Earlier in the year the given subject in the Cathay Camera Club monthly competition was Uniform and other than searching the street for policemen etc. to shoot something in my comfort zone of street photography I was a loss for what to do; then I saw on Facebook a pictures of a friend at a Tai Kwon Do class and a seed of an idea was born.
Marivel is Filipina and works in Hong Kong as a Domestic helper; but in her spare time she likes to model and practise Tai Kwon Do, so she became the willing participant in a shoot in Li Chi Kok Park in Mei Foo.
Using a simple set up of a one Canon 430exII flash in a Photix 40cm x 60cm softbox fired manually in conjunction with the natural light, I tried to capture the power of martial arts.
Whilst I feel the shots are visually appealing don’t think I have quite captured the essence as well as I would have liked. I would put that down to the fact that I’m less experienced at giving instructions to models, therefore that is something I have to work on. That’s the thing with photography every day is a learning curve and the day we stop learning is the days we need to re-evaluate why we are here.
Finally, I have to thank Marivel for this shot giving up the whole morning of her one day off a week to help and volunteering to assist on future shoots.
