Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov

One of the things that I’ve been saying for as long as I can remember is that it is always interesting and exciting to watch a person do something he is good at. And your interest in the subject is irrelevant - it’s all about how that person does it and that only. And ‘it’ can be anything. OK, maybe with few small exceptions, but those don’t count.

Another thought that I support, but always try to avoid is that in order to be good at something, all you need is strong will and a lot of effort. Equipment, financial injections, and stuff like that can only slow you down.

In support of these two ideas, I offer you the link to a video - Russian climbing.

It is a pretty long download and will last for only 8 minutes, but YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO SEE THIS! Actually, you might have seen something similar in Jackie Chan movies, but who believes the cinema these days? Jackie Chan is doing what he is doing for the movies and he uses a lot of trained professionals and equipment to achieve the effect.

In this clip though, you’ll see guys doing some really amazing things without any equipment what-so-ever. Really, really cool stuff!

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

There are plenty of posters around the town notifying that Lemesia 2005 is approaching. Lemesia 2005 is supposed to be one of the biggest sporting events of the year. It is organized by the Municipality of Limassol and is sponsored by a number of commercial entities.

I would really like to attend this event this year. Especially since I missed it entirely last time. But I have the same problem - the lack of information. Last year the Municipality of Limassol at least had something at their website. This year there is nothing.

If you have any information about the event - dates, locations, prices, contact phone numbers - please let me know. And I’ll share pictures in return.

I rented “Cinderella Man” because it was on of the few new movies available on DVD that had a high rating and a known star in it - Russell Crowe.

Directed by: Ron Howard
Genres: Biography, Drama, Sport
Cast: Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Paddy Considine, Bruce McGill, David Huband, Connor Price, Ariel Waller, Patrick Louis, Rosemarie DeWitt, Linda Kash, Nicholas Campbell, Gene Pyrz, Chuck Shamata
IMDB raintg: 8.0
My rating: 8.5

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“The Longest Yard” with Adam Sandler and Chris Rock and some more people from the Saturday Night Live gang seemed like a movie worth waiting for.

Directed by: Peter Segal
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Sport
Cast: Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Burt Reynolds, Nelly, Michael Irvin, Walter Williamson, Bill Goldberg, Terry Crews, Bob Sapp, Nicholas Turturro, Dalip Singh, Lobo Sebastian, Joey Diaz, Steve Reevis, David Patrick Kelly
IMDB raintg: 6.3
My rating: 7.0

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