Tag Archives: parkour

6 tips on taking good Freerunning photos!

11 Jan

 

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There’s this moment in every Freerunner’s life where he looks at the photos of David Belle, Seb Foucan and all the other guys hanging on his bedroom wall and then he asks himself deep questions like: “How the fuck do I even look like when I jump?”

Well that’s at least how it happened to me.

 

The next day I begged my dad for his old DV-camera, ditched the tape with last years christmas footage and went out to film myself and my friends.
Almost 8 years later I make my living with Freerunning photos and videos. I’ve made all the mistakes and learnt a lot of stuff the hard way, but now I feel like I can give a little bit of advice :)

 

Keep in mind: There are no rules to photography or filming, simply guidelines. Keeping these guidelines in mind help me when shooting, but always trust your gut feeling over some rules you read on the internet ;)
Here we go, these are my 6 tips to making good freerunning photography:

 

1.RELATION

First things first. If you take a photo of somebody doing a jump, you should show where he’s coming from and where he’s going. Make the viewer appreciate the difficulty of the action he’s witnessing.

Nobody can tell if he landed on concrete or not or how high his jump was, if you don’t show it. The Freerunner is doing the difficult part, so give him the credit he deserves ;)

JasonBangkokHandstand (1 of 1)

example framing

 

Exception

Sometimes you want to confuse or puzzle the viewer by making something look surreal.

47785_424986021294_620966294_5098446_6471946_n

 

2. LIGHT

Always keep the position of the sun in mind and choose the time of day you want to shoot in wisely.
Photographers call the hour before sunset or just after sunrise “the golden hour”. The sun is low, all the shadows are nice and give the image a beautiful depth.

You get the best lighting if you keep the sun behind you!

Exception:
If you want a silhouette shot, get the sun between you and the subject :)

 

2

 

 

3.ISOLATION

Framing the Freerunner infront of a clear backdrop helps directing the eye of the viewer to where the action takes place.

Most of the time this can be the sky,  but also a wall or even the floor can do, if you’re taking the picture from above.
Even from a few metres back the viewer should be able to tell what’s going on in the photo.

 

DirkGainer (1 of 1) Kopie

 

 

4. EXPLAIN YOURSELF

Before taking the photo you should tell the subject what part of the movement is important to you. Do you want the take-off? Catch him mid-air or have the focus the landing?

Explaining your idea and telling the Freerunner what you want, makes it a lot easier for him to adjust.

 

Exception

Sometimes you want to capture a natural moment or a mood. In this case it’s best not to be noticed, stand back and wait for the moment you want.

 

JasonField (1 of 1)

 

5.HORIZON

Woah, look how fucking Hipster I am, I just tilted my camera!!

NO!!! This is how you look like:

JasonWallflip (1 of 1)

Seriously, keeping the horizon straight makes looking at a photo so much nicer. Why you ask?

Firstly you don’t have to tilt your head and having the horizon as a natural guideline helps the viewer to orientate himself and get a grasp of what is going on.

JasonWallflip (2 of 1)

 

Exception
Sometimes tilting the camera can give a feeling of disorder or confusion. If you tilt the camera, think about the reason why you are doing it. If you can’t come up with one, you should probably keep the horizon where it naturally is.

 

6.Perspective

Most of the time Freerunning will look good if you throw a wide-angle lens on your camera and keep close to the ground, but there’s a lot more to it.

Try to use perspective to create the illusion of a 3 dimensional scenery, although it’s a flat image. You can do this by putting something in the foreground, for example the hay in this picture of me jumping off a tree:
47785_424986026294_620966294_5098447_690144_n

Another way is by finding lines in your environment and making them converge in the background. A perfect example is this photo Naim Chidiac shot of me in Kuwait:

NaimChidiac

NaimChidiac lines

 

 

Here we go, 6 tips for you on how to take good photos.

I hope I could help you getting started or maybe gave you some inspiration, if you’re doing this for a while already.
Anyway, feel free to message us on our Facebook-Page (click here) and let us know what you think or if you have any ideas on what we could write about next :)

Cheers,
Jason

The Farang Way

12 Sep

Life is to valuable to waste time doing what you’re not passionate about

and we want to use our time to create and experience the lifestyle Freerunning has to offer us.

We want to feel comfortable in our own skin, independent of people telling us what is right and what is wrong.

We love challenging the status quo and doing what people tell us we can’t do. We measure by our own standards, instead of following the well-worn path.

Every morning we step into the world in order to make a difference to somebody, even if it’s just ourselves.

That’s what being a Farang is about. It’s not exclusive or limited. Everybody that is ready to follow his or her heart can be part of it.

