Hopes were high as we flew into Belfast to meet up with Greg, to take on the Irish on their own country, Alas any thoughts of taking home any precious metal from the U17 Gold event were soon dashed when first match opponent’s Jonathan Dolan and Adam Jermyn proved just too strong, the match being lost in two games 17-21 and 18-21.

Falling at the first hurdle - Greg Mairs and Rob Spink

However in their next match the English pair managed to rescue some pride, coming out on top of a very tight match against Matthew Getty and Martin Lau 22-20, 13-21, 24-22

If all seems lost you might as well prey!

Rob had a tough singles draw losing both his matches, Greg faired much better winning his group before losing to number two seed and the winner of Rob’s group, Ruaraidh Sim 16-21, 3-21.

Ruaraidh Sim - N.Ireland

Jack Kinmond - England

Jonathan Dolan - Ireland

James Scott - England

More English success in the girls doubles saw Becky Crawshaw and Nicole Burgess win the final 21-12, 18-21, 21-18 against Rae Lamour and Jessica Wilkins also from England.

Nicole Burgess and Becky Crawshaw - England

To see and purchase all the Action Photographs from the U17 and U13 Tournament please visit the gallery page of www.actionphotography.co.uk best regards.

Alan.

Andrew Smith - Rajiv Ouesph - Carl Baxter

In the men’s singles Andrew Smith will be competing in his first Nationals at the Manchester Velodrome, He will be hoping to at least reach the final where he will face either the reigning champion Rajiv Ouesph or maybe Carl Baxter depending on how the draw works out.

Fontaine Chapman - Panuga Riou - Helen Davies - Liz Cann

Liz Cann must feel she is in with a good chance of wining back the title she lost last year in the dramatic fight with Jill Pittard, as Jill has decided not to defend her crown so it will be interesting to see who will step up to challenge, Helen Davies seams to be the most likely opponent in the final but youngsters Panuga Riou and Fontanie Chapman will be snapping at her heels.

Jenny Wallwork and Gabby White

With Donna Kellogg now retired, this will almost certainly open the door for Jenny Wallwork and Gabby White to claim the Ladies doubles title for the first time. I really cannot see anyone standing in the way of the now 10th world ranked Yorkshire pair.

The men’s and mixed doubles will see some great matches as we have the two big guns of  Nathan Robertson and Anthony Clark up against Robert Blair and Chris Adock. Clark will be going for his 10th men’s doubles title but Blair and Adcock will not let him have it without a fight.

Nathan and Anthony - Chris and Robert

The mixed doubles is perhaps the final which will throw up the biggest surprise, Anthony will be playing with Heather Olver for the first time in the Nationals. Whilst this will be Nathan and Jenny’s second year, they will want to improve on last years result of being dumped out at the semi-finals by a fine performance from Sarah Bok and Chris Langridge or will this be the year that Chris Adcock and Gabby White rise to the top? They are now well established and must be growing in confidence all the time.

Nathan and Jenny

Heather and Anthony

So could it be two titles for Gabby? and/or number ten for Anthony? Will the established players be hanging on to those titles for a little longer or has the time come for the new kids on the block? We will have to wait and see. Don’t forget you can find out more about the event and follow all the news from the championships by visiting the dedicated website – www.nationalbadmintonchamps.co.uk  

Chris and Gabby

I will be there photographing for all three days, anyone interested in buying photographic prints from the event can do so via this link :-

or from the www.actionphotography.co.uk website. If you require digital images for editorial or promotional purposes please give a ring on 0779 903 6270 or email me on alan@actionphotography.co.uk

COPYRIGHT OF ALL TEXT and IMAGES – ALAN SPINK

News from the world of  Badminton, English U11, U13, U15, U17 and U19 National Championships, reports and photos, Also English Nationals, 100th All England Championships and European Individual Championships.

My hope is that this will become an interesting and worthwhile exercise. If you have any input (events/words/photos) which you would like to see posted here, please get in touch, alan@actionphotography.co.uk  .  In the mean time, while you are waiting:-

 http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/badminton/default.stm

Hey it’s me on the BBC!! :- http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7876093.stm shooting the England team before they went off to the World Championships in India. Don’t blink or you’ll miss it

and

http://www.badmintonengland.co.uk/news.asp?section=13&sectionTitle=News

also

http://www.badmintonwarwickshire.co.uk/

and not forgetting the brilliant Derinda!

http://www.bigbadmintonblog.co.uk/ 

One of the best Matches I’ve ever seen….

