Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

Homeboy Media News lets us know that the Cyprus Rally is back this year ( official web site confirms the news). The even will take place between Friday, May 16th and Sunday, May 18th.

Takis Kyriakides, Cyprus Rally Head of the Course, said “the new route will incorporate old tracks, which have been kept in fine condition through re-grading operations and regular maintenance, and the new ones designed and constructed this year”.

However, the event will not be a part of the World Rally Championship (WRC) as it used to be during the last few years. There was a chance that Cyprus would come back to WRC schedule this year, but it just didn’t happen. Next year maybe.

Today I attended a kickboxing competition, organized by World Kickboxing Network. The event was held in Strovolos Municipality in Nicosia.

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Luckily I managed to save a few pictures from KSP5. By the way, since KSP5 was held under the name “Nostalgy” this time, I decided to convert all pictures to black and white. Not that there were a lot of vivid colors anyway…

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-11-12_KSP5

Today I went to “Stork” again with some friends of mine. There was yet another hard rock party. It wasn’t as good as the last time, but it was pretty good anyway. There were enough of both old songs - those that I hear on every rock party, and news songs - old songs, but that I really hear. One of the new songs that really brought up a few good memories was “Another brick in the wall” from Pink Floyd. Among the old ones was an excellently performed “Smoke on the water” from Deep Purple. And yes, it was good even considering the fact that I am among those lucky ones who can compare it to the original.

Although I enjoyed the concert, the atmosphere wasn’t moving enough for me to jump around like a crazy horse and shout like a wounded elephant. Not to worry though. Kakomalis Amateur Song Festival (aka KSP) is coming soon. So far it is expected on November 12th, which is only a couple of weeks away. There I will tear my throat to pieces and abuse my muscles to the point of no return. Again. Yeah. Rock on!

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