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Rower Kevin Light's Blog: Focus on Beijing

Kevin is a member of the Olympic men's eight - a full list of crews is here .  

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Comments:

Kevin, I really appreciate and enjoy your articles; as one who has rowed in Corporate Challenge the past 12 yrs, practicing at Elk Lake, I've seen your team many times and am so proud of you all! Your photos are familiar, beautiful and sensitive, as are your articles. Thanks for sharing, and the very best of luck to you in Beijing!
Joanie

These pictures and stories are truly moving, and as a result, Kevin you are now my hero for the great work you have done to motivate me.
D. Munsel

I love the pictures and stories. ... Lots of fun. The stories accompanying the photos are also part of what makes these so memorable. They are inspiring me to get back on the erg and be ready for 2012! Alan Oldham

Preparing for the plunge - more than meets the eye

July 16, 2008

The next time you watch a live sporting event, pay special attention to what an athlete does when he or she is not in the spotlight. It is then you will see why the best athletes shine above the rest. Take, for example, Canadian diving champion Blythe Hartley. I had the opportunity to watch Blythe compete at the Canadian diving trials in Victoria, B.C. June 22. Some background: Blythe was born May 2, 1982 in Edmonton. She attended a national sports high school in Calgary before attending the University of Southern California. She is a two-time world champion and an Olympic bronze medalist at the 2004 Athens games.

At the Victoria trials, I was as impressed by her preparation as I was by her diving. On the pool deck every movement was planned, precise and confident. She overlooked no detail, and dove as though she had nothing to prove to anyone except herself. With each dive, she executed a complex combination of many simple movements in one flowing motion. Before each dive, she stood at the end of the diving board longer than the other women, visualizing the movements one last time, channelling all her energy and focus so that her thoughts would be brought to life in the form of a beautiful composed action. She lifted into the air for mere seconds before her toes would disappear quickly into the bottom of the pool. Grace is defined as a seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form, or proportion. Blythe Hartley brought grace to life at the pool that day.

It was not until after the competition that I saw any unfocused emotion come from her eyes or face. She was concerned only with herself and the actions that were under her control and nothing else. Blythe’s actions showed her to be not only the most skilled athlete in the competition, but also the most selfish one. While selfishness is generally frowned upon in everyday life (and I’m sure Blythe’s personality away from the pool is much different than her personality at the pool), her self-focus during competition is an example of the balance an athlete must strike in placing one’s needs and desires above those of others around you. While Blythe stood on the board moments before take off she must believe 100 per cent that she has done everything possible to win. Asking your body and mind for everything it possibly has to give is a characteristic for which all athletes strive, but few attain. Those who stand apart have the mental ability to squeeze the last drops out of their body, even when it is tired or not motivated to succeed. That day in Victoria, I witnessed an athlete who was completely in the moment focused only on herself and what she could control.

Leaving Lucerne : Is this a final goodbye to the Rotsee?

June 09, 2008

As I returned home from what may be my last World Cup race in Lucerne, I began thinking about the many times I have raced on the Rotsee. My first ever international race was on this famous Swiss course in 2000 in the Under-23 pair with Joe Stankevicius and with Brian Price as my coach. It was also where I raced my first World Championship race as a senior in 2001. Lucerne is probably the most beautiful rowing course and most prestigious of all World Cup races. One image that sticks in my mind comes not from atop the podium, but from on shore. I recall looking out over the course flanked by steep hills on either side, as we took apart out boat and loaded it onto the trailer. In the quiet calm after the race, you can still hear the cow bells but not from the fans in the stands but from the necks of the cows that reside on the nearby hills.

This year, I was fortunate enough to win the race for a fourth time and I was chosen by FISA for a random drug test. While I stood next to my drug chaperone and watched the team take apart the boat without me, I was struck by the precision and co-operation I saw. Each crew member was doing a separate job, moving in separate directions, but with the same flow and teamwork they had exhibited moments ago on the water – taping up riggers, undoing bolts, attaching bungies to the seats and collecting the nuts and bolts into a small bag. And it was all being done without our coxswain, Brian, yelling us instructions. Even our team doctor helped tape and labeled the backstays after they had been removed from the riggers.

