Focus on composition

Sports photography is not always a walk in the park: As a sports photographer, you sit on the sidelines in all weathers, usually on a small tripod stool, with equipment worth tens of thousands of euros. From time to time, you are "threatened" by "Ultras" waving Bengalos or throwing flares. Your own radius of action is limited by the panning range of the TV cameras. And you are in constant competition with your colleagues for the best photo position.

And the composition? Usually it is "just" a matter of anticipating the action and where it will take place in order to be there in time. If not, you might miss the winning shot at goal, the celebrations, or the coach's angry outburst - and the trip to the stadium will have been in vain.

As a sports photographer, the opportunity to "compose" a dream shot is very rare. In August 2019, I was able to cross one off my wish list.

The chosen "ingredients": The Berlin Olympic Stadium, athletics, a running competition, the blue track as the background of the picture, plus a harsh shadow cast by a low sun and, ideally, the athlete completely in the air, separated from the shadow.

To get a picture like this, a lot of circumstances have to be right at the same time: First, of course, there has to be a running event. In the Olympic Stadium, this is "normally" the International Stadium Festival (ISTAF) in October. Last year, an additional opportunity presented itself as part of "The Finals", an event held in Berlin for the first time, at which the German championship titles in ten different sports were awarded.

In order to meet one of the important parameters - the background of the picture should consist only of the blue track - a high shooting position was necessary. The usual "eye level" position with the action would not have produced the desired result. So up on the Topring of the Olympic Stadium!  With special permission from the organisers, it was possible to gain exclusive access to this area, which was closed to all other photographers.

Then the time had to be right. Only when the sun is positioned so that its light falls directly through the Marathon Gate into the stadium can the desired shadow be cast. The light conditions were ideal at around 4pm and the cumulus clouds in the sky allowed the sun to shine through.

The shooting position also had to be at the apex of the east bend to achieve a parallel course of the track markings. Fortunately, two 400-metre heats took place at the optimum time, giving me exactly two chances. Because the sun will have moved on by the time of the final.

Equipment: Canon EOS-1D X Mark II with EF 200-400mm F4L IS USM Extender 1.4x

Exposure parameters: 1/1,600s, aperture 5.6 and ISO 800, then followed the runner at maximum burst speed.

All that remained was a little post-processing of the JPEG image files in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom: a minor crop, a slight increase in contrast, a reduction in highlights and, exceptionally, the addition of an artificial vignette to enhance the "artistic" effect of the image and to draw the viewer's eye even further.