(almost) Celebrity Photography

One of the highlights of my weekend was attending my brother's belt-testing; he's a member of the Purple Dragon jiu jitsu dojo. This is a successful martial arts school, its success due in no small part to the charisma and commanding presence of its founder, Don Jacob. He is a powerful and dominating motivational speaker who has the respect of everyone around him. Once a year this man flies up from Trinidad to check up on how his son is doing at teaching Canadian students.

While watching him speak during the ceremony (and between writing down thoughts on what he was saying and how he was saying it) I was wondering "how do I photograph this man"? I don't typically carry a telephoto lens so if I want a close photo of someone, that means getting close to them. In the end I got two photographs of him, one at 8 meters and one at 1.5m, both with his full knowledge of what I was doing. The second shot was of him with my brother, quite an honour for Lucas and due in no small part to his new designation "brown belt, 3rd kyu, elite warrior".

I was a little nervous and as I went to take the closer shot my brain pretty much switched into full-auto mode. It is shots like this that make all the other photographs I've taken worth it, the vast majority of photographs are just training for that 1% of shots that really count. If it comes back sharp, I'll just collapse into a small heap of joy.