Taking apart the boat has always been the responsibility of the rowers and coach for as long as I’ve been a member of the national team. It is part tradition, part respect for the boat. Plus rowers don’t trust anybody else to do it right! There is something special about the time the nine guys spend putting together the boat before the race and taking it apart after. Even after an exhausting 2000-metre race, nobody complains. As I watched this scene from a distance, I looked at our doctor and wondered if he saw the same unselfish teamwork in his other work with professional sports teams. Like the bookends of the regatta, the boat ritual speaks to the unselfish personality that seems to be common among rowers. In an eight the team comes before any individual. Trust must be built on and off the water so when we are put under pressure at race time we rise up and defend our ground as a team rather than as eight individuals. This year we left Lucerne with another win. We took apart our boat and loaded it into a container headed for Beijing where it will be waiting to be put back together, raced it and taken apart for the final time.
I shot this photo of the men’s eight members de-rigging their boat after winning the final. You will notice that the boat is in two sections. Eights must be built in two parts because in Europe the boat at full length is too long to be legally transported on a public road. The photo was taken with an aperture of 4.0 and a shutter speed of 1/1000.

Spring arrives after a grueling winter of training

May 13, 2008

The sound of an ice scraper on my car windshield breaks the stony silence on dark winter mornings. Each day black sky surrounds me as I pull into the parking lot of the Elk Lake training facility. The dark tunnel of winter training is long and grueling. It beats on a rower’s body day after day until it seems even walking another step is a struggle. The training volume is high during this time, though the mental stress is relatively low. That begins to change slowly but surely as the season progresses and the mornings become longer and lighter. Soon enough I begin to hear the sound of morning birds. Their songs remind me that winter training will soon be over and a new racing season is upon us.
This is the time of year when rowers are seriously evaluated and put under increased pressure to perform. The training volume declines, but the intensity and importance of each practice increases. Coaches know they must begin their selection process for the upcoming racing season; there is added pressure on both athletes and coaches, especially in an Olympic year. I have been through Olympic selections three times since 2000. I was 20 years old during my first trials and looking back it is little wonder that I didn’t make the cut that year. Not only was I not good enough, but I hadn’t yet learned when to raise my game. Each selection process since then has been different depending on the coach and the dynamic of the crew. But one aspect has always remained the same; regardless of how good you are (or think you are), you must be ready to show your coach how fast you can move a boat from point A to point B. Boat speed is paramount and a coach must choose the fastest crew, not the friendliest one. A coach must also tread a fine line. He or she must be kind enough to be a friend, but distant enough to be a leader.
I chose this picture of a mother duck and her ducklings taken on the dock of the Elk Lake training facility near Victoria, B.C. because it reminds me of the kind of relationship I believe is essential between a coach and an athlete. A duckling’s trust in its mother is implicit. Similarly an athlete who is determined to succeed must have confidence in the person chosen to guide him. However, athletes are not born with this confidence in their coach; it must be earned and developed through the training and selection process. A healthy relationship between athletes and their coach helps build confidence and trust among team mates. So as the seasons change and the team builds toward a competition, the athletes can prepare themselves for the day when – just like the ducklings – they too will have to take on the world on their own.
The depth of field in this photo brings the focus to the mother duck and her ducklings rather than the sculler in the background. I shot the photo using an aperture of F/8 and a shutter speed of 200. The focal length was 90mm. I was close to the ducks relative to the rower, which also decreased the depth of field. Had I chosen to bring both the rower and the ducks into focus I would have had to decrease the aperture, moving the F-stop from F/8 to F/22, thus increasing the depth of field. Experimenting with aperture and shutter speed adds a fun technical challenge to my photography. Through correcting my mistakes it allows me to discover new things about light, exposure and how the camera works.

