POSA Pole Sport World Championships 2019

pake · Dec 17, 2019

Now here's something I got really excited about 6 months ago already. I think it was in April or May when I noticed that the Pole Sport World Championships was going to be held in Finland - and in the town next to mine! As an eager pole dance photographer I immediately contacted the organizers and asked if they had the photographer(s) already booked and let them know I'm available. They liked my sample photos and we started negotiating. It took a few months and eventually ended in a different way that either parties would have initially hoped for (due to unrelated matters I won't get into here).

The event lasted for three days and I was only shooting there on Sunday (as one of the two official photographers). But even that one day was enough and I still get goosebumps when thinking about the event and me getting to photograph some of the best in business there. I (still) feel blessed and honored. And grateful. :cloud-9-039:

As some of you might had noticed I was one of the first people to place a preorder on the new E-M5III. First it looked like I wasn't going to get the camera in time but then the reseller sent the package on its way and the Finnish postal service had 5 working days to deliver the camera to me. They failed. They failed miserably. The driver even claimed he had tried to deliver the package on Friday but "the recipient wasn't home when the handout was tried" even though I spent the whole day looking at the window to see when my dear new camera would arrive. The disappointment was something I can't describe.

Call it fate or whatever but I noticed a killer Black Friday deal the biggest(?) online store in Finland had: E-M10II (+14-42 EZ) for 300 EUR. I had already set my mind on shooting the event with a new camera so I thought why not get that one too. So I did. I had been looking for a used E-M10III and would have bought one if the price was right but I knew it would take quite some time to get an mk3 for a better price so I thought "why wait?".

So... I went to the store (luckily they had more than dozen available at their local store) , bought one and went home to configure the settings. After I was done something happened and the settings got reset. So I did it all over. Then on Saturday morning I noticed the clock had been reset again. I contacted the store and asked for a new copy. They said yes and I went back and exchanged the cameras and went home to set up the camera - again. This time the settings kept and I was good to go shooting.

I ended up packing my camera bag with two E-M5s and the E-M10II. The lenses I bought were 12-40mm & 40-150mm f/2.8s, Oly 45mm f/1.8, Sigma 56mm f/1.4 and Oly 75mm f/1.8. My main camera was the E-M10II with the 40-150mm attached and the backup camera (hanging also on my harness) was one of the E-M5s with 56mm in the beginning and 75mm for the second part. The E-M10II blew the old camera away in everything: IQ, AF speed, AF accuracy, auto white balance etc. But one thing that mattered most was this: the speed of clearing the buffer. Both cameras were shooting raw only and with E-M10II I could shoot and shoot and shoot. If the buffer got full I just needed to easy up on the shutter and press it again to get a decent fps. When the E-M5 got buffered out it was out for multiple seconds. In a fast paced sport such as pole sport one simply can't wait for camera to clear its buffer before shooting again.

Aaaaand finally.... The photos. Oh, I got so many great photos. Almost too many. I sure liked them but what's more important, it seems the athletes love them as well. And that obviously makes me very happy. I'm not shooting for only myself but I ALWAYS aim to please the subjects I shoot.

Here's some of the favorite ones from the event.