Photos from Europeans | Golden Skate

Photos from Europeans

La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
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Aug 9, 2006
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United-Kingdom
Anna, I don't know how you do it! :bow: :bow: :bow:

Thank you very much, they are stunning photos!!! :clap:

Not only live reports, background info, news, and photos too, you're amazing!

Your beautiful pics even made me like Sinead Kerr's new Tango dress for Warsaw, I had preferred her old dress from the GPs, but your photos brought out it's gorgeous detail. :agree:
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
amazing photos!

can I ask what camera you use and the lens(es)? :)

oh and what program do you use to make your online albums?
 

Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
amazing photos!

can I ask what camera you use and the lens(es)? :)

oh and what program do you use to make your online albums?

Camera is Nikon D70 with Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lenses. It's actually upgrade, before this season I used budget Nikkor 80-300 (I think) 3.0-5.6 lenses, and while f2.8 costs a fortune, it is really worth it.

And I don't use any special the program, I just work on each photo, then upload them to the website and let the photo gallery script take care of them. Unfortunately, you see still have to type in the names manually, and if you later want to re-sort photos (something I've really fallen behind this year) you have to assign the keywords manually as well.
 
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Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
Special thanks for the Finnstep demonstration pics. I absolutely love this new CD and can't wait for it to be on the schedules. :love:

My favourite one is http://photo.fsonline.ru/displayimage.php?album=496&pos=39 :D It's Susanna showing how you have to do little jumps and hops, while maintaining the strict upperbody positions and holds. It was hilarious.

Another funny thing was then Kati&Rene did the dance for the last time, Petri and Susanna started to critisize them telling how they let it turn sloppy, not precise enough, timing was a bit off etc... and Kati&Rene pretended to look embarrased :laugh:
 

La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
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Aug 9, 2006
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Awww, thanks for the descriptions, :laugh: and that is the perfect analysis of the Quickstep, light. trippy feet, whilst maintaining good Ballroom hold, I think this will fox some couples, but pleeeease ISU fast track it into competition, and such a pity we didn't have you to cover the Rhumba D'Amour demo Anna, from Lalique a few years ago,....still waiting to see that one. :frown:
 

Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
Tell me :frown: After attending this one I'm biting my elbows (do you have such a phrase in English?) that I was far too lazy to get up so early to see Rhumba d'Amour presentation in Paris... I thought it would be something very formal and since I don't really understand ice dancing technique pretty boring as well... So I tried to catch up on all the lost sleep. General schedule for Lalique means going to bed at 2-3 past midnight on Friday to get up at 6-7 to see FD practice on Saturday morning, followed by going to bed at 3-4 on Saturday night... combine it with two overnight train rides and the fact that I was supposed to be back at work in research center in Germany on Monday, sharp and sound... I suppose it sounded like a reasonable choice at the time.

But now I am completely :banging: :banging: :banging: about not going...
 
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La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
Medalist
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Country
United-Kingdom
Aww, don't beat yourself up over it Anna, it's understandable you should need some sleep, and the schedule in Paris is not spectator/reporter friendly....:sheesh:

The expression we use in English is: "I'm still kicking myself!", but I like your one very much! It's a funny variation! :laugh:

Whereas I would say that Kati & Rene were the perfect couple to demonstrate the Quickstep, from an experienced friend I heard that B&A were a little immature at the time to fully interpret T&D's Rhumba, which would be hard for any couple, but they coped with the difficult moves okay. With that dance, it's not just steps, but a tricky variation in positions for the man, and that makes it interesting, when so many dances are focussed on the woman. I still live in hope that we'll see it on the schedules one day, and that maybe somebody filmed the demo and it'll turn up on youtube! lol! :agree:
 

Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
It's not mine :laugh:, just a literal translation from Russian. Never it understood its origin, but that's what we say in such cases :laugh:

BTW, is it true that Rhumba d'Amour was supposed to be only 1 pattern? Sounded very weird to me, since I always thought that repeating the pattern in exactly the same manner is something that really separates the best teams from the rest of couples...
 

