Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

I was lucky enough to get to Lemesia 2005 Boxing championship in time. And not only that - I also had a pass into a VIP area and all around the stadium, thanks to a certain someone.

Not that it helped me much in my photography quest though. While I could enjoy the fights from a really close range, photographing those still was a challange. The biggest issue was, as usual with this type of events - light. There was simply not enough of it. Few lamps made it possible to watch the matches, but making pictures of fast moving subjects could have been possible only with a good flash unit, which I don’t have. Yet.

The second obstacle was - ropes. There were four thick ropes going around the ring. While that was something you could filter out with your mind, taking those out of the pictures weren’t possible. In fact, the close I went to the ring, the bigger problem those ropes were. Finally, I moved away and up into the audience to be slightly above those ropes. For that I used my 75-300 IS USM lens, which is not as fast as the 50mm/1.8. ISO 1600 added lots of grain and on-camera flash unit resulted in a lot of red eyes.

But I did my best. I shot plenty of images and later had a lot to choose from. Enjoy!

Now, the boxing. As it was the first day of the competition, there were some good fights and there were some bad ones. Few fights were very boring with opponents investigating each other for three or four rounds without any actions. Other fights were exciting because of all the action. Few knockdowns, a couple of broken noses, few dislocated thumbs - the usual mix.

Overall I had a lot of fun watching the fights, talking with a few people I knew, and photographing this whole thing. If you didn’t go - you missed a lot. Especially considering that the entrance was free for everyone.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-10-14_Lemesia_Boxing

Almost a year ago I mentioned that Pafos Bird Park was open and accepting visitors. Finally, I managed to go there and see for my own what and how good it is. Vladimir, Olga, and Maxim came along.

[Read more →]

A long time ago I’ve promised pictures of Sofia Georgiades. I was the only one who made photographs on her first day in this world, but I had to hold them back for some time. Both Alex and Kate didn’t want me to release them for the 40 days or so. And than they weren’t sure that they wanted to release them at all. But I was persuasive and finally we agreed to make them public. After all this fuzz I realized that I didn’t do any post-processing or color corrections what-so-ever. I’m too bored and lazy to do them now, so you’ll have to look at them as raw as they are.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-07-19_Sofia_Georgiades

The weather wasn’t very good for sea swimming today. It was raining during the night and sun was still hiding behind clouds in the morning. So Maxim and I went for a little walk in the downtown instead of the beach. Better even, we walked a couple of streets that I’ve never walked before. Made a few shots.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-09-17_Downtown

Olga and I went to the beach together today. Usually we are taking turns - either she goes or I. Today was my turn, but Olga decided to join us so that she could have a swim or two. The thing is, Maxim is changing his sleeping habbits once again and he is not sleeping while at the beach anymore. Before he did and we could enjoy the sea while he was doing so. Not anymore. I don’t mind much, but Olga - she does. She misses the water.

Anyway, since we were all together, I used the opportunity to make a bunch of pictures. Who knows when we will be swimming together next time. The summer slowly comes to an end.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-09-15_Beach