps with big DSLRs (and sometimes Lomos) taking pictures of everything, from ants on the ground to skyscrapers, and including the food they have at the restaurant. In the US (in Georgia), I was asked why I was taking a picture of a magnificent building in midtown Atlanta ("Because it’s magnificent, sir!"), and in other occasions I was given wary looks when I took pictures of dams, bridges and anything vaguely remarkable. I was lucky none of the wary bystanders were Jack Bauer-style proactive ...

We all know taking picture is becoming increasingly difficult, from a legal standpoint. So, not being a pro photographer, I wondered whether the subject of a photo taken during a sports event can claim that the photographer has no right of taking that picture, on grounds of privacy violation.

As an amateur sport photographer, in the last few months I have taken plenty of pictures of triathlon, fencing, sailing, football (soccer). These competitions were photographed without having an official assignment, without having to pay a ticket (and therefore without a recorded entry in the event venue), and in public places (with the exception of the fencing competition). For instance, I recently photographed the Singapore Ironman 70.3 triathlon competition which took place in a public park (the run), on a public road (the cycling segment) and in the Singapore Strait (the swim). I have offered free pictures to several race participants, those I could manage to find contact details for, and they were all between thankful and enthusiastic about the offer, but I wonder if any of my subjects might actually complain feeling that their privacy has been violated.

Based on common sense, I believe somebody’s expectation of privacy should be considerably lowered, when this person dons his/her sports gear and takes part in a sports event on public land.

A further ramification: what if I take pictures in the above described scenario, and then find somebody – a sports magazine, a sports gear shop – interested in publishing one of my pictures in exchange of money? Would the subject of the image have any right to claim a share of the money ...

Tags: photographers rights, privacy

Faces of triathlon

A few more pictures taken at the 2010 Aviva Ironman 70.3 in Singapore, on 21st March 2010. Sport portraits, if you want, bearing in mind the obvious: these are not portraits taken in a studio, with makeup and lighting designed to enhance the model's features. These pictures were taken hours into a triathlon race, when the athletes had already a long swim and many miles of cycling on their back and, most importantly for a portrait, on their faces.

















A few names:
#1026, Craig Johnson
#612, Meng LOH
#57, Pei shan SIM
#640, Andrew PEREIRA
#1431 (unknown)


Tags: pictures, Singapore, sport, sports portraits, triathlon

OSIM International Triathlon 2010 - #3879

A picture of racer #3879 at the OSIM International Triathlon competition in Singapore. A hot day, as usual, I hope all athletes remembered to put as much sun cream as I did; I got sunburnt the day before, at the Singapore Soccer Sixes.


Tags: pictures, Singapore, sport, triathlon