Tough Call

Last Thursday I was faced with a tough choice of what to do on Friday. After talking to Kim I had the chance to shoot the gymnastics National Championships, only one problem I was scheduled to work at Sports Imaging shooting Taylorsville baseball. As with any decision in my life I spent a long time thinking about the consequences and benefits of each choice. Two seconds later I decided I was going to shoot gymnastics. No disrespect to Sports Imaging, (I’m about to disrespect Sports Imaging) this job is fun and I love working there but when it comes to a National Championship in any sport or a Sports Imaging shoot I’m shooting the National Championship hands down (Sorry Ken).

The event was awesome after eating a roll and a brownie in the press room Kim and I made our way down into the Huntsman Center. Once we got in the feeling in the air was AWESOME it was so loud as the announcer introduced the Utes the lights were out and I could not see how many people were in there but once the lights went up I could see the building was packed it was so much fun.

The Utes stared with a bye so I got to sit back and take everything in for a minute. After that I started to shoot the other teams. I did not feel like I was getting that much even when the Utes took to the floor I was not feeling it. After the Utes finished the vault I went to get a good spot to shoot the bars this change in location helped a lot.

Again at this point the Utes had a bye so I shot Nebraska on the bars. The air was tense and that was evident on the Nebraska coach’s face when talking to one of his gymnast. When he leaned in to say something in her ear I got a shot that I felt shows the intensity. Also during the Nebraska bar routine I noticed their team was cheering on their teammate’s right next to me.

When the Utes took to the bars I got a few shots but I was excited to use a wide angle to get a celebration or yelling shot it worked well when I had the lenses zoomed out at 17mm but during the biggest celebration I realized that I left it zoomed in at 40 mm so I missed the shot.

During the beam I tried to get another celebration shot but it did not happen because it was obvious they were not going to win. Postell and Ford said it perfectly in this picture. I did get a cool high five with a wide angle looking down on ford it was a nice angle to get a high five picture I think.

Over all the national championships were awesome a lot better than Taylorsville baseball. I shot a ton of shots this was the first time I can remember filling up a card and I did it twice I filled up two 512 cards the last one was a killer I tried all night to get a shot of the shirtless fans they had come down and were standing over me and I got two shots when the card filled I had no time to get a new card before they were gone, but I think this one works.

Congratulations to the Utes on their second place finish! It was a good season with a lot of good pictures, Thanks! GO UTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!