SAFA Skysailor Magazine

10 SKY SAILOR May | June 2020 Get the Shot T here was certainly a lot of frustration in the early days, with a lot of lessons to be learnt. Getting the focus right, freezing the action and predicting the often erratic movement of the paraglider and pilot, combined with shooting against very bright or heavily overcast skies, presented the main issues for me. Many of my earlier photographs were not as sharply focused as I would have liked. It took a lot of effort to understand how a SIV manoeuvre might reveal itself through the lens, how to stabilise the camera, where and how to focus, and what shutter speed and aperture to use. Practice, practice and yet more practice got me to the point where most (touch wood) of my photographs are now accept- ably sharp. Here I will share what I have learnt in the hope it encourages you to pick up a camera and get into paragliding photography. Starting out I did my first SIV in 2015 and what an experience it was! I did what was expected of me, but in truth much of the experience was a blur. Thankfully, each flight was videoed, and each evening we would review the footage and delight in the antics of each pilot, few of whom ever claimed to be in control. My lovely wife also took photographs of me using an old 200mm telephoto lens. The video was great as a debriefing tool, but the photos were in my opinion, the best. Photographs are useful in many ways. Printed and framed they look great on a wall or desk and they are relatively easy to share with family and friends. It’s also great when you see your photo- graph in a magazine for the first time. I did another SIV course the following year and after that became a crewmember for Roger Stanford, SkyOut Paraglid- ing CFI. At this point, I felt I could value add to the pilots’ learning experiences by taking photographs to complement the videos. My equipment The first question I enviably get asked on launch is what gear I am using. There are any number of great brands out there, but I settled on Canon A couple of issues back, I penned an article about SIV training and was fortunate to be in a position to illustrate it with photographs I had taken over the years. I have taken many thousands of SIV related photos and I’d like to think that my technique has improved over time. by Phil Kirkman