A difficult photographic task...

Today I took advantage of the fact that I live just one mile away from an NCAA Division I gymnastics team (Cal-Berkeley), and attended my first-ever NCAA collegiate gymnastics meet! Karl came along for the fun, and I had a nice time explaining some of the details of gymnastics meets to him. The Cal women's team was competing against Illinois State and Washington. None of these teams are currently ranked in the Top 25, but we still saw some great gymnastics. Washington won the meet, Illinois State was second, and Cal finished third.

I took my camera hoping to snap some interesting gymnastics photos, and I learned very quickly that gymnastics is a TOUGH sport to photograph! The problem is that the gymnasts move so quickly and unless the photographer is familiar with their routines, he/she has to anticipate every move the gymnast is about to make. Being a lifelong gymnast and gymnastics fan, I was decent at anticipating, but it would have been a lot easier if I knew their routines ahead of time! I am looking forward to working on my gymnastics photography again in two weeks at the Pacific Coast Classic men's collegiate gymnastics meet, which is set to take place in Oakland and will feature many of the BEST men's teams in the country right now!

For now, here are a few of the photos that turned out okay. Stay tuned and I'll post some from the men's meet in a few weeks.

A Cal gymnast on beam.

Another Cal gymnast on beam...this picture is blurry but it was one of the few that I took where I actually got a picture of the person doing the exact skill that I wanted to capture on camera!

One of the gymnasts from Washington doing a Yurchenko vault.

Illinois State gymnast on bars.

An Illinois State gymnast twisting on floor.

The Washington team had the most spirit throughout the competition...if this picture could talk you would hear the entire team on the sidelines yelling encouraging words for their teammate.

A Washington gymnast sprinting to the vault.