Jolesch Photographers

[BariGirlMom]

I just had a great, and informative, conversation with a young man at Jolesch Photographers. I’d called to ask when the evening Atlanta performances would be online. He didn’t know anything about it at the time, but called me back saying that, unfortunately, there had been no photographer for the evening corps’ performances, so the photos that are now online for Atlanta is all there will be.

We talked for quite a while, and I learned things that may be helpful for others to know. According to his employee, Jolesch is only contracted with DCI to shoot championships. All the other shows they shoot are “bonuses”, so to speak. W talked about how poor some photos are, and how sometimes it will be years before we find a photo of our child, and then the next, we see tons of them.... he said that DCI has very strict rules for Jolesch (this is all from memory, and I may be incorrect on several things, so please don’t quote me or call up DCI or anyone else to take out your frustrations about anything you read here!)

- no more than two photographers on the field at shows leading up to finals

- only one photographer on the field for finals

- photographers of drum corps, unlike during fall marching band competitions, cannot go down the sidelines to take photos, can not encroach within so many yards of the pit, and cannot go out any further than the 35 yard line on either side.

- sometimes the lighting at an entire show is poor, due to either the sun’s position, the poor lighting at smaller high school stadiums, etc., and then the photos all turn out less than good

- Color guard members have a lot of movement in what they do, so many more shots are taken in an attempt to get one good shot, whereas fewer are usually needed of drummers or horn players... they don’t have the flags, rifles, arms, to get in the way of faces like guard members... this sometimes makes it appear that colorguard photos are favored by the photographers, when that’s not the case at all

- Back field conductors – they’re beyond the limits of where the photographers are allowed to shoot from, so you will probably never see shots of them

- Sales from the smaller shows are FAR fewer than those from shows leading up to finals, so there’s not a huge push to photograph a lot of other shows. My guess is that with the Jolesch 2007 plastered across their online photos, it’s sometimes impossible to know if that’s your child or not! At finals week, their computers don’t have that copyright logo, so it’s much easier to see who the photos are of, so, sales go up

- Jolesch gets probably two applications a day, online, from people who want to be photographers for Jolesch... in most cases, even though the amateur photographers think their equipment is sufficient, jolesch doesn’t think it is – my comment? Let them try anyway! You might be surprised! (look at some of the amateur shots people on these forums have posted! They’re fantastic!)

- Jolesch tries to find photographers that live in the same towns where shows will be, so there isn’t the added expense of transportation and hotels. That helps them determine WHICH shows they will be at. I said I had a sneaky feeling that there are a lot of people out there who would pay their own expenses to get the opportunity to be down on that field and shoot photographs... I don’t recall what, if any, his comment to that was

One hint he gave me... if people look at the Thursday performance photos during championship week, and you can’t find one of your son/daughter/significant other, there are forms you can fill out, at the Jolesch tent, where you can indicate the corps, section, any sort of description that may help a photographer identify someone, and they will do their best to catch a shot of them on Friday or Saturday. I know some fellows deliberately grow a goatee or longer sideburns, so they can be picked out more easily in photos... even bigger help is to tell the photographer where the person will be standing at the beginning of the show.

Personally, I’m not sure why, if the only contract Jolesch has with DCI is for finals week, others aren’t allowed the opportunity to shoot other shows, as long as there are no more than two photographers on the field, and get DCI's approval, and they follow all of DCI’s requirements of being only in certain areas of the field... it’s understandable that DCI doesn’t want photographers running around to get photos, and then have them show up in footage that will be used for DVD’s.

Anyway, it was an interesting conversation, and I can honestly say I will not be quite as upset with them in the future. I’m sure it’s a difficult task, and when they have to work within certain confines, their job is even more difficult. There are most likely reasons DCI has, that we’re not aware of, for not allowing other outside photographers to be on the field throughout the summer. There are always two sides to every story, and it was nice to hear the other side... he seemed surprised to hear me tell him that I know MANY people who literally spend hours in front of their computers, combing through the jolesch photos in hopes of seeing even just one good shot of their kid! I pointed out that many parents haven’t seen their kids since May, and it’s really exciting to see a photo of your child online, bigger than life... and, to counter that, it’s also very frustrating to look and NEVER find your child... he said it all depends on where your child is, at certain points in the show... one year, you’ll notice tons of photos of one or two particular guard members, drummers, horn players, etc, over and over again... the next year, it’s a different set of people being highlighted.. .it all has to do with WHERE they are on the field, and how close they come to the photographers, whose positions aren’t as flexible as we would all assume they are.

[decompressed]

I have found that lately, the last several years, their quality of print has declined dramatically....what are other people's experiences with them?

[Machine]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing!

I've only bought from Jolesch once (5 years ago or so) and I really only ponied up the $$ when I read that the quality of the print would exceed what I saw online (since online were not processed yet in order to get them up for sale quickly after championships). The product that I got looked every bit as bad, if not worse than what I saw online. Highlights were blown, colors were washed out, etc. Never again. Well, not unless I really have to! :)

I should have suspected that they do not have the resources to go in and retouch all those photos. The pictures that I took at recent shows, I threw out the 75% that were compositionally bad or blurry and then corrected levels, color balance, contrast, etc. on the 70 or so I had left. That took awhile in and of itself.

