Photograph a Cheer and Dance Competition? Bring It!

So  I tried something new last weekend. I’ve never shot a sporting event nor have I ever shot a concert. Now I know what both feel like! 

My girlfriend’s cousin, Jordan, was competing in the Cheerleaders of America (COA) “Ultimate National Championship” at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee, FL. If you’ve ever caught a glimpse of a cheer competition on TV, let me tell you, you have no idea what it’s like to actually be there. 

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The hotel grounds were teeming with teams of tweens…sorry, couldn’t help myself! But seriously, how else would you describe hundreds (maybe thousands) of pre-teen girls wearing WAY too much make-up and cheerleading uniforms? I’m guessing the heavy make-up is meant for the judges to see from where they’re sitting…if they happen to be sitting on the planet Mars. 

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But let me cut to the chase. Jordan’s team, Top Gun, was on; so I enter the competition room. It was dark and loud. Let me emphasize the word LOUD. If you like dark rooms with loud techno/dance music blaring, you would feel right at home…glow sticks optional. When I got in, the team before Top Gun was wrapping up. So I took this time to figure out my exposure. But it wasn’t long before I had to head to the front when Jordan’s team came in. 

I was shooting with my 70-200 f/2.8 lens. I like to shoot in manual mode, so I dialed in f/2.8, at 250th of a second and ISO about 800. I don’t like shooting at high ISO, but even with the stage lights, I needed it. I also didn’t want to shoot at f/2.8 because I knew I could run into a depth of field problem if I wanted more than one part of the image in focus; but I needed the large aperture to let in more light. 

Things moved so fast…and I don’t just mean the cheerleaders. I mentioned concert photography earlier because it’s similar in a couple respects: you have stage lights, but you only have about 3 minutes to get the shot. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to look at my LCD and evaluate the shot. I was shooting on burst mode; 6.5 frames per second and focusing mostly on Jordan. At one point I switched to shutter priority and was around 350th of a second. I was really trying to capture the flipping sequences. 

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Looking at some of the frames, they’re still not tack sharp. If I get to do it again, I’d shoot at a minimum of 350th, boost the ISO to maybe 1600 and a narrower f-stop. 

About 3 minutes later it was all over. The Top Gun teams (there are different classes) took the All Stars Level, 2,3 and 5 Grand Champion titles. See this link for the full results, if you’re interested. We took the rest of the afternoon to walk around the hotel and enjoy the pool. If you’ve never been to Gaylord Palms, I recommend going just to see the inside. It is massive. They have a tropical atrium complete with alligators and turtles. Click the link above to see a picture on their home page. 

All in all, I’m glad I got to try something new; it was definitely a learning experience that tested me while pushing me outside my comfort level.

Flickr for Photographers

So, not too long ago I wrote a post about how a guy in Canada found a picture I took of him two years prior because when I uploaded it to my Flickr Pro Page, I filled in a title and description. He searched for the keywords and found it. 

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Well, the other night I uploaded some of my interior photography to the site and among the keywords I added was the city of “Kissimmee”; since that’s where the houses and condos are. The next morning I got an email that “Kissimmee – The Heart of Florida (Kissimmee Convention and Visitors Bureau)” had added me as a contact on Flickr. 

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The admin for the “Visit Kissimmee, Florida” group asked to add the above image and two others to their group page. Now, I think this is all pretty cool, but the implications go farther. It shows how a potential client (and that’s how I see them) can find your work if you take the time to add titles, descriptions and keywords to your photos. This doesn’t just apply to Flickr. The meta data in your photos can be found by spiders and robots on the internet and anyone searching google, Bing or Yahoo can find your work. I check the stats and analytics from Flickr and my Web site and I get some referrals from people typing in certain words in a search engine. 

David Hobby over at the Strobist blog wrote a fascinating 4-part series on Flickr; how photographers have been discovered, how to write tags and descriptions and how photographers can use the power of Flickr. It’s worth a read: 

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/04/flickr-and-you-part-1-rebekkas_19.html