Taufik to win the All England 2010?

regards

Alan

So, the good pionts, December produced some last minute work which was very welcome and best of all, the free time has alowed me make new friends, all of which I hope to working with for many years to come, So in no perticuler order, Hi to Natalie , Norman, Phil and Matt. Some of you are very new to the photography world and others have a few more years under your belts, but all of you have reminded me of why we continue to do what we do and no matter how much you think you know, even old dogs can learn new tricks.

 I don’t normally do self portatits but using a few tips from Norman, here is a shot taken by an old friend David Griffiths:-

Anyone who know’s me well will spot what’s wrong with the photo? A free 20×16 print to the first correct answer sent to:- alan@actionphotography.co.uk  

Old Friends and looking forward to 2010, Last event of the year will be on the 27th Dec, The 24 hour Badminton event at Barnt Green, Thanks for the invite Reggie, I promise I’ll bring Rob and stay for a few fun and games!

The first event of 2010 will be the the National Cyclo-X Championships at Sutton Park on Jan 9th and 10th, I’ve been covering this event since I was a teenager and its still one of my favourites, a great way to start the year.

Just before I wish you all a Happy Christmas two more images, the first is of an old friend. The Porsche 936 driven to victory at the 1981 Le Mans 24 hour race by Jackie Ickx and Derek Bell, I have in my collection a shot of Jackie Ickx sitting on top the car after the race and here it is again at this years 1000k event at Silverstone:

Still looking stunning in its Martini Racing colours, 28 years after that Le Mans win.

And my other image is from a swimming event taken in November, shot with flash, directly from above the pool.

Definitely looking forward to experimenting further in the new year.

So at last, with today’s brief fall of snow (see below) Happy Christmas and prosperous New Year.

 Cheers  Alan. 

The Oldest Bridge on the Grand Union Canal - a short walk from home.

Rachel - Jenna - Lani

British Kayak Championships – Indoors! -

No water! how do they do that then? Well it’s all down to the genius of Grayson Bourne at www.kayakpro.com and his amazing machines. Never afraid to photograph something different off we went to Brunel University, to capture the action and hopefully make some new friends? Away from the frenzy of the competition we also had a chance to shoot a few portraits of the guys and girls taking part – best regards to Rachel Cawthorn, Jenna Hawley and Lani Belcher, pictured, left:-

Also had a bit fun with one of the images of Jenna:-

Jenna Hawkey

 For more info on Jenna you can find her at :-  http://www.jennahawkey.co.uk/ Olympic medal hopeful Jenna is always looking for support and sponsorship, please help if you can?

cheers

Alan

Liz has just come back from injury and I hope to we working with her again the near future.

Regards

Alan.

Mark Sellwood for Ashaway

Badminton racket and string manufacturer Ashaway have purchased on of my images for use on their website and the front page of their product catalouge.

The photo of  Warwickshire player Mark Sellwood can just be seen peeping out from behind the main title graphic.

For more info about Ashaway products please visit www.ashaway.co.uk

Mark Sellwood details can be found on his website www.marksellwood.com

Nationals Badminton Poster 2010

Nice surprise today. The  poster for the English National Badminton Championships 2010 was unveiled on the www.badmintonengland.co.uk website. 

The shot of Jenny Wallwork is one of mine from last years event. Great to see some emotion from one of England’s stars of the future, go girl!

looking forward to next years event of course. If you see me there, don’t be shy, always happy to chat.

Alan.

Time to dust off the cheque book and replace my aging D1 MKIIn, well yes, along with half the photographers on the planet. If you shoot indoors without flash then is probably going to be a must have camera. However if you shoot mainly outdoors you may want to wait awhile for the fuss to die down, why? well you could think like this. In good light (ok I know the MKIII had some problems in bright sun). Is this really going to be worth spending £4.5K over what your shooting with at the moment?

Oh look, aready got my 50mm 1.4 attached!

My guess is that yes you will see an improvement in the quality of the images (pixels and sharpness, please, please sharpness!) But and this is the big but will it make you a better photographer?   I still think good and great photos are created by guys and girls who really know what they are doing and not the black box of tricks in their hands? Good light,  An understanding of what your shooting, different and usual composition, is what will make you images stand out from the crowd, not which camera you use.

So will I be blowing next years mortgage one of these babies, well yes! As I spend half my life shooting fast sports in trully horrible lighting, then I’d be daft not to! When? Well my next letter will be starting “Dear Santa”.

Cheers.

Alan.

 Over the last few weeks I’ve been working for www.mysportspix.net and we have been trialing version 2.1.26 of www.eventphotosytems.com event software. I have to say at first I was less than impressed with both the software and the the need to have multiple laptops out on display, but at the end of the first day I changed my mind, while I still feel there is room for improvement, particularly with the customer screen display, the software does work well and we have now had three successful events under our hats.

Looking forward to seeing version 3.

Regards

Alan.