Rhythmic gymnastics - Trying something different again

I have photographed artistic gymnastics before, but never had a chance to shoot the rhythmic gymnastics until a couple of days ago. It was the day before closing ceremonies and most of the other sports had completed, so I thought I would give this a try.

I started from a high position, thinking that this would be more visually interesting.  The other reason I went to this photo position, was that it was on the same side as the judges, and most of the performances would be facing in this direction. Surprisingly, all the photo positions on the floor were behind the ladies.

As always, I tried some motion panning to see if I could get some nice motion blur shots.

I slowed the shutter of the camera to 1/20 second and followed the ladies as they moved on the floor. I think you will agree that this adds more interest to the photos.

This is a wide shot also using the 1/20 sec shutter speed. But for this photo, I kept the lens steady and had my focal point on the girl in the middle. You will notice, at this very moment, she was still for a split second when the others were moving.

After shooting in the high position for a while, I decided to take my chance and shoot from one of the low positions. I went to a spot where I would have the Olympic rings in my background.

Even though I could photograph the girls anywhere on the floor, I only shot in this spot where the rings and logo were behind them. Honestly, the other backgrounds were just not visually compelling.

This was the shot I wanted, with one of the athletes in the air, right over the Olympic rings. I just wish that the judges had been a seated a little higher to give me a clean background. And yes, it is all about the photographer! :)

When shooting this sport, I generally looked for clean lines and good symmetry.

Here is one of the few shots I took without the rings  in the background. This photo would have been so much stronger if there was a solid wall behind them.

This is another one of those shots that I was aiming to get. They were at the height of their jumps and in front of the rings. But once again, not the best background. Ugh. As photographers, we can move positions and change camera settings, but some things we can not change.  But it was still fascinating to watch them perform, and fun to try something new once again.

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