We believe in our passion, we believe that doing what we love is all that matters. Weather it’s free running, filming videos or designing clothing, being part of the Freerunning culture is what we live for, and we strive to progress in what ever it is we do. It’s what drives us and makes us produce the content we are renown for.

We don’t know where we are going yet, but we’ll have a hell of a trip for sure.

Chicks that flip!

12 Sep

There’s no doubt that the female Parkour community is growing, and recently there have been some really sick edits coming out of the community featuring bad ass girls. This recent effort comes from Tamila from Canada and shows some great power, strength and some beastly movement.
Enjoy

TWILIGHT vs PARKOUR

15 May

 

Taylor Lautner has been set to star in Tracers, an action thriller. Lautner will play Cam, a messenger in New York City who is a wiz on a bike but who’s in debt to an organized crime gang. He crashes his bike into a sexy stranger and is seduced by her and the thrill of the world of parkour that she introduces him to.

What some people might not know is that Lautner trained karate for several years, earning his black belt by the age of eight, and winning several junior world championships and from what is show in the video bellow, the guy can move! If he loses a few kilo’s is it possible that this could be a good Parkour Hollywood blockbuster?


Source: click me hard

Be creative like a Pasha

8 Apr Pasha Preview

We all love to see Storror’s massive cat passes or watch Erik doing double-flips on the way to the supermarket, but seriously…there’s more to Freerunning than jumping the biggest gap you can find and adding another twist to every move.
Thats not really creative isn’t it?

Pasha for example is a monster of creativity, he comes up with cool moves constantly. But how does he do that?
Recently I spent alot of time hanging out and training with Pasha, understanding where he comes from and how he trains helped me alot to understand how creativity works and why he is such a genius. So I thought I’d share with you, but first you should watch this if you haven’t yet. And if you have, fucking watch it again.

Obviously I can’t give you a set of moves to learn and BOOM you are the new Pasha. That’s why learning creativity is so hard, you have to do something that hasn’t been done before. You don’t know what the destination is, until you arrive there. But we can give you a push in the right direction ;)

Simplicity leads to creativity.

If you throw yourself into the best spot you have, you will hardly ever try something new. There’s just too much other stuff around. So the simpler you keep it, the easier it is to improvise. That’s why break dancers keep coming up with new shit, they only have the floor.

You don’t have to go that far, but next training session you should try spending a few hours with just one single object in your environment (a bench, a wall, a stone, your girlfriend) and see what you can come up with. It’s hard at the beginning, but it’s worth it.

 

One last tip:
Don’t be too serious about it. Take a friend, and have fun, fool around. The more you play the easier it will be.

Spots you wish to train at, but your mom would never let you: GUNKANJIMA

31 Mar GUN Preview

We love to look for unique locations to film or train at and every now and then we stumble upon something amazing that’s really worth sharing.

The first one we have for you is Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), an Island just 15km from Nagasaki, that looks like a battleship.

The Island was once the most densely populated place on earth. It’s only 400 by 140 meters big and had 5,259 people living there at the same time. This means all the areas are packed with buildings and the gaps between the roofs are tiny (if you know what I mean).

But why did so many people live on such a tight place?
Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and used it to mine coal until petroleum became more popular and the island was of no use anymore.

So in 1974 Mitsubishi announced the closing of the mine and 5000 people left their home’s, which are still in the same place and untouched today. The whole place looks like an amazing location to film a video, no wonder the sequel to the japans cult-movie “Battle Royale” was shot on the island. The whole place looks like it’s packed with Freerunning spots. But at the same time the place is falling apart, so every jump is fucking dangerous.

 


Stairs and balcony’s like this have to be around everywhere. Of course we jizzed in our pants, when we first saw this pictures and 20 seconds afterwards I was trying to understand  japanese websites, because I wanted to find out how to get there.

Apparently there is a guided boat tour to the island twice a day. But they only show you around a few buildings and you would never be allowed to go and jump around.

 

Hope dies last, maybe one day somebody will find a way. Until then, check out this small documentary:

 

 

Storm Freerun Clothing

17 Mar storm preview

Here at Farang HQ we care about a great many things. One of those things is fashion. We love to look at styles and trends in the world that help to carve out an identity for different groups, particularly in our very own discipline. However we feel it’s ironic that a sport that prides itself on personal expression and creativity in it’s movement, doesn’t have nearly the same depth and diversity when it comes to a sense of fashion for itself. Quite the contrary, we seem to be coming up with increasingly unoriginal ways to put the same unaltered logos on the same boring cuts in the same over the top colors. How many times have you rocked up to a jam to witness a bunch of guys dressed like a group of Teletubbies (or whatever Saturday morning kids special you grew up watching)?

