How to: Tae-Kwon-Do

by Urs Recher

We had the pleasure of photographing Fabien Babault, a top French Tae-Kwon-Do fighter. For this purpose, we organized a permit from the city of Paris and installed ourselves on the Pont des Arts.

It's self-explanatory that we couldn't fill the whole bridge with our setup, so I had to choose light shapers that were powerful and precise over a greater distance.

I quickly decided on a Para 88 HR as the main light (1). HR stands for "Heat Resistant", but that wasn't relevant here. Much more important was the high-gloss reflector material in the center of the Para HR. This area made it possible to focus the light very precisely on the athlete. The high light output was particularly important later on in the shoot, when it was important to capture Fabien's fast movements and jumps in sharp focus. We used the HSS technology of a Satos 1600 power pack. HSS allows the use of flash even at the fastest shutter speeds on the camera.

I positioned a Siros 800 L with P70 reflector and medium honeycomb opposite the Para HR (2). Despite the bright daylight, the 800 J was easily enough to create a clearly visible edge of light.

I hadn't expected Fabien to be wearing almost black trousers in addition to his bright white top... Of course we had a back-up light with us - but no additional tripod. But I was able to motivate Géraldine to brighten Fabien's dark trousers with a P70 and a narrow honeycomb grid (3).

Both Pulso L lights were powered by a battery-only Satos 1600. I photographed with a full-frame mirrorless camera and a focal length of 30mm. At a sensitivity of ISO 400, the exposure time was 1/6400s and the aperture was set to f/6.3.