Pyeongchang-gun, South Korea - Quinn Rooney, Australia-based photographer with Getty Images: “For Day 3 of the Winter Olympics I was assigned to cover the Luge. The competition involved each competitor having two runs on the course. For the first run I choose to get a stock picture of each athlete as they raced past the PyeongChang signage. I chose an elevated spot in the stands so I could silhouette the crowd in front of the action and capture the interaction between the fans and the competitors.
The lugers travel at very high speeds, sometimes up to 150km/hr. so to freeze the action I am shooting at 6400th of a second. I would prefocus on the track and frame up the image to the edge of the rings. Then it was about listening to the noise of the luge as it made its way down the track and then timing the shot as the athletes raced past the sign.
Knowing that I now had a stock image of each competitor, for the second run I decided to do a more creative panning shot. I like this technique as it gives the viewer a real feel as to how fast the lugers travel. Before the competition started I had to walk the track, whilst shooting practice and had seen a nice gap in some trees which I thought could work for this shot.
Again I would prefocus on the gap in the trees and as soon as I got a glimpse of the competitor turn around the corner I would try and follow the subject in the middle of my viewfinder as they made their way around the bend, then time my shot when the athlete was in this gap between the branches. I was shooting at 1/30th of a second to get the movement”.