La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
Medalist
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Country
United-Kingdom
It's not mine :laugh:, just a literal translation from Russian. Never it understood its origin, but that's what we say in such cases :laugh:

:laugh: I guess it's an accurate interpretation, as it would be just as hard to 'bite your elbows' as it would to 'kick yourself'.....[I just tried both!] :laugh:

BTW, is it true that Rhumba d'Amour was supposed to be only 1 pattern? Sounded very weird to me, since I always thought that repeating the pattern in exactly the same manner is something that really separates the best teams from the rest of couples...

It was quite a different CD altogether compared to the norm......

Here's some info written online 2 years ago by British journalist Sandra Stevenson, btw she saw it demonstrated at Worlds in America, not Paris:

The Rhumba d'Amour was demonstrated by Belbin & Agosto in a very
formative stage at the Dance meeting at the Washington Worlds. Because
the holds and steps were very different, names had to be devised for
them which took time.
Only one sequence will be performed which will take one and a half
circuits of the rink. To do more would take too much time and to try
to reduce it to one circuit would spoil the essence.
Courtney Jones, ISU Council member recently confirmed that the plan is
to have the original music Torvill and Dean used for the 1994 Olympics
as the warm-up music and that six other pieces have been selected to
alternate in competition.
It is believed it will be adopted as an official compulsory by the
Council meeting this summer. Presumeably it will then go into the list
of compulsories which will be drawn for more minor events, as happened
with the Midnight Blues, before being advanced into Grand Prix and ISU
championship events.
It was a wonderful piece of choreography but whether it will be suited
to today's dancers remains to be seen. It is not speedy. Whether
others can recreate the emotion and sensuality that T&D were able to
convey remains to be seen.

I later read an article that Bernard Ford was helping to write down the pattern to the manual, so that coaches and dancers could learn the steps, [that's the most laborius and difficult part according to Kati Winkler who is creating a new Jive CD with Rene Lohse], but it has never got beyond this stage AFAIK.....any updates, much appreciated. :bow:
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
Camera is Nikon D70 with Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 lenses. It's actually upgrade, before this season I used budget Nikkor 80-300 (I think) 3.0-5.6 lenses, and while f2.8 costs a fortune, it is really worth it.

And I don't use any special the program, I just work on each photo, then upload them to the website and let the photo gallery script take care of them. Unfortunately, you see still have to type in the names manually, and if you later want to re-sort photos (something I've really fallen behind this year) you have to assign the keywords manually as well.


I'm familiar with the Nikon. I'm not a fan of the brand, but they are pretty good cameras :) I'm a canon fan myself ;)

thanks for the info though! GREAT photos again!
 

Anna

On the Ice
Joined
Jan 26, 2004
Here's some info written online 2 years ago by British journalist Sandra Stevenson, btw she saw it demonstrated at Worlds in America, not Paris...

It definitely was in Paris as well, I remember the announcment. I suppose it was the same as with Finnstep, the presentation in Warsaw was sort of "first glimpse", and the dance will be officially presented at Junior Worlds, I think.

Thanks for info on T/D rhumba. Sounds weird. But then, Finnstep is stop-jump on the toe picks-and-go dance, with strange pattern (along the judges side and the back almost at midline), which actually looked better from the "other side"... So I suppose ISU is really looking for new approaches to CDs...
 

La Rhumba

Supporting All British Skaters!
Medalist
Joined
Aug 9, 2006
Country
United-Kingdom
Oh, I hadn't heard about the further unveiling of the Finnstep at JW, thanks for the update, looking forward to that. :)

Yes, I had only known about the Rhumba demo at Lalique, until Sandra wrote about the Washington one, which was a complete surprise to me. I guess now that the OD is a much freer dance, and more like a mini-FD, compared to the early days of the OSP, it'll be more difficult to adapt dances into CDs. The original requirement for the OSP when it was introduced to the Dance competition - before that it was about 6 CDs and an FD - was to create a dance yourself that could be adapted as a CD, ie with choreo of steps and no lifts, going in one direction in a circuit of the rink, and repeated 3 times.....amazing that T&D were able to create such magical and memorable OSPs with that strictly limited blueprint. :bow:
 
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