Loud and proud

I photographed (for the Free Press, the Messenger, the Caledonian Record and my website) the Vermont Cheerleading Championships at Vergennes on Saturday.

What an amazing event - so loud, but a lot of fun to watch. I'm guessing this is about the 15th one of these I've been two, starting way back when the event was held in three different sessions at St. Mike's.

This year, Vergennes H.S. hosted the event. Great gym, nice and bright and set up very well. Not sure if it will be back there again in the future, but it has my vote.

Rutland stole the show with an amazing performance. Clearly, they were the class of the field, but there were many other outstanding performances.

Here are the results:

Division I: 1. Rutland, 198; 2. Essex, 180; 3. Vergennes, 159; 4. BFA-St. Albans, 154; 5. Milton, 140; 6. BFA-Fairfax, 133; 7. Lyndon, 121; 8. Mount Anthony, 115.
Division II: 1. Richford, 180; 2. Poultney, 157; 3. South Burlington, 155; 4. Winooski, 143; 5. Mill River, 123; 6. Brattleboro, 118; 7. Fair Haven, 107; 8. Otter Valley, 91; 9. Green Mountain, 80.

New England qualifiers: Coed - Rutland, Essex, Richford; Division II South Burlington; Division IV Vergennes.

I will be posting galleries - from the warmup and competition routines over the next week. I will divide the photos - I'm guessing at least 100 per school - by school for easier browsing. If you would like to know when your team has been posted, please send me an email - shawn@coldhollowphoto.com - and let me know what school you are looking for.

Or you can add your request in the comment section below - just make sure you leave me your email.

Playoff time

It's been a while since I found a free moment to tocuh base - been busy trying to keep up with Examiner.com posting, updating the photo website, etc ...

Have a busy weekend on tap.

• Friday - MVU at BFA-St. Albans girls hockey - does not get any better than does it!

• Saturday - Might swing by a hockey game at Cairns on my way to the state cheerleading championships in Vergennes.

• Sunday - A couple of senior sittings

• Monday - At Gutterson Fieldhouse for the Division II boys hockey semifinals.

After that, it's up in the air depending on the schedule that presents itself.

On an unrelated front, thanks for Nicole and Drew and Chris and Dani for booking their weddings with me over the last week and thanks to Milton Little League for allowing me to photograph their league this spring.

Getting around

It was busy on the sports photo front last week as I was able to get to eight games, including five over the weekend.

Here's a quick look at what was posted over the weekend.

CVU at BHS girls basketball, Feb. 1, 2010

Brattleboro at MVU boys hockey, Feb. 3, 2010

Peoples at Enosburg boys basketball, Feb. 3, 2010

BFA-St. Albans at Milton boys basketball, Feb. 5, 2010 (I broke out a cheer gallery from this game.)

Stowe at BFA-Fairfax boys basketball, Feb. 5, 2010 (I broke out a cheer gallery from this game.)

Enosburg at Richford girls basketball, Feb. 6, 2010 (I broke out a cheer gallery from this game.)

Burr and Burton at BFA-St. Albans girls hockey, Feb. 6, 2010

North Country at Rice boys hockey, Feb. 2010

Sorry to say I won't likely get to many games this week - I'm working on the desk at the Freeps Monday and Tuesday, meeting with a bride and a Little League board before maybe taking in a hockey game Wednesday night, back to the Freeps Thursday and then covering a game for the Messenger Friday night. I'm shooting the MVU boys hockey Senior game on Saturday before working the NVAC cheer championships with my buddy from Vermont Sports Images Saturday night.

In between, I'll do some stuff on Examiner.com - if you are interested in keeping up what's happening there I'd suggest you subscribe to my 'channel' it's easy and you get one email per day when I post telling you that there's something new for you to view.

If any of you are interested in making a few extra bucks each month and have a penchant for writing about a subject you care about, let me know and I'll be glad to share what I know about Examiner.com. It's not a bad gig and you can pretty much be your own boss. They don't require much of a committment and what you make out of it is pretty much tied to how much time you put into it.

That's all I have time for this go-round.

Take care!

Shawn

Give me an U-P-L-O-A-D!

For those who have been patiently waiting for me to upload the Academy Cheer Challenge photos, I'm happy to say they are all on my website! Whew!

This was easily my biggest edit/upload project - over 22 action galleries, divided by school/group and over 2,000 total photos.

Some really good stuff (some OK stuff, too, of course). I wish there had been a little more light (would have improved my ability to stop the action better), but it was what it was. I did use some flash, but the re-fresh rate and shadows were a pain so I shot mostly without flash at 3200 ISO (therefore the photos are inherently grainy) at around 250-400/sec.

Hope you enjoy viewing the photos and if you have any questions or comments, please share on my blog or email me at shawn@coldhollowphoto.com

Oh, and here's a link to the galleries!

Reason to cheer

On Saturday, we had the good fortune to attend the third annual Academy Cheer Challenge at the Collins-Perley Complex in St. Albans.

Nearly 20 teams and about 1,000 spectators attended the event, which was well-run, full of positive energy and a just plain lots of fun to be around.

We shot over 2,000 action photos and about 500 posed photos, including teams and individuals.

The posed shots are uploaded and we will be emailing a link to those photos later today.

The action shots need to broken into teams, edited and posted. We expect that will take until the end of the week. If you would like to be notified when they are posted, send me an email at shawn@coldhollowphoto.com or put a comment in the section below.

We also have still to post the wrestling photos from the tri-meet last week and there are photos upcoming from the Richford-Peoples boys basketball game. These two events may be up as soon as tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone for their patience with us as try to take care of these tasks, in addition to our league, team, school and senior portrait photography.

January was our best month ever, but with that comes a lot of processing work. Still, we wouldn't have it any other way and we thank you all for your support and your business!

All the best,

Shawn Corrow and Sandy Rooney, Cold Hollow Photography