Ben Ely Photography: Project 365

Hello again. I have to apologize for my delay in 365 posts. This past couple of weeks has found me back logged in photography. But over the next several days I will be updating with posts to get us all caught up.

A couple of weeks ago, I had posted about a West Valley Arts Council event that was held in Surprise, AZ. I posted several photos of the Quetzal Guerrero portion of the event, but only teased about the Capoeira portion. For those that are unknown to Capoeira here is a brief excerpt from Wikipedia on the martial art:

"Capoeira is an Afro-Brazilian art form that combines elements of martial arts, sports, music, and dance. It was created in Brazil mainly by descendants of African slaves with Brazilian native influences, probably beginning in the 16th century. It is known by quick and complex moves, using mainly kicks and quick leg sweeps, with some ground and aerial acrobatics, knee and headbutts."

Berimbau

The show was put on by Group Axe Capoeira located here in the valley and based out of Chandler. The group was amazing and performed amazingly well. If given the chance it is definitely recommended that you see one of their demonstrations. As you can see from the photos, it is not just a martial arts demonstration but one of music as well. I personally enjoyed the martial art aspect as I have practiced other arts myself, but have always enjoyed the rhythmic moves, fluidity and dance aspect of Capoeira.

Drums

To photograph the performance I used my 70-300mm telephoto and shot in JPG which is a rarity for me as I usually shoot in RAW. The reason for this is that with such fast movement and constant changes, I had my camera set to its fastest drive mode. This allowed me to capture several photos all in 1 second. By shooting in JPG, my camera could handle the mass of photos entering it as well as store tons more than RAW, as JPGs are considerably smaller in size. The first photo line is for one such moment (the move looks to be a reverse 540 kick). The remainder of the photos are simply stills from such scenes, ranging from single performers to dual performers, "sparring."