You can create a custom Yearbook for your gymnast by using one of the many photo book publishers. The trick to making a great Yearbook is to get the pictures you need. Here are a few tips.
Using the photo book you can create a great Gymnastics Yearbook for your particular gymnast. Getting the images right is just the beginning – you need to put everything together in an organized package.
Get Photos
With a digital camera and a good plan you can create a Yearbook for your gymnast to highlight the year of competition. In order to provide this Year’s Book, you need to start planning now to make sure that you get all the drawings you need. With this plan in hand you can be sure to capture some moments that you wouldn’t normally catch, but would be great for including in the Yearbook.
Gymnastics is a visual sport and photo opportunity that occurs all year round. Snapfish, Photoworks, Picaboo all offer photobooks that are inexpensive and fun to make. The pages of these books can also include text. It’s easy to put books together, but much better if you have a plan than just throwing a few pictures on the page.
A good Yearbook will have some candid shots and group photos planned. Since it is important to start getting images from the beginning of the year we will discuss what types of shots to enter in the first part of this article. In the coming months we will be discussing how to create a book and which photo company is best suited for your book.
If you think back to your school days or extra curricular activities some of your best memories may not be the most vivid. That’s why some of these images are included in the log. Your daughter spends a lot of their time with the whole team, so anything that reflects their year won’t be complete if you only show pictures of your daughter at meetings. Teammates, coaches and training are a big part of their gym life. Your teammates may have left your gymnast life behind for years and they will appreciate their photos for years to come. In September you may not realize what will be important in May, so get started now! Once you start looking at the types of photos listed, you’ll be sure to think of some of your own.
Photo Log:
In the gym photo
- Candid shot the gymnast you interact with every teammate
- Photo practice
- Office staff
- The gym is decorated for each season (if your gym does this)
- Competition photo
March-in
The cover of every program
Gymnasts stand during the national anthem – either a long shot or one focused on your gymnast. (Lots of teams hook up the pinkies during the national anthem, and this makes for a good shot.
The trainer talks to the gymnast before an event. This is great if you can get a good expression from a coach or gymnast.
- Girls hug or congratulate each other after an event
- Flags in different gyms (US flag and other interesting flags)
- Coach reacts to good performance (by anyone)
- Take off on the bars and blocks of each teammate
- Some of the scores are currently reversed
- Judge scoring your daughter (especially if there are judges that they either really like or dislike)
- Audience at the meeting
- Candid shot the gymnast you interact with every teammate
- Miscellaneous photos
- Gym bag
- Grip
- Lucky charm for all teammates who own it
- Snack
- Anyone’s special talent (my daughter can stick her belly this far so it’s pretty unusual) Putting it all together
If this is your first photo book, you should take a look at some of the photo book publisher websites (Snapfish, Photoworks, Picaboo, Shutterfly) and and start the book (you don’t really need to order one) with whatever images you just saw if you liked a particular publisher and the layout and background they had. Also take a look at the book sizes they offer to see which one is the size you prefer.
You will now have multiple images to review. It’s easiest to make your photo book if you have an idea of the ‘story’ you’ll tell on every page. When reviewing photo book publisher sites, you can also see how some of the layouts will fit into the few pages you want to have. It is easier to review your images before uploading them to publisher software. Go through the image and erase anything that’s repetitive, out of focus, poorly lit. This will save you a lot of time.
When deciding on your story line remember that even though it seems like the best gym years can be told. It’s because of what happened at the meeting that only a portion of your daughter’s time is spent meeting you. Most of the time is spent in their own gym studying and practicing. So some stories can be told by what happened in practice.