Orchard Point Studios

Orchard Point Studios has just launched their new site. Orchard Point Studios is the Portrait and Wedding branch of Champion Photo. Have a look at the new sit and let us know what you think.
Orchard Point Studios
Thanks for checking it out.
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Under Perform Under Pressure

Well there's a title that doesn't inspire confidence, I guess I should elaborate quick before I lose my fan base.
This happens occasionally, a parent will come to Debbie or I and either point out or describe their athlete for us, then follow it up with can you get a good picture of my daughter? When we first started shooting events and this happened, I would be like a guided missle from that point on, until the athlete in question was no longer a target. I would try and track them around the entire venue in an attempt to make sure I did not miss "the shot". The inevitable result of this? I ended up missing shots of other athletes while being preocupied with the target. When the time came to get "the shot"?...

I was so ramped up trying to get the cover shot that the resulting pictures were less than remarkable. Now, when this happens I will explain that I do my best to get as many great pictures of all the athletes that I can. I will also try not to fixate on any one athlete, and remember what we are there for, to get the shot's so the parents can enjoy the show.
This works perfectly right up until it comes to my kids and step kids. The problem?...well part of it is the same thing that all of the parents experience while watching their kids, we're too excited watching them to really worry about capturing a great photograph. For me there are a few other reasons, but the main reason I can't get a shot that I'm happy with? I've already made plans for those great shots. A few years back I got this great idea to give each of the four kids a poster print of themselves in their respective activity. The posters have been perfectly conceived in my head now for quite a while, but not one image has been made to fit into that pre-cut space. We have a lot of awesome shots of the kids, one has even been published in a magazine.

Sorry kids, no posters yet.

I should probably lay out the morale here, I guess that would be, sometimes you need to sit back, turn on the auto pilot, and let yourself do what it is yourself knows how to do, whether it's photography, brain surgery, or parenting. Well, maybe brain surgery doesn't fit here. The real problem above isn't that I'm too excited about getting the shot, it's that I'm worried I will miss the shot.
So for my choice from the favorites this week.
Again, the shots with the flag in the background always seem to find their way to the top of my list. There were quite a few from the state meet, I went with this shot because of the angle, the pose, the concentration, the flag, all around I really enjoy this photo.If this is your gymnast let me know and I'll send you a 5x7 print of the image. If you know who it is let them know they can get a free picture.
Thanks for reading everyone, please let me know if you have any comments or questions. Oh good news too, I met another person that reads our blog, so I think we may be into double digits now.

Continue Reading "Under Perform Under Pressure" Here!

At the Peak for Performance

Well I'm glad I got the blog started, and I'll be keeping it up, if nothing more than for my own therapy. It's a good thing to get your thoughts out "on paper", and with a solid readership of 8 people, I have a fan base to think of.
So did you get the latest issue of BMX Today magazine? If you did then you're probably not reading this, because they accidentally misprinted our web address. The question was just a lead in to brag about having a few of my images published in the mag. The last time they used my work THIS shot ran as the centerfold.
I've always thought that a small regional type of magazine would be nice for gymnastics too, something that would have a gymnast bio here and there, maybe a tip from the judges section, Club spotlight with interviews. If anyone wants to get this rolling can I be the photographer? Let me know.
Anyway since the State Championships are this weekend I wanted to throw a tip in for anyone bringing there cameras... Every venue is different, and each has it's own list of characteristics that need to be dealt with from a photographic point of view. With gymnastics however, paramount on that list at all of the venues is lighting. Your overall plan for coping with lighting is going to depend on the equipment being used, but one tip that will fit in to that plan is timing. A lot of the disappointing results are going to come from motion blur and delayed shutter actuation (shutter lag). Shutter lag is not as much of an issue now a days as it was in years past, my first digital camera would take approximately 3 seconds to prepare itself to make an exposure, now there is the Nikon D3 that makes 11 frames per second, but I digress. If you have a camera with significant shutter lag then chances are you know how to deal with it, and that is to aim and prefocus the camera by depressing the shutter part way down and waiting for the shot. The real tip is this, getting "action" shots while coping with the slow shutter speeds that are needed to cope with the low light situations at gymnastics events. There are brief moments in a gymnasts movements where their motion is slowed or even stopped for a fraction of a second. Those are the times to click the shutter..., at the top of a split leap, the end of a cast, or peak of a giant, just before the second leg comes off the beam in a back walk over. Have yourself positioned and ready for those moments and your picture will improve. As a side note related to this, it is my experience that good timing will produce better results than having your camera set to "rapid fire". The cameras we use are capable of more than 7 frames per second, and they are nearly always set to single shot mode. If you have any questions or would like more elaboration on this topic let me know.