Braving the elements is part of being a champion

April 21, 2008

When is the last time it snowed in Victoria in mid-April as it did this past week? Given the crazy weather we have been dealing with lately, this photo seems a very appropriate choice. It reminds me of the weather extremes of rowing, and how I have to treat each season equally if I want to continue improving.
Growing up, I was a typical Canadian kid who was driven to hockey practice in the winter and soccer practice in the summer. When hockey season ended, soccer began; simple as that. That changed forever one day in 1997 when a saw a rowing poster hung on the hallway wall. Since that day 11 years ago, (with the exception of three, relaxing weeks in September post-World Championships), I have been training every day. Why? I must explore my body's upper limits, both physically and mentally, if I expect to excel. As this photo shows, these goals demand that training continue year round; in any weather. The idea of being an athlete who must deal not only with the physical pain of training but also with the ever-changing and challenging elements of nature is a very elegant challenge. Being surrounded by like-minded people further adds to that appeal. This photo is also a direct reminder to be a teammate who is fully committed to excellence not only in the summer months when the starting horn blasts, but also in the winter when freezing rain is pounding on the tin roof of the boathouse.
This photo of Elk Lake in Victoria combines two shots; one taken in the summer and the other in winter. The combination of two photos makes for an interesting and powerful image. Combining two photographs can be easily accomplished using programs such as Adobe Photoshop. The set-up and pre-planning requires that one takes the two photos from the same position. Using a tripod is helpful and almost a necessity to achieve this correctly. These photos were taken using a wide angle lens which is helpful when taking photos of landscapes. In this case, the entire dock at the Elk Lake boathouse is in view as well as Bear Hill seen in the background. The Pat Bay highway is to the right and the yellow dockside rower is visible in the bottom corner. In the winter photo, the rower in the red suit walking to get his oars is a bit blurry compared with the rowers in the background who are standing still. There was not enough available light to allow for a high enough shutter speed to capture his walking. In this case, I preferred having a correct exposure rather than a subject in focus. If the shutter speed had been increased, the photo would have been sharper but underexposed. I could have increased the ISO to allow for a higher shutter speed, but at the risk of reducing overall image quality.
This photo showing the contrast of rowing in all weather is both an inspiration and a reminder that medals are given out in the summer, but earned in the winter.

Behind the scenes of an Olympic Village

April 01, 2008

This week I have chosen to write about a photo that has little, if any, artistic or technical merit. The lighting in the photo is dull and there is nothing unique about its composition. However, I have selected it because of its content.

I took this photo while strolling through the Olympic Village in Athens during the 2004 Olympic Games. I turned my camera on the woman sitting in the window sill and found her lounging with a cigarette in hand. I was shocked. I wondered how an Olympic athlete or coach – someone supposed to be among the healthiest and fit in the world – could be smoking, an extremely unhealthy habit.

Athens was my first and, so far, only Olympic experience, and this was not the sort of image that I had associated with the Games. It was my first lesson in Olympic expectations. Back in 2000, I remember listening to a former roommate who had competed at the Sydney Olympics. He did not show me many pictures, but he told me stories about the Games and I began imagining and creating my own vision of life in the Olympic Village.

I painted a picture in my mind of a surreal, happy place with a carnival-like atmosphere. I imagined a village something between Disneyland and a new condo development. But what I discovered was much different. Although fully functional, the facilities at the athletes' village in Athens were not exactly what I had envisioned. Athletes slept in small rooms with two beds and a marble floor to keep the place cool. The village was large, but quiet. Most athletes went about their business, walking back and forth from their rooms to the cafeteria, occasionally stopping in at the Canadian athletes' lounge just outside our dorm. While the facilities were nothing to write home about, I felt most of my excitement coming from knowing that contained within the walls of the Olympic Village were the best athletes in the world.

This photo reminds me how unique the Olympic experience is and was, but it does more than that. It makes me realize that expectations and reality can be two very different things. And just as I was surprised to find someone smoking in the village, I was also caught out because of nobody's fault but my own at the increased level of intensity and focus needed at the Olympic Games. As we approach to the 2008 Games in Beijing expectations are once again very high. I will approach these games not forgetting about, but learning, from my past experiences. I will use them in a positive way to ensure that my goal of raising my level of focus to an Olympic level standard is met and that I have the honour of bringing home a gold medal for Canada.

