Two days ago I, for the first time, tried taking photos of Kendo. This after having been challenged by another photographer who said that Kendo was waaay more difficult to photograph than Ju-jutsu (which is what I usually take photos of). And yes, it’s more difficult … but not in the way I thought. After watching a few videos on YouTube I expected that the speed in the attacks would be the difficult part, but after a first look at my photos it turned out that the problem was to make the photos interesting.
I looked at some Kendo photos on Flickr and my photos are not much different than what I can find there. So, my guess is that I either don’t know enough about Kendo to make the photos interesting or that I need to find another angle (literally), probably a combination.
Anyway, it was my first attempt so I didn’t really expect to get any good photos but there are a few that suggests that I should take a different approach than I do with jutsu. More specifically, I think I should use a wide angle lens instead of a tele (depending on what happens in jutsu using a wide angle could be bad for the health of you, the camera and the practitioners … but it could work in Kendo … perhaps). I need to try again.