Photographing darko duric
One Of Samo’s subjects was the Slovenian swimmer Darko Duric. Despite being born with only one arm and no legs, he has become a Paralympian, a double world champion and has broken the world record in the 50m Butterfly S4 class. When shooting Darko’s portrait and action shot, Samo wanted to convey his striking story immediately. “Darko only has one arm, but the water gives him wings, somehow. That’s exactly what I wanted to show,” he explains.
The sports shoot took place at a pool in Ljubljana, Slovenia. With Darko posing on a diving board for the portrait, Samo got two assistants to throw buckets of water at him from left and right, creating wing-like shapes with the water. Samo froze the movement of the water with his studio flashes, having placed the main light three metres in front of the swimmer and a backlight five metres above him.
For the action shot, Samo set up two studio flashes beside the pool, lighting the subject from above, and one behind a porthole in the pool, pointing at the subject from below the water’s surface. Then he went underwater in his scuba diving gear to photograph Darko in action, swimming across the pool. The Canon EOS 5D Mark IV, with a Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8l III USM wide-angle lens attached, communicated with the lights via cables connected to a transmitter set up beside the pool.
Samo used the camera’s AI Servo setting to get pin-sharp images, and he made use of the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV’S fast, continuous shooting mode to get 6.5 frames per second. “If you photograph a swimmer with two arms, you have more chances of a good shot, but because Darko only has one arm, I needed to make sure I maximised my opportunities to capture him in a striking position [with his right arm reaching forwards and face visible],” he explains. “It was my first time shooting with the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV underwater, and everything worked perfectly. The autofocus was great, and all the images are sharp, which is the most important thing.” To see videos and read more about how Samo Vidic created the in-camera effects in his Defying the Odds series, visit www.canon.co.uk/pro/stories