Memories of training camps are created on and off the water

March 17, 2008

Here is a portrait of National Team rower Rob Weitemeyer. Although this photo is not a rowing shot, I chose it for its soft colours and interesting tones, and because it reminds me of the times we’ve spent as a team training in Europe during the summer racing months. Since 2003, the Canadian heavyweight men’s team has held our conditioning training camps in Italy in a small town called Erba. The atmosphere of this picturesque area of Italy, as well as the hospitality of our hosts, makes this the perfect setting to spend time training before heading to the big races in Europe.

As we arrive in Italy we have to adjust to the time change as well as a dramatic change in climate. It can get up to 40 degrees Celsius in Italy during our training sessions, which is quite a shock coming from the sea breezes of Victoria (our home base). During our first day of rest we decided to take a short trip to Bellagio. As we were wandering the streets, avoiding the suns rays, I noticed Rob leaning against a wall in an alleyway. He was in the shade even though the sun's rays were hitting the wall a few feet behind him. One of the reasons that I enjoy taking pictures in Europe is the unique character of the exterior walls as they are generally more textured and pastel coloured when compared with the surfaces in Canada. The red top Rob is wearing is a 2004 Athens Olympic team issue shirt. Rob rowed at the 2004 non-Olympic Worlds and was a spare for the Olympic team that year.

This photo was taken with a shutter speed of 1/160 with an aperture of 5.6 and a focal length of 33mm. The most interesting aspect is how the back wall is completely washed out and totally over exposed, while Rob's face still remains properly exposed showing off quite a lot of detail. This is possible because the camera was set to spot metering mode rather than the evaluative metering mode option. Spot metering allows the camera's sensor to calculate the exposure level based only on what is in the selected spot area, in this case Rob's face, and the rest of the frame can either be over or under exposed. In evaluative metering mode the camera's sensor does the opposite and tries to make sure the whole photograph is properly exposed.

I chose this photo because I appreciate the warmth and contrast as well as the story contained within it.

Follow Kevin's favourite photos documenting the lead up to this summer's Olympics

March 06, 2008

My name is Kevin Light. I’m a rower on the Canadian National Rowing Team based in Victoria, British Columbia. I’ve been a member of the team since 2000. That year I went to the Senior B World Championships paired with my friend Joe Stankevicius and coached by Brian Price. Both will be in my wedding party when I marry my fiancée, Zoe Hoskins, in Canmore this September. The name Hoskins may sound familiar to rowing fans. Zoe is sister to another Canadian rower, Andrew Hoskins. Over the years I’ve been enthusiastic about photography and have captured many great shots as I’ve trained, traveled and competed. In the coming months I’ll be posting some of my favourite photos and the stories behind them.

In this photo, Scott Frandsen is washing a four boat on the final day of the heavyweight men’s team training camp in San Francisco in February 2008. The boat is one of the oldest fours still in use by the men’s team. Barney Williams, Jake Wetzel, Tom Herschmiller and Cam Baerg rowed the boat to a gold medal at the 2003 World Championships, squeezing out the British team by a mere 1.63 seconds. You can tell the boat’s vintage by the red riggers lying on the ground; boat manufacturer Hudson Boat Works only used red riggers on boats supplied to the Canadian team in 2003.

The photo was snapped with a shutter speed of 1/400, an aperture of 5.6, and at a focal length of 100mm. I adjusted the shutter speed to capture the water droplets as sharply as possible. The spray from the hose and the drops coming off the boat appear crisp, while the rest of the photo is slightly underexposed. The shadow created by the light of the setting sun beneath the boat combined with the clarity of the water droplets gives the photo nice composition. If you look closely you can even see water falling from the heel of Scott’s right sandal as he reaches under the boat.

Whenever I post or look at photos, I look for three elements: the technical, the composition and the light. One of my biggest pet peeves is photos posted on the Internet that are out of focus. This photo combines solid technical understanding of how to use the camera, a mixture of light and dark elements and an interesting subject.

As we get closer to the Olympics I will be posting more photos here on the Rowing Canada website – some new ones chronicling our preparations for Beijing, and some of my favourites from years gone by.

Thanks for reading,
Kevin