We believe that the best way forward for Freerunners is to progress in multiple facets. In our movement, in our thinking, and in the way we present ourselves. Everything that tells the world who we are. This section is where we’ll share with you what WE think deserves recognition. As a place to spotlight our favorite gear in the world of Freerun fashion.

Our first pick is none other then Storm Freerun. These guys first exploded on to the scene in August of 2010, releasing a teaser entitled “Storm Freerun – The Calm Before”. Invidually all members had been around in the freerun world for many years, but this video introduced the group as an elite team of some of UK’s finest freerunners in a cinematic way that had never been demonstrated before. After much anticipation, on the 17th of November 2010 Storm released their first video Storm Freerun vol.1 and quickly became a viral hit.

Apart from the amazing tricks and beautiful cinematography, it wasn’t hard to notice the slightly unorthodox, if not deliberate, fashion style that was displayed by the guys. In particular from team members Jan Barcikowski and Tim “Livewire” Shieff.

Jan wearing short cut jeans and a ridiculously sized tank top which once you get over the initial shock it’s not that unpleasant.

Tim changing it up from the typical loose fit tracky’s and choosing tighter more fashionable pants, and we think it lookes DOPE! It takes a real man to shop for pants out of the women’s section.

For years the typical freerun fashion has always been the generic black or grey track pants and a black T-shirt or tank top, and it’s not hard to understand why. The first generation of Parkour and Freerunning atheletes rocked that dark and dirty look and made that shit look cool! The look became part of the myth of what a real practitioner was suppose dress like. We were (and still are) hugely influenced by David Belle and many others, who wore this style of clothing in some of the original videos released on the internet. Naturally people wanted to copy his style which led to what most of us wear today. And in twenty year almost nothing has challenged this dominant style. Not really, or at least not in a significant way.

Enter Storm Clothing

Storm are bringing it up a notch now. Not content with just decking themselves out, but they are now also producing clothing for their recently announced online store. So far there are only a couple of items available, but rumour has it that Jan is currently working hard on some new designs. There is one shirt they annouced with their first season of clothing that really hits the spot we us. The Dame De’Luck T-Shirt.

We can all relate to the signifcance of Lisses in our sport and we all had those dreams of climbing to the top of the great Dame and we beleive this T-Shirt was perfectly designed to capture some of that spirit.

So then we are left with the question: Can we change the fashion of Freerunning and do we want too?
Can we have a unique style, which is universally recognized as freerunning fashion? A sense of fashion that we’d be proud to hold onto even after we are done with training for the day?

Of course we can, and we think Storm Clothing is a step in the right direction.

Have a look at what the guys are up to here and tell us what you think about Freerunning Fashion in the comments:
www.stormfreerunlondon.com

In Focus: ANDY DAY

17 Mar native_vault
“Give respect, earn it back” -Andy Day

 

Andy Day or “Kiell” has been around the Parkour-Community since 2003. Many amazing photographers had their take on Parkour, but Andy Day isn’t just another photographer deciding to take some Parkour pictures to make his portfolio a little bit more interesting.

Andy took his first pictures of UrbanFreeflow in 2003 and evolved to a full-on professional photographer through the love to Parkour and Photography. We hooked up with him and asked 10 Questions, have a look.

Q1. How did you start taking pictures of Freerunning?

I was studying a Master’s degree in 2003 in American Film and Literature that I never finished. One of the elective modules was about urban representation in film which looked at how we understand the city through movies and television.

I’d seen a glimpse of Parkour on late night TV and wondered if it might be something worth investigating. I spoke to my tutor – a big fan of street photography and skateboarding – who loved the idea and I then spent a fortnight sifting through the internet in search of anything and everything to do with Parkour. Back then this wasn’t much – a handful of french forums and a load of grainy videos that could be downloaded, often in a format you couldn’t watch. This was a couple of years before YouTube came on the scene. I finally found UrbanFreeflow’s tiny forum and website and it turned out that they were about to meet up for the third time ever – April 2003.

I drove to London, picked up Blue Devil on the way despite us having never met before,and spent the day hanging out at the Leap of Faith next to Liverpool St and the Barbican. No one really knew what we were doing or why, but there was a tremendous sense of fun. I met Ez, Kerbie, Asif, Hassan, Bam, The Saiyans and a few others. I was there just to experience it and chat to these guys and took a load of photographs at the same time.