Now, the selection From the Favorites. The vault photos were

the big hit from Sectional #2, with a tremendous amount of them making it to the favorites folder, making selecting one from there for here tougher. The range of facial expressions that get displayed during the vaulting process is a large part of the interest. We had everything from the look of fear to smiles, we got that full range sometimes from the same athlete during their series of passes.
For levels 4,5,&6 things will be winding down after this coming weekend, I hope all the athletes had an enjoyable season filled with personal bests, and growth in skills. I trust all the parents and spectators are filled with pride for their athlete and thankfulness that the "seat saving" is over, at least for this season.
Remember, if this is your gymnast let us know and we'll send you a 5x7 print of the image, if you know who it is let them know they can get a free print.
Also I will be keeping the blog going (as close to weekly as I can) year round, including selects from the favorites, and if there is no event going on while I'm posting I'll be pulling images from older events so keep checking back. As always if you have any questions or comments you can leave them here, or EMAIL them to us.

Thanks, Keith Continue Reading "At the Peak for Performance" Here!

Staying Fresh

Keeping our content fresh is something that we have moved to the top of the list as far as priorities go this year. This is something that all the web people tell me is critical to maintaining traffic on our web site. The concept goes a little further for us though, so while fresh content on our site is important, that fresh content itself also needs to be fresh. I know I wrote it and it doesn't even make sense, here's what I mean, we are hyper aware of the fact that sometimes it seems like we are getting the same shot, just at a different time or venue. I touched on this last week when I mentioned the new lens that I was experimenting with, the whole reason for trying out the lens was to get images that looked "fresh". I just deleted a few paragraphs so I could keep your attention and will shorten it to this. Our main goal at every event is to get as many great shots of as many gymnasts as possible, so this may mean seeing some of the "Staple" shots, but I want to assure you that directly after that goal now, is our new mission: To shoot more angles of more events, and take our experience out of the "safe" zone in an effort to continually improve the product that we provide for our customers. On a related note, I want to thank everyone for all of the great compliments and feedback and encourage you to continue to offer them, these are our best tools in developing our service. Click below to see this weeks picture "from the Favorites".

So the image I chose for today's "from the Favorites" is from "the pit". The floor level shots from the pit at Granite State are a lot of fun. The angle definitely provides a different point of view and can add a great deal of drama to a pose. This shot is a perfect example of that, from anywhere else in the gym this shot probably wouldn't have made the favorites pile. Shots like this remind me of the inspirational posters you see on the walls in the gym or at school. On that poster you would have a picture, and right below there would be one word. The reason it reminds me of those posters is not because of the shot itself but because, you could put "FOCUS" "POISE" "STRENGTH" "DISCIPLINE" or any number of other one word inspirations below this image and it would make sense. That's because of the gymnast, and has nothing to do with the guy behind the camera. 

If this is your gymnast send me an email and let me know and I'll send you a 5X7 print of the image. If you know who it is let them know they can get a free print.

This post was a little late coming out after the 7&8 sectional, I'll be getting to work on this weeks, and have it posted very soon. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Continue Reading "Staying Fresh" Here!

Cupids Invite

Cupid has wings, wings are for amateurs, gymnast don't need them. But maybe they named it the Cupid invitational because it was the weekend of Valentine's Day.
As long as I can remember I have loved watching gymnastics, and have always been respectful of the awe inspiring skill and determination the sport demands. As a spectator it is one of my favorite sports to watch. I remember as a kid watching "The Karate Kid" and afterwards I wanted to get off the couch and practice "The Crane Technique", gymnastics always has the same effect on me, I'm just recently old enough and out of shape enough to know I shouldn't be trying a back tuck.
So, add to this my love of photography and it's a near perfect marriage, made even better by my ability to provide a service that includes them both.

