Last weekend I had the pleasure of photographing my friends Christoph and Manuel Mitasch, aka Jonglissimo, a world-class club passing duo, holders of four club-passing world records and two-time IJA stage competition gold medal winners.
We did the first shooting session at the Stephansplatz at around three in the morning. It was seriously cold but – our reason for shooting at such an uncommon hour – there were almost no people there:
After a few hours of sleep we had another session in a studio, where I learnt a few things: Motion-freezing juggling photos tend to suck. Even if you shoot from an uncommon angle they’re barely more than tolerable:
Shooting with glowing props is much more interesting:
Five club double backcrosses – I should have shot this from a ladder and with a longer exposure:
Club swinging sucks, but it looks kinda cool:
Shooting people while they’re jumping is fun:
Even more so if you throw stuff at them while they’re in the air:
Obligatory back-lit portrait:
Manuel:
Those pictures are amazing! I experimented with some open-lens photography a long time ago with my old Minolta 35mm SLR.
Comment by God is Pretend — November 19, 2008 @ 11:03 pm
It looks like you had a lot of fun with this. I really like the color element to the juggling photos.
Comment by Keith — December 8, 2008 @ 4:23 am
Hi, I’m a photo student in Minnesota, US and I’m also a juggler/diabolist. I’m focusing my semester’s project on juggling and manipulation arts. I love your photographs and am wondering what techniques you use to capture such great images of movement. Please feel free to email me if you have the time. Thank you!
-SMJ
Comment by SarahMaire James — February 16, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
I really like the jumping shots. Lots of cool color in the others.
Comment by andy — May 12, 2009 @ 3:24 am
Nice work. Now… the freeze motion of the juggling doesn’t suck. Are they as cool as the motion blur ones? No but it emphasizes the skills of the jugglers in a cool way.
Comment by Kansas City photographer — May 20, 2009 @ 2:54 pm