Announcing Naperville Gymnastics Club photographer coverage!

On Your Mark Photography is pleased to announce that they will be providing exclusive action photography coverage for the Naperville Gymnastics Club's meet from March 7th through March 9th, at their facility in Naperville, IL.

On Your Mark Photography will be photographing all eight sessions, level 4 through level 10. Prints, CDs, and custom posters will be available on-line through the Events area on the website starting the night of the competition.

A special sale will be in effect for the first week after the meet, so make sure you check out the photos promptly!

Updated poster design

Here's a new updated gymnastics poster design. I'm planning on offering this in both lustre and pearl metallic prints in a 24"x30" (poster-sized!) print.



Background color and "title" color matched to the gym's uni color. Background image, cutout, and from 2 to 4 supplementary images chosen by you!

I also hope to announce that On Your Mark Photography will be the official action photographer for at least one, perhaps two, local gymnastics meets coming up. As soon as it's 100% positive, I will be announcing them here!

Check back for updates.

Why hire professionals for your sports event?

With the increasing numbers of parents out there with dSLRs, as an event coordinator, why should you go with a professional photographer/company rather than ask a parent or two to shoot your event? Let's count the ways:

1. Experience - While a parent may snap a few shots at every competition, the sheer numbers of shots a professional has taken hones their skills. At a very large event I recently shot, I took over 20,000 photographs over the three days, and I was one of 12 photographers! Professionals know when to take the shot, how to take the shot, and how to print the shot later.



2. Dedication - Will the parent be able to provide coverage for the entire event? Professional sports photographers have the ability and resources to provide complete coverage of your event, not just shoot "when convenient."



3. Equipment - No, equipment doesn't make the photographer, but the professional photographer will have the right equipment and backups when required. Here's a shot taken from my camera after a recent meet.
   
   This is a broken shutter. This happened to one of my cameras in the middle of a gymnastics meet. As a professional, though, I have more than one camera, any of which are capable of capturing the event as required. Your average parent won't have a second camera, let alone a third or fourth. Your average parent won't have the lenses required to capture fast action in low light, either.
   
   The camera is currently on its way to be repaired, but I can still photograph an event with the equipment on hand. If I find that I'm short necessary equipment, then rental equipment is always a possibility, and is an expected expense as well.
   

Busy weekend coming up

For those of you in the gymnastics world, you know about the IGI Chicago Style event coming up this weekend, Feb 8-10, at Chicago's Navy Pier. I will be one of the photographers covering this event, not as On Your Mark Photography, but working for a larger company. Big, big events (IGI is anticipated to have over 4000 gymnasts competing on six sets simultaneously!) require big, big photography commitments, which are generally covered by big, big photography companies. Often these big, big companies don't employ all the photographers needed, so they contract out to the best photographers they can find, flying them in if need be.

While it will be an honor shooting for this other company for this large of an event, I do look forward to the next local 250-500 gymnast meet as well.

Why shoot for this other company? It's all about honing the skills. Shooting at a large event as part of another company means that when I'm shooting for your smaller event as On Your Mark Photography, you're getting an photographer experienced in a range of events running from a national-level meet such as IGI to smaller, local meets. That equates to better shots faster, smoother experiences for you, and better experiences for your participants.