One of the things I'd like to use the blog for is answering questions from our customers. A friend of mine works at an answer desk and he suggested in his blog recently that if one person asks him a good question, chances are there are quite a few people out there that would like to know the answer to that same question, even if they hadn't thought to ask it yet.This weekend a parent asked, "Why don't you take pictures of the awards ceremony?" We have had this question a few times in the past so an answer here seemed like a good idea to kick off the Q&A portion of the Blog. The biggest reason we don't cover awards is because this is the time we use between sessions as a break, to grab some food and rest, or if it's the last session we are packing up so we can get back to the office and get the images uploaded as quick as possible.
GOOD NEWS we are considering the idea of covering awards for the state meet, if this is something you would be interested in please let us know, you can comment right here at the bottom of the blog, or send us an EMAIL.
As always, if you have any questions or if there is anything we can do to improve your experience with Champion Photo please let us know.

From the Favorites

This week I tried out a new lens (14mm-24mm) very wide angle of view, to try and offer a different point of view. I had a very specific idea in mind with trying this particular lens, but in the end we were not happy with the results during testing, and decided to use the lens for some unique shots during warm up only. I originally hoped that one of those would end up here but very few of them made it to the favorites pile and there were plenty of shots from the competition that ended up standing out over those. I'm a sucker for the shots with the flag in the background, if there's a flag at the venue I'll be trying to figure out a way to get it behind the subject. This one kept jumping out at me because of the eye contact with the lens and of course the smile.
If this is your gymnast send us an EMAIL letting us know and we'll send you a 5x7 of the image, if you know who it is then let them know they can get a free picture.

Let us know what you think by commenting, suggesting, and asking here. If there is something you think would make a good addition to the blog please tell us.

Continue Reading "Cupids Invite" Here!

To start off

We are starting the blog here at Champion Photo because... well because everyone else has one, 

The real reason is, I've started following a few blogs myself and while doing so came to realize that this would be a great way of sharing information with our customers.

I have a few ideas for content, 

1. After every event, as soon as possible I go through all of the images and flag my favorites, these are the ones that end up on the slide shows that you see. I'm going to include one of our favorite images from a recent event on most of the posts and call it "From the Favorites."
2. Tips, I thought this would be interesting to some, there are an infinite amount of photography tips on the web, no doubt, the uniqueness would be that the tips contained here would mainly be relative and geared towards our content. Examples would be a bunch of tips on dealing with the "No Flash" rule during gymnastics events.
3. Questions and suggestions, I thought this would be a good place to open up for questions for us like "why do you always shoot beam at Tri-Star?" and suggestions like "how about shooting something other than beam at Tri-Star."
4. I'm also hoping this will be a good place for marketing, possibly mentioning products or services that you may not be familiar with or announcing new things as they come along. A perfect example of this is the multi photo collage prints that we have started getting very busy with. We always did them, but never really marketed them until recently, and the comment that we keep hearing is "OH I didn't know you did these," this would be our fault for not letting you know we did them.
5. We're also kicking around ideas of little contests, like, if your gymnast is featured here in the blog as one of our favorites, and you send us an email saying "My gymnast's photo was the From the Favorites this week." we'll send you a 5 x 7 of the image. ←so keep that in mind.

"From the Favorites"

So, heres the first "From the Favorites", let me start off by saying that picking a favorite from images that I have shot is always a process that takes too long. For this one I gave myself guidelines, and it helped. The guideline for picking this image was, pick a shot from bars. We shot bars at sectional #1 this spring during warm up and came up with a lot of great images.

If this is your gymnast, send us an email saying "Hey my gymnast was the From the Favorites picture this week, and we'll send you a 5x7 of the image.

Let us know what you think by commenting, and suggesting here. If there is something you think would make a good addition to the blog please tell us.

Continue Reading "To start off" Here!