Learn Photography Tips Blog

15 Awesome Sledging Photos (And How They Were Taken)

// February 25th, 2010 // Great Photo Collections (And How They Were Taken)

In honour of Britain’s first individual Winter Olympics gold medal for 30 years (Amy Williams, Women’s Skeleton) I’ve put together 15 fantastic sledging photos – including some little info on why I think they’re great, and how they were shot.

By Fictional Future

Fantastically frozen action using a fast shutter speed, interesting low viewpoint, gorgeous silhouette – one very powerful image!

By griff le riff

Great composition, with the sledgers nicely composed within the ‘rule of thirds’, and great faces!

By thehutch

Frozen action with a quick shutter speed of 1/500, and a ‘they’re coming right at me!’ feel about it.

By TBSteve

A fantastic use of ‘panning’, following the movement of the sledgers with the camera, whilst using a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/50 – a great sense of speed and action.

By ewanr

Another great panning photo, with a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/40 – effective!

By Stewart

I really like the light in this photo, and the wide 12mm angle shows us a lot of this intriguing scene (as a note on flickr says, ‘is that the invisible man’ sledging with you?)

By Sean Hickin

Lovely contrast of the sledgers’ dark clothes against the snow, and great composition to give them ‘room to move into’ within the photo.

By Owen’s

A different take on the sledgin theme, here we have a beautiful landscape shot. I love the light and sense of depth – gorgeous.

By Scorpions and Centaurs

Great contrast of colours, capturing the action of the child’s excitement brilliantly with a fast 1/1250 shutter speed, and using a relatively large aperture of f5.6 to retain focus on the subject and blur the people in the background – very nice work!

By Twak

A quick shutter speed of 1/320 freezes the action – and freezes those joyous faces! The black and white choice is also really effective as it brings a lovely contrast to the shot.

By Brocks the Converted

A mid-range zoom focal length of 93mm gets us close to this lovely scene of a mother pulling her children in a sledge – the beautiful light of the setting sun almost making them complete silhouettes, but still retaining some detail in their clothes – a great shot.

By ::hap

A fast shutter speed of 1/640 freezes this great scene of a sledger losing control. It’s a beautifully timed and taken shot, and the shocked/laughing faces in the background are brilliant.

By Anirudh Koul

The low and angled viewpoint creates an unusual image here, one that really works. A good example of shooting from viewpoints we’re not really used to seeing can truly pay off.

By twak

The telephoto focal length of 200mm, combined with the large aperture of f3.5 means the sledgers are emphasised by the background being blurred. The fast, but not too-fast, shutter speed of 1/250 means we still have a good sense of motion along with good sharpness.

By Stuant63

Fantastic panning on this shot – using a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/40 and moving the camera along with the sledger’s movement. This means the background is a streaky blur,  but the sledger’s face retains a lot of sharpness – a brilliant shot!

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