It is often the case that some of our best rowing photos - in fact some of our personal favorite best photos of anything - get buried deep in the row2k galleries. One such photo is this "Rowing in a rainbow" photo taken by Kevin Light at the Brentwood Regatta last month, a photo that row2k photo editor Erik Dresser has assessed as "photo of the year easily so far."
I asked photographer Kevin Light to share some details about how it all came together; he gives most of the credit to Mother Nature and his lens, but anyone who has seen something like this knows that even though luck plays a big part in producing the conditions necessary for a good photo, it takes a quick and skilled photographer actually to get the photo. "In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind," as Louis Pasteur said.
So many people have commented on the rainbow shot asking me how I did it, but I have been hesitant because sometimes the best photos are the ones where the subject falls into place and you just happen to be there. I did have a 300mm lens on a Canon 1DX so I could crop in tight and still maintain the quality. The guy next to me was shooting with the iPhone, and said 'Well, at least someone will get the shot!'
Otherwise, I knew I had to get low, and I knew I needed a boat at the bottom of the shot. I saw a boat and saw their path, so set up so they would row through the rainbow.
The whole thing lasted maybe 90 seconds; here is a link to all the original photos from the sequence.
Kevin Light
http://kevinlightphotography.com/
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