Beach volleyball on Copacabana Beach in Rio - I had to shoot that!

Yikes! I am falling behind on the blogging. Yesterday I photographed 3 different sports and never had a chance to crank out the second blog from two nights ago. So...here goes.

Two nights ago, I spent the evening at Copacabana beach at the the beach volleyball arena. Hey, I can't go to Brazil and not shoot this sport!

Here are the photos:

My first shot was another "scene setter" to show you what the venue looks like. It is litterally built right on the beach, which is really cool.

The first match that I saw was Germany vs. Egypt. It was interesting to see the Egyptian women wearing full outfits, which is so different from all the other women competing.

The venue manager is a super nice guy and gave me access on the sand, which is normally only reserved for the agency photographers.

This is one of the German girls signaling a play to her partner. Really, that is why I took this shot. To show you all how they signal each other.

Photographing beach volleyball is not easy. There is a lot of movement in all directions. the coveted shot is the athlete diving in the sand, and I was happy to get a couple of these.

Here is a tighter crop of the same shot. I should mention that, for all the shots (other than the scene setters), I used the Canon 1D X Mark II with the Canon 70-200 lens and 1.4x tele converter.

I liked shooting the ladies like this, with one in focus and one soft.

There is a lot of emotion on the court.

I framed this shot to get the Swiss woman leaning over the Rio logo.

As always, I do my best to get the peak of action.

Smash!

And a celebration for the big win.

At the end of each match, the winning team members sign a ball and then throw it into the crowd. I thought that was a cool idea to get the fans involved.

She got the crowd involved before tossing the ball.

It is so much fun capturing the fans at the Olympics. Everyone is having fun.

Like the other shot I showed you previously, I used the Olympic rings here as a good background element. It tells the story of where I am.

Another big hit, this time from a Team Canada.

This is one of my favorite action shots from the night. As you can probably tell, I was moving around the court quite a bit, to get different angles.

Yeah - I got another diving shot!

I love the emotions that these ladies have after almost every point. This gives me ample chances to get a shot like this.

...and more action.

I was shooting the photos at 1/1250 sec to freeze the action.

I included this shot because of the story, more than the photo. Just after shooting this frame, the ball came right at my lens. I could have been hired as a ballboy yesterday, as I think I fielded at least 3 or 4 balls.

One last nice diving shot.

OK - I am off to women's gymnastics. Many more blogs to come.

_________________________________________________________________________________

And also, remember that you and your friends can enter your email address at the top right of this blog to get an email any time I write a new blog post or send my monthly newsletter.

_________________________________________________________________________________

If you are interested in purchasing any camera equipment, please click here to go to B&H Photo, as I get a referral from them if you enter this way. It does not change the cost to you in any way, but it helps me keep this blog up and running.

_________________________________________________________________________________