Photo-Report: J.M. Manion – www.jmmanion.com
For years I have been doing photo shoots on Sunday after the NPC Junior National Championships, NPC Team Universe Championships/NPC National Fitness, NPC USA Championships and NPC National Championships for the NPC News. When logistics permitted I would even do them after the NPC Junior USA Championships. It is a well-known fact that these photo shoots should be planned for and many competitors over the years have casually walked by me at these competitions and said, “Hey, I’ll see you on Sunday.” The implication being that they are confident they will win the overall in their particular division or place in a position where they qualify for the IFBB Professional League and get to be a part of the photo shoots.
Originally the photo shoots were short with only Men’s and Women’s Bodybuilding. Then Fitness was added. Now I have to logistically figure out how to position 6 or 7 overall winners for the NPC News cover photo. There is no way to have everybody on one level because that would lend itself to a horizontal photo when the cover has to be a vertical photo. It has presented its challenges the past few years but I’ve come to the conclusion they have to be on levels of some sort. For the remaining photo shoots featuring the class winners of a division that qualified for the IFBB Professional League, I can afford to photograph them horizontally and leave it in the hands of the NPC News’ very capable Creative Art Director Carl Chiocca to work his magic and position the photographs in the magazine.
A major factor that works against me when I do these photo shoots is time available and weather – especially if we are planning to do the photo shoot outdoors, like in Las Vegas for the annual NPC USA Championships. At this point I have about a 4-5 hour window to coordinate and photograph 20-25 competitors depending on the contest. For this particular photo shoot I did the majority of them inside the host hotel where they have a huge sky dome. I ventured outside with the groups of the Bikini and Figure competitors towards the end of the photo shoot.
As you can imagine there are several hundred photographs taken that eventually get whittled down to the approximately 15-20 we run in the NPC News. So what happens with the photographs I don’t use? Nothing. Until now.
With the newly revamped NPC News Online website, I now have the opportunity for everybody to see all the photographs taken. Unlike other photographers who would probably edit their selections, I am presenting to all of you all the photographs taken after this year’s 2012 NPC Junior National Championships. You’ll see that I use variations in exposure and composition to give myself enough variety for the NPC News magazine staff to select what they like. You’ll notice that there seems to be a lot of extra space on the outside of the photographs. I learned a long time ago back in the pre-digital film days, that there has to be enough room given to the Art Director so they can crop the photograph to look the best on a magazine page. So what you are about to see are totally unedited photographs – no exposure compensations, no touch-ups, no anything. These are as real and raw as you can get. You’ll see the competitors standing around as I do a few test photographs, which are also included, to the last photo shot for each division.
I hope you enjoy this somewhat ‘behind the scenes’ look at what goes into these photo shoots.
Check out all of the Sunday photos from the 2012 Jr. Nationals here!
