JamFest Pittsburgh

Here are a few pics form the JamFest Cheer/Dance competition last April. Our work flow for the events was:

Custom white balance.
Set ISO for about 1600 or 3200
Shutter was at 1/400th of a second, depending on where you were on the performance floor. Really bad light falloff along the edges, so we would sometimes drop the shutter speed to lower, but that would then produce blur...so it's a lose lose situation.
Everything was shot in JPG, medium or small....less than 2MB files was the goal.

After the 3 minute competition, we would pull the cards and put them into a card reader connected to a laptop. We would select the team name in the software then that program would download the images from the cards and put them up on an on-site server. I think the software also created low resolution images for display on the web pages that the parents/competitors would use to buy products.

Once the images were available (probably 3-10 minutes) they could be purchased in 8"x10" collages printed on Dye Sublimation printers at the event.

Viewing stations (35 laptops with the sales software and images/products to purchase)

Printer stations with technicians to create the products for sale.

From the crowds viewpoint. I was located on the floor, directly in front of the performance mat.

Award time and all the dancer and cheerleader from a particular session attending.

More from the awards session.

Ground level and up close with one of the cheer teams.

Cheer Ltd. at Robert Morris University

UPDATE: Pictures have been uploaded to the sales web site. DO NOT BUY FROM THE SALES WEB SITE. EMAIL me with the photo ID located under each image. In this period of change, I am selling the edited .jpg file, NOT PRINTS and this is an interim band-aid. Thank you.
brent (at) thenextlevelphoto (dot) com


Here are a few pictures from the competition last Sunday. I took over 2,200 pictures, narrowed them to less than half, maybe more like a third. Then I had to cull them down to about 60 then again down to these six. They are not my best work. But I will try to justify it by saying this was my first time taking pictures of an indoor cheer and dance competition. I hope I get much better the next time I get the chance.

The sales site will have the UNEDITED images up later today.
DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.
DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.
DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.

DIRECTIONS TO PURCHASE:
1) Browse the pictures.
2) Make note of the image number BELOW the picture.
3) Put the picture #'s in an EMAIL message to me.
brent ( at ) thenextlevelphoto ( dot ) com
4) I will reply with a few more directions.
5) You will be purchasing the actual file, NOT PRINTS.

DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.
DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.
DO NOT PURCHASE THEM DIRECTLY FROM THE SALES SITE.

Steel City Regional Championships

I had the pleasure of attending the Cheer Ltd. Steel City Regional Championships today at Robert Morris University. I've only been to one other cheer competition and that was at Charleroi High School last year. The biggest difference between the two was I took pictures this time and boy is this an incredibly fast paced sport.

I have always had an appreciation for this sport. But I wasn't totally prepared to shoot all day. I was there to get pictures of Tiffany, my daughters former teammate at Potter & Raccoon. Today, I got there early since I figured it would be jam packed. When I arrived, I found out there wasn't an event photographer so I secured a good shooting location....well, a few thousand pictures later, some tears were shed, a few hearts broken, screams of joy and some true happiness accompanied the trophy's and medals.

I'll get a few pictures up on the blog tomorrow and the rest will be on the sales site by Tuesday afternoon or sooner.

To all the competitors....GREAT JOB!!!

Dance 2006

Yeah, I know these pictures aren't current. I have actually wanted to post them for some time, just haven't done it until now.

I took these at a dance recital in 2006. Besides the difficult lighting situation. It was a very intensive event for a single photographer to cover. I had to shoot the pictures, run to a hallway next to the stage, put the memory cards in the reader and begin the download to the computer. Once they were going, I returned to the auditorium to continue shooting. This cycle happened every 2-3 dances. During the dance, I had to try and get a good images of every dancer in a group or action shots of the individuals. Group shots were tough since some dancers positions were in the wings of the stage. Large groups would have the back dancers behind others in the front so it posed a difficult situation. I wasn't able to get every one in every performance.

There was also very little time between dances and it took some co-ordination between my ears to make sure I didn't miss anything or anyone. Shooting dance is made more difficult since many studio managers will not let you take pictures during a routine. None will allow flash at all at any time. To get good images, you have to expose for the highlights and skin tone. The lighting setups are usually set for the middle of the stage, where the dancers congregate anyway. Let the background fall off to black or darker than what is seen. The subject (dancer) is what is important anyway.