I’d not really taken many photos before and I was just using the automatic settings on a cheap SLR that I’d barely used before. I stuck the photos online as best I could and it went from there. People liked the photos, I wanted to take more and I started training and becoming more and more involved with what was then a tiny community.

 

Q2. What equipment do you use? Do you have a favoorite camera/lens?

I use a Canon EOS 5D Mark 1. I’m waiting for the day that I can upgrade to a Mark 3. However, they’re expensive so I will probably be waiting for a while!
The lens I use the most is the Canon EF 16-35mm L which is THE best lens in the world. I was lucky enough to be invited to do an advert for Canon back in 2006 and they paid me with Canon equipment.

 

 

Q3. You travelled a lot, what is your favorite city in the world?

Though question. There’s so many. Jyväskylä because MrSpidey and the Finnish guys are just incredible people. The day we spent training in Genoa in Italy was magical – so many people came to meet us when we visited. Same in Rome and Turin. Managua in Nicaragua was surreal. Bangkok and Mumbai were both pretty crazy. Too hard to choose. I’ve often said that the best way to experience a new city is in the company of a resident tracer, so the answer is probably anywhere that I’ve not been to yet where there’s some who can take me straight to the best Parkour Locations that it has to offer. :D

Q4. Out of the 100s of pictures on your site, do you have a favorite, if you could show one picture to represent your style of photography which one would it be?

Difficult to have a favorite, but there are ones that I’m proud of for lots of different reasons – capturing something that was totally unexpected or required some real hard work before I could get a result. The photo I took in Hampi in India is probably the best photograph I’ve ever taken, because it’s not like anything else. Thomas was keen to do the jump and it was fucking massive with no margin for error. I was also the culmination of a truly epic trip – riding a motorbike across India.

As for one that represents my style? Probably anything with Sticky or Thomas Couetdic in it. The photographs I take are all about people and those two embody the spirit of adventure and athleticism that I love.

Q5. What do you like to do in your spare time?

There’s no such thing as spare time. I’m completely addicted to rock climbing. As I live in London it’s hard to get out on to the real rock unfortunately. I can almost eat/sleep/climb/photograph/earn money in combination but usually something gives way. One of the five will always suffer, because of the other four.

 

Q6. What is the hardest thing when taking Freerunning images?

Having the stubbornness to carry on when it feels like nothing is working.

 

Q7. What’s the biggest trouble a picture ever got you in?

Nothing too bad. I once spent a day photographing with Sticky in the most incredible location which required some amazing climbing to get access. We spent 8 hours exploring a place where no one had set foot in almost twenty years. However no one will ever see the photos as I would immediately be charged with trespass and unlawful entry. All very innocent, however. We just wanted to see what was there – didn’t damage anything and didn’t steal anything.

Other than that, I almost ran into a bit of trouble in Managua whilst out on my own scouting for locations. A handful of police officers carrying shotguns ran over and escorted me out of a park cos they were worried that I was about to get stabbed. Not a nice part of town, apparently. Still quite grateful to them.

 

 

 

 

 

Q8. Your first book has the title “The Moment Between” what do you mean and what does it mean to you?

I travelled around Italy in 2008 with Thomas Couetdic and Blane. When I first learned about our trip, I wanted to go everywhere as quickly as possible and experience as many cities as possible. When I realized we were going to be travelling in a 30year old car I was worried that it would take too long.

Afterwards I realized that taking pleasure in the journey is as important – if not more important – than the journey itself. It’s almost like the moves between moves that happen in Parkour;  yes, the big bits are important, but it’s when you combine them with the moves between moves that you create flow. I got a much better understanding of Italy because, not only did we visit lots of amazing places, we saw everything else in between – the bits that give you a much more authentic experience.

 

Q9. After so many years of shooting Freerunning, what keeps you going and what inspires you?

People and places. I want to travel, experience the incredible Parkour-Community in as many places as possible. Find new locations. And go on adventures.

 

 

Q10. How does it feel to have your photography exhibited?

Amazing. I’m incredibly privileged and very proud. A lot of hard work has gone into the images over the years so it’s wonderful to see them printed. Something that I really wasn’t expecting.

 

 

 

Q11. Last question, what’s your number one tip for a beginner, who wants take Freerunning pictures?

No one thing I’m afraid, but there’s a small handful of tips that I’ve given to people asking photography advice:

  1. Take lots of photographs
  2. Learn lots of skills
  3. Meet as many people as you can and be nice: give respect, earn it back.

 

If you still can’t get enough of Andy’s amazing work, follow his blog (http://kiell.tumblr.com/) and check out his homepage (http://kiell.com/)!