Gymnasics playmaker

Tera Sisson was selected as the playmaker for girls gymnastics. There is only one gymnastics team in town and it bears the name of Central High School, but is made up of girls from several different schools in the district. Tera is actually an honor student at Pueblo South High School.

The team practices in a local gym that supplies gymnasts with every piece of gymnastics equipment available. That is great for the athletes, but can make for a rather cluttered background due to limited space in the gym.

Taking this all into consideration I had determined ahead of time that I wanted to shoot a photo where there was a cloud of chalk in the air. I hadn’t really figured out how I was going to do this prior to going to the gym to make the photo.

I decided that the best piece of equipment for the chalk would be on the uneven bars. Tera was very helpful in making things work for the photo. Originally I had her leaping to the low bar and grabbing it. I thought it might make for a chalk cloud , but it produced little or no cloud so we had to come up with something else.

We eventually decided on having her jump up and slap the lower bar which was achieving the desired effect. What really made the photo was when Tera filled her hands with chalk before turning them over and slapping the bar. Sure it was over the top, but that was what I was hoping for.

Now if I can just get this taste of chalk out of my mouth...