[BariGirlMom]

Hmmm... the quality of the finished product wasn't even something we discussed, since I've never purchased prints from them (never could FIND a shot of my daughter until her 4th year). The only thing I did order was a plaque that had the group photo, a single shot of my daughter, and a sort of memorial 'photo" of the DCI championship logo and the name of the city that hosted finals. When they printed the wrong city (they printed Providence, RI where Div II/III was, instead of Foxboro where Div I was) they quickly offered to, rather than just replacing the DCI logo "photo", send us an entirely new plaque, complete with photos... So, my daughter has the correct one to display, and I have the one that says championships were in Providence.) AT about $150, I was a happy customer to get a second one for free. That plaque has actually been a great source of enjoyment the past two years... I'd order one for each year, if I could just find a photo of my daughter! :)

Their site says the final product will be of much higher quality, so I just assumed it would be... the one time I did see a great shot of my daughter last year, the aussie was shading her face so badly, I hesitated to order it, not knowing how much they could lighten it and still have it be okay.... I pasted it into photoshop and lightened it myself, as a test, and by the time I could finally see her face, the photo was so washed out, I called Jolesch, in hopes they would tell me they could work magic with it and I'd be thrilled with the end result! Ha! Jolesch could not assure me it was worth a shot to order a print, so I never did. I guess a rule of thumb would be to only order prints that are already pretty decent online. The San Antonio photos are some of the better ones I've seen... lighting conditions just must have been just right... oh DUH! INDOORS! That didn't dawn on me until just now!! All the MORE reason I wished they'd had a photographer at the evening Atlanta show! Oh well...

Hey, Machine.... YOU are one of the people I was referring to when I told the guy at Jolesch about all the great photographers out there who would probably LOVE the opportunity to be given a staff pass to photograph a show! (Charles Frey and Wendy Tran come to mind too, as well as a few others whose names escape me....). Am I right? You've taken some great shots, if my feeble mind hasn't confused you with someone else...

[Tusayan]

- sometimes the lighting at an entire show is poor, due to either the sun’s position, the poor lighting at smaller high school stadiums, etc., and then the photos all turn out less than good

- Color guard members have a lot of movement in what they do, so many more shots are taken in an attempt to get one good shot, whereas fewer are usually needed of drummers or horn players... they don’t have the flags, rifles, arms, to get in the way of faces like guard members... this sometimes makes it appear that colorguard photos are favored by the photographers, when that’s not the case at all

- Back field conductors – they’re beyond the limits of where the photographers are allowed to shoot from, so you will probably never see shots of them

A good photographer with the right equipment can get around any of these issues. They're simply excuses for photographers who aren't prepared for the job.

[Machine]

Hey, Machine.... YOU are one of the people I was referring to when I told the guy at Jolesch about all the great photographers out there who would probably LOVE the opportunity to be given a staff pass to photograph a show! (Charles Frey and Wendy Tran come to mind too, as well as a few others whose names escape me....). Am I right? You've taken some great shots, if my feeble mind hasn't confused you with someone else...

I wondered if you were including me in that statement. :) Yeah, I'd jump at the chance to get up close to take pictures. I don't envy the stress Jolesch has in needing to get good shots though... When I was taking pictures at those couple shows earlier this year, I just snapped away hoping to get a few good ones.

The two things I found the most difficult were getting things in focus and getting good shots compositionally. The first could be helped tremendously with a faster lens. I had pretty decent results as long as I really thought about holding still and just lightly squeezing the trigger, although the shots are grainy because I had to crank the ISO up to 1600. The latter could be helped with even a little bit of freedom to move. Being stuck in a 20" seat pretty much means you'll only shoot what comes to you.

[SkyRyder_FMM]

Personally, I find many of the reasons Jolesch provided for their pictures pretty weak. Blue Stars have a volunteer from the Netherlands on tour with them that has been taking a boat load of photos from shows and posting them in their forums. Since he is a volunteer, he is not permitted to run the sidelines, etc. either, yet he is capturing pictures of the corps that simply blow away the product that jolesch has provided this year. The pictures they provided in years past have been better. This year, there is an obvious deterioration in quality of the photos.

[loph]

Here's a gallery from 2007 Nightbeat in Charlotte

RussK's Pbase

And one example which shows his excellent results in tough conditions:

1/200s f/2.8 at 175.0mm iso400 [/url]

Here's another gallery from the same event that I shot from the stands:

flickr Nightbeat set

and one example:

I think we have the right to expect great photos from DCI sanctioned shooters.

[BariGirlMom]

Being stuck in a 20" seat pretty much means you'll only shoot what comes to you.

Haha... so true!

I always use a tripod or monopod with digital cameras - even from sitting in the stands... but then, the "camera police" are always coming up to me making sure I know not to shoot video... geez... does a tripod automatically make one think video??? That has greatly improved my results (the monopod or tripod, not the camera police!) ... some day, I will buy a GOOD camera, maybe for next year, since my daughter's aging out, but in the mean time, I finally have an inexpensive (Canon S3 IS for about $300) digital that's been absolutely fantastic (at least for the average person). I've had probably 10 or more digital cameras, each time hoping they will finally produce decent photos in a drum corps setting, especially when the sun goes down, but always have been disappointed. I know that I should have just bought a good camera in the beginning, learned how to use it, and saved myself some heartache (as well as expense) in the long run, but I couldn't justify buying something like a Canon Rebel, not really being what I'd call a photographer.

I'd shoot so many shots, