How
To Take Gymnastics Pictures Part II (
continued from Part
I)
Why do I like taking gymnastics pictures? Because I like to delete them.
I'm always deleting gymnastics pictures. It's great.
I used to get film developed -- expecting Louvre-quality masterpieces,
only to have to throw away countless pictures of beams or bars or
vaults or even floors without gymnasts. The wasted developing paper
bothered me. I couldn't wait for digital.
So deleting pictures is great and an essential part of
gymnastics photography. Another important part is the
Mental
Gymnastics.
The mental gymnastics of gymnastics photography is what you have to
keep in mind -- flip this, flip that, focus, balance the light, focus,
predict the
action, focus, frame the subject, steady now, dodge the obstacles,
focus, and end up with an excellent picture of your shoe. And it's okay.
It's okay because like I said before, gymnastics is about
motion. Here's a
typical
picture
that doesn't do justice to the action. If you didn't know better, you
would assume that she is transitioning from the high bar to the low
bar. And you would be wrong. What's cool about the moment -- and the
picture doesn't tell you -- is that Alexis is moving
backwards
from the low bar (junior bar) to the high bar (senior bar). I suppose I
could draw arrows over junior to indicate the backwards motion, but my
computer monitor already has too much white-out and arrows and other
markings from when I was first learning this stuff.
It's also okay to take a picture of your shoe because it will start you
off on an excellent hobby or career of deleting pictures!
(more)
