With a Little Help From my Friends...

I've been working at creating some special gymnastics posters, something beyond the basic enlarged photo.  My starting point is a strong image, which I define as a photo that captures a gymnast in an elegant pose or at the peak of an impressive move.  The goal is to find something that will be flattering to the athlete, though of course this is a subjective call.  Working with the digital file for the selected photo, I carefully and precisely 'cut out' the athlete from the photo's background.  I then place that cut-out onto another background that I have created, and add design elements, such as text, logos, etc.  It's a time-consuming and tedious process that involves even more thought than time and energy.  I can find photos to work with and put in the time and energy, but I typically hit a wall somewhere along the line with the creative part of the process.  That's where some of my very talented photography buddies come into this picture.  After creating a poster that represented the height of my creative abilities, I posted it online seeking feedback.  Here's the original poster (sorry for the watermarks, but they feel like a necessity to me.  Oh, and if you want to see a slightly larger version, click on the image.):

In response to this, I received some initial feedback about the background being too busy and somewhat confusing.  Then, two incredibly creative buds chimed in with some great ideas.  Again, the busy background was at issue, as was the color scheme, which didn't seem to match the leotard colors (or Utah's colors) in any way.  Further, it was pointed out that the font/lettering did not seem to fit with the grace and beauty of the images, and that the ordering of the text did not seem right.  Finally, it was suggested that I consider adding in the school logo on a layer below the main subject.  I think that covers most of what was so astutely pointed out as being 'off' with my original creation.  So I set to work trying to address these issues.  Here are two revisions I came up with:

Consensus was that the second (right) was better given the color scheme that matched the leotard colors.  Having thus arrived at a background I could live with, I set to the task of finding a few more photos to work with.  Here' another with some minor modifications to what is basically the same design.

And here's an attempt to see if this could work with a horizontal design:

I'm pretty happy with my results thus far, and I welcome your comments.  To Paul and Tom I say thanks, my friends, for your willingness to share your exceptional vision.

Another Gymnastics Season in the Books

Hard to believe that the University of Utah home gymnastics season is already over.  6 meets.  It's been fun to photograph these competitions.  Lots of thought, time and energy has gone
into trying to capture the beauty of the sport.  I also work at not capturing the same shots at every meet.  On all fronts, some successes and some failures.  Here are a few of my favorite images from the season.  (Click on the images if you want to see larger versions.)

A bit of fisheye magic

Beautiful.  There's really no perfect angle from which to shoot this, but I like this one well enough.

Floor exercise up close and personal with a 200mm lens

Should have kept the beam in frame, but I still like this one.

Future Red Rock.  She was riveted to the Jumbotron.

I'd have to fall from a roof to manage this position.

13,00 fans, opponent competing on floor, meet in full swing.....time for a social gathering.  I love the relaxed, comfortable engagement of this one.

Pretty damn close to flying in my book.

About that falling from a building comment...

Double-barrel jube.

Keeping her eye on the prize.  I thing shooting from a low position adds intensity to this shot, and also minimizes the distraction of the videographer in teh background.

It took me 6 meets to find the best angle on this graceful moment.

A crowd of 15,558 was on hand to root on the Red Rocks at their final home meet.  High-tailing it up the steps to the top of the arena between rotations, grabbing some crowd shots, then booking it back down in time to shoot the first competitor........that's dedication!

Thanks for looking.  Let me know what you think.  I'd appreciate hearing from you.  Lots more photos from this season here.

Second Time Out with Canon 1D Mark IV

Shot the first half of a men's NCAA basketball game tonight to get a bit more work with the 1DIV.  This post is for those who are interested in this Canon body and NOT about the quality of my basketball shots.  I know they're dime-a-dozen shots and that's pretty much what I'm good for with basketball :D.  This is about the camera performed.

In a word, performance was stellar.  Shot at ISO 3200 with a 70-200/2.8.  I intended to shoot at 2.8, but somehow inadvertently changed that to f/3.5 for some of the shots.

Custom function settings for C.FnIII were as follows:

1-0
2- (-1)
3-0
4-1
5-0
6-4
7-2
8-2
9-1
10-1
11-1
12-0
13-0
14-1
15-0
16-0
17-0
18-Disable
19-Disable

AF was fantastic.  No other way to put it.  Very fast to engage and lock onto my intended subject, accurate tracking, wasn't easily distracted.  I had very few OOF shots.  I don't shoot basketball very often, but I don't remember ever having this much success where AF is concerned.

At ISO 3200, these shots are very clean.  What's posted here are the jpgs out of the camera with cropping, maybe a touch-up or two to a couple of shots but very little processing and absolutely no noise reduction in post.  I shot L sized jpgs.

Finally, in an arena that typically is very challenging where white balance is concerned, I set a custom white balance using a translucent plastic lid.  Damn near perfect.

Here are 8 shots. 

Photography: First Meet

Last night was Utah's first home meet.  What a booger!  I was ready, but it didn't matter.  Things moved faster than I remembered and I was making rookie mistakes throughout.  Much worse than being a rookie, though, because I was well aware of the mistakes as I was making them--inadvertently changing my settings, failing to anticipate movement, over-thinking, and fumbling ridiculously while trying to juggle two camera-lens set-ups while shooting floor.  Fortunately, these athletes are so good and so much of what they do is beautiful that even a disappointing hit rate can yield a few decent shots.  I'm posting some of the better captures.

Photography: Shooting Gymnastics

I've got my first NCAA D-I gymnastics shoot coming up this Friday.  I've been shooting the University of Utah women's gymnastics team for about 5 years now.  I enjoy everything about it--great sport, very successful program, wonderful atmosphere.  It's a great gig.  But with each new season, I face a seemingly increasing challenge to find a way to keep it fresh and exciting.  Not the shooting itself.  That's always exciting and I spend days prior to each meet thinking about and planning my shooting strategies.  I'm talking about the photos that result.  With the same four events every year, located in the same place in the same arena, same lighting....well, it kinda feels like I've been there and done that.  Thankfully there are a few new competitors each year to add a bit of variety, but that's not nearly as significant as a completely new angle or creative approach might be.  Another issue is that some of the more creative (to me) things I've tried have resulted in shots my client wasn't very excited about.  Clean, high-quality action images of the athletes performing is what I'm being paid to provide.  Thus far, my search for something 'new' and 'different' appears to have been at odds with that assignment.  Not always, but often enough to add a sense of caution to the process.

Two days to think it through.  Chances are I'll go at the first meet conservatively, re-orient myself to the venue and the sport.  Convince myself I can get the job done.  Then I can start thinking about where I might go from there.

A few shots from last year's season:

  

 

 

Music - My Search for "The Best"

As the end of the year approaches, I like to jump onto the web to search out 'best-of' lists to get some idea of what is considered the best music of the year. Last year I found a great resource. A blog by the name of Largehearted Boy http://blog.largeheartedboy.com/ maintains a list of links to other sites from around the world that post end-of-year best-of music lists (among many other things). Eventually, this list becomes so long that it's divided into multiple web pages devoted to specefic letters of the alphabet. If you like this kind of thing, check it out, but don't imagine for a minute that you'll get very far without devoting a good chunk of your time.

At any rate, I like to go through as many of the linked lists as I can manage over the course of a week or two, take notes, check out linked audio and/or video samples, look for reviews of select listings, etc. All toward the end of coming up with my own list of the music I don't already own that I might want to get my hands on. Then I start hitting the local record stores (PLUG: http://www.slowtrainmusic.com/ has to be the best independent record store in Salt Lake City. Check 'em out if you have the chance. Tell Chris and Anna I sent you!), looking for used copies of the CDs on my rather expansive portable music list (a piece of paper folded into my back pocket). These activities have led to a few good finds which I'll simply list (in no particular order) without comment--if you want to know more about them, reviews are easy to come by.

• Girls - Album
• Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
• The Rural Alberta Advantage - Hometowns
• William Fitzsimmons - The Sparrow and the Crow
• Sea Wolf - White Water, White Bloom
• The Antlers - Hospice
• Metric - Fantasies

And speaking of music.... I don't get out to nearly as many live shows as I'd like, but this year I did see a few in relatively intimate settings: Wye Oak, Laura Gibson, Magnolia Electric Company, Norfolk & Western, and Blitzen Trapper. Salt Lake has a damn good music scene. Gotta get out to see more in 2010.

A few photos of Wye Oak:

And a few of Magnolia Electric Company: