Brno Amazons first home win in nerve wrecking finish!

If you think the american football is the prerogative of men you have it completely wrong. The Women Czech American Football cup 2015 just started, and I had the privilege to witness an amazing match between Brno Amazons and Prague Black Cats.

The scoring was completely crazy, with Amazons leading 12:0 than Cats turn it over to 12:18,  but at the end it was really a game of inches, where the referee had to pull out the chains, and it gave the chance to Amazons to win the match 30:24.

We saw it all, hard hits, 22y pass TD from Kateřina Šlesingerová, 40y run TD from Alice Zábršová etc. check out the full results and score board here.

Plus one photo bonus. Have you ever seen a running back in action pointing out a finger at dragonfly? :)

See the full gallery from the match on WSI

EuroHockey Championship II

Recently I was approached by Scottish Hockey to shoot a team of Scotland at an EuroHockey Championship II in Prague. The first two teams will be promoted to Championship in 2017 so the stakes were quite high. The challenge for them was not only to beat the opponents, but also the extreme hot weather and for me personally D1 highway from Brno to Prague 5 times a week with lot of constructions happening during holiday period on the road.

Scotland lost the first match against Poland 2-1 and came strong in next one against Croatia 6-0.

The most extreme weather was on Wednesday 22nd, when Scotland played against Ukraine the most crucial match. A win will move them to semifinals, a loose to losers matches. It was tropical sunny day without a cloud and temperatures around 40 °C! Luckily for Scotland they played in white jerseys :) and with strong finish they beat Ukraine 6-3. 

The team was ready to take on the Austria on Friday semifinal match and secure the promotion post. Unfortunately the match ended 1-1 and it was time for shootout, where Scotland lost 3-1 and had to play for 3rd place on Sunday, which they secured later on with a win against Czech Republic 5-1. 

Though the promotion to EU championship didn't happen, with 3rd place and the tournament top scorer Alan Forsyth and MVP Kenny Bain, Scotland remains strong for the next to come and I wish them good luck in the future.

All images from EuroHockey Championship II are available on World Sports Images. 

It's time for a design update - NEW www.petrtoman.com!

After discovering that my web site is not compatible with mobile few months back, actually it was, but the way I designed the slideshow and background images it didn't work. It was time for a redesign. When I was looking for a new look, I wanted to keep it as simple as possible, clean, easy to use on tablets and without all the flashy things, complicated menus and clutter. Finally it should be about the pictures.

So I looked online for an inspiration, I thought maybe it is time to switch away from Smugmug, as I don't use it anymore for a storage of all my images, I recently moved everything to www.worldsportsimages.com at  Zenfolio.  I always liked Squarespace where I started 3 years ago, I also checked and compared Photoshelter and other hosting sites. All of this to realize, that Smugmug is still the most viable option for me, and the price for Power option is still great value for money.

So to compare here is the old design :

And new one :

I hope you like it :) check the complete site at www.PetrToman.com.

Brazilan Party in Prague !

FIVB World Tour Prague Open 2015 was a big Brazilian party ! The girls from Brazil won the 1st, 3rd and 4th place. The only team that squeeze in were Canadians Heather and Sarah. The organizers were quite lucky with the weather, after rainy week, the Sunday was just perfect, cloudy, bud warm and no rain at all.

And guess what :D as usual, just before the match point, a security guy came to handle the photographers ;) "2 meters to the right! everyone! Is there something you don't understand! " haha lucky me I was at a good spot didn't have to move, but the other guys were quite angry, as it could result in missing the shot just after the winning ball. :) this stuff happens almost everywhere :D

Results :

1. Agatha Bednarczuk, Barbara Seixas De Freitas - BRA 
2. Heather Bansley, Sarah Pavan - CAN
3. Eduarda Santos Lisboa, Elize Secomandi Maia - BRA

See all images on WorldSportsImages.com

MMA GCF 31 Cage Fight 6

Friday night - Fight Night ! All fighters unite in Boby Centrum in Brno yesterday to watch an amazing MMA GCF 31: CAGE FIGHT 6 in cooperation with GCF organisation and Brno's team JETSAAM GYM.. There has been 8 fights scheduled, one better than the other. Some were won on chocking some on technical KO. We saw it all. And here are the results :

Light-heavyweight fight 3x5min
Michal Fijalka vs Jiří Procházka – winner Jiří Procházka (Corner Stoppage)

GCF Flyweight title fight 5x5min
David Dvořák vs Tomáš Žák – winner David Dvořák and he is new GCF champion in flyweight (TKO - Punches)

Light-heavyweight fight 3x5min
Arunas Vilius vs Miloš Petrášek – winner Miloš Petrášek (Submission - Kimura)

Middleweight fight 3x5min
Emin Sefa vs Petr Beránek – winner Petr Beránek (Submission - Rear-Naked Choke)

Lightweight fight 3x5min
Saulius Bucius vs David Kozma – winner Saulius Bucius  (Submission -Triangle Choke)

Welterweight fight 3x5min
Marek Bartl vs Bohumil Lungrik – winner Bohumil Lungarik (Submission - Armbar)


Welterweight fight 3x5min
David Ziopulos vs Matúš Juráček – winner Matúš Juráček (TKO - Punches)

Featherweight fight 3x5min
Václav Šťastný vs Jiří Flajsar – winner Jiří Flajsar (TKO - Punches)

See all images on WorldSportsImages

Brno Pitbulls vs Bilovice Sigrs (6:12)

The biggest rivalry in South Moravia in American Football League happened today. Pitbulls were fighting against Sigrs, and it was thrilling till the end. It almost reminded me on the Superbowl :) Sigrs 20s before the end decided to go for a pass, and the pick was almost returned for the TD. I think something like 15 yards  were missing.

What was even more interesting was the TWERK halftime show!

Pitty for Pitbulls today, but they can have their revenge in 2 weeks !!

See the Gallery on WORLDSPORTSIMAGES.COM

WORLD SPORTS IMAGES has just launched!

Today I am proudly launching new project called :

 WORLD SPORTS IMAGES

When I started with sports photography in 2013 I immediately become hooked to it. Through 2013 and 2014 I was shooting different venues, mainly Czech American Football league but also some beach volleyball events, ninepins (yes it is a sport :), ice hockey (poor lense) and many other sport venues. 

My image bank grew to 50000 images from which the selection of the best ones is around 2700 photographs. I started to think about my own online photo bank, with robust system, with one type of description of each image. Because I delivered my images to different agencies through the years, I knew this will be the tough one. Go to each photo and manually rewrite it to my own standard. Man I wish I would did it in the beginning.

I started to build it (two times already) and I was always pushed back by the effort it required and the back-end capabilities and price of the system. Until this year. With the new Zenfolio system I found exactly what I needed from product/license/system/services options available. So I started again and finally I finished it. 

From now on all my images will be available through WorldSportsImages.com 

But this is not the end. There are many new things, products, services  that I want to introduce in the future, but lets take it step by step.

So feel free to visit my new page . Also a new twitter account was setup @WorldSportsIM so if you want to get news about sports photography and new images, be sure to follow it. 

Alligators vs Bulldogs 0 - 26

Unfortunately also 3rd match of the season wasn't a winning one for Alligators. Brno suffers from many injuries on different posts offense/defense and it was visible. It was very tough fight and Gators were able to hold don till end of 1st quarter, but then Trnava Bulldogs shift another gear and won the match 26-0.

And it was also kinda flying day :)

Match Gallery

ČTK images for media

Lightroom CC / 6 Release date - 21.April 2015

Adobe Lightroom CC / 6 will be released on 21.April 2015 and according to a leak on Fujirumors it will ship on April 21 for 129 Euro.

Previously rumored features should include :

• improved b&w conversion
• face detection
• HDR function
• improved healing brush tool
• vertical upright correction
• panoramic function
• improved performance with GPU acceleration

Lets wait for Tuesday, when the LR6 should become available.

Finally the season started !!

Yes it's true, today was the first match of Czech American Football league for Brno Alligators in 2015. 

The weather was just perfect, the grass was dry, which is not the most favorite for the pictures, but at least I was not standing in the puddle of mud.

Unfortunately the Brno Alligators lost to Prague Lions 12:37 :( So lets hope it was only a bad start and the next match will be victorious.

Match Gallery

ČTK images for media

Biathlon World Cup in Nove Mesto na Morave

There is a huge biathlon hype in Czech Republic in the last two years. The team is winning one medal after another and I had a great opportunity to get the accreditation for this year world cup in Nove Mesto. It was my first time shooting biathlon and actually first time shooting outside in winter.

When I arrived on Saturday, we had dreamy sunny weather, no clouds at all. The chief photographer explained the spots where I can shoot, and soon I was ready to go. But as usual, the spot where I should go through was guarded by security guy and he was supposed to let us through (both photographers in blue or grey (priority) vests). When he saw me he said "no no no, only grey vests". You know the story, it happens almost everywhere :D 

So after a while and little bit of explaining he got it and let me through. If you think there was a nice sidewalk to the spot....it wasn't :D I had to go around penalty loop through  this :

But it lead to a perfect spot with excellent view on athletes after the start and the fans all together:

After the men sprint, women started and Veronika Vitkova get the bronze medal ! The crowd was amazing, and the cheering gave me goosebumps many times.

I know from the news that the weather on Sunday will be little bit worse. But this was not what I expected :

I don't get how they were able to shoot the targets. Gabriela Soukalova had a great run and ended up on 5th place due to 2 misses in the last lap.

The camera handle these extreme weather conditions without any issues. Which was great ! But to be honest everyone was looking forward for the award ceremony to get the last shot and run to the press center. Thanks a lot to all organizers, the ceremony was fast and we were not so soaked :D

Here is the Gallery with all images.

Amazon sent me 5 tablets instead of one ! Well, that is a customer service :)

So finally, as I was maybe the last one around without tablet, I decided to buy one. I was looking for something handy, that you can hold in one hand, has nice screen and good performance. And of course is cheap and runs Android :)

So I look at Asus Memopad 8 which is right now on sale in UK for £120. That is much cheaper then here in CZ and the postage cost me 6 bucks. Take a look at this beauty :

So I order 1 piece and I was patiently waiting. When the box arrived it was quite big, so big that you can put in 24" LCD. It was box in the box :) So I was wondering if the order was ok. 

I unbox it and I was shocked :) Look what was in there!

So to keep up good karma, I contacted customer service and agreed to send it back at their cost :)

The tablet works like a charm, unbelievable value for that price. If you are interested checkout some reviews and video :

http://www.tabletpcreview.com/tabletreview/asus-memo-pad-8-review/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JIWMKTA?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=od_aui_detailpages00#customerReviews