Table Tennis Shoot

Last week we completed a fabulous shoot with Draycott and Long Eaton Table Tennis Club. It was a shoot that’s taken 15 months to pull off… but it was definitely worth the wait!

I first photographed table tennis at the Nationals in Nottingham (Feb ‘20). I loved the action but found it difficult to get clean backgrounds and the lighting wasn’t great. I left determined to set up a staged shoot to capture some of the iconic shots I’d seen.

I certainly struck gold when I contacted Draycott and Long Eaton Table Tennis Club. They’re a very professional club with an impressive pedigree for producing elite players. Their Head Coach, Phil Vickers, was my liaison and he has been a dream to work with. Our first recce visit was pre-lockdown and we discussed the set up we’d need and how I would light it. Phil was onboard right from the off and he has really made my job easy.

The shoot was put on hold for 15 months because of Covid but when the day finally arrived we turned up to find everything waiting for us just as we’d discussed - plus a list of 20 top players to photograph. Phil was the ball feeder all night and he was also my photography director - he instinctively knew the best angles for the shots. Happy days!

We shot for 5 hours & I took 3,400 images which I’ve whittled down to 1,400 keepers - so many keepers is testament to the quality of the players. The image below is just one of them and it’s one of Phil’s daughter Emma. Emma was former National Junior Champion, 4 x National Schools Champion and 3 x National U21 Champion and is now a Board Member of Table Tennis England.

Alex shot loads of footage and the Behind the Scenes video is below too.

It was a brilliant shoot and Marlies, Alex and myself loved every minute of it… so much so that we plan to return in the New Year and try a few different techniques like second curtain sync on the flash. This should give a nice slow motion effect on the ball up to the point of impact.

Emma Vickers

The shoot

Images like this are only possible with set up shoots.

The Nationals, Nottingham, Feb ‘20 - this was the first place I photographed table tennis.

Table Tennis Workups

Just worked up a couple of table tennis images. Both need a lot of work doing to the backgrounds as they were very messy, but other than that fairly simple edits which took a couple of hours.

The original Raw images

Table Tennis - at last I get an opportunity!

I first approached Table Tennis England two years ago to seek permission to photograph at high level competitions. They were happy to give me a press pass but it turned out I’d just missed the once a year Nationals. Once the dates came out for the next year I discovered I was away on holiday! Anyway, finally yesterday I got my chance at the Mark Bates National Championships held at Nottingham University. Access was amazing, just a few metres from the players, but as always with indoor events lack of light was the main problem to overcome. I think I’ll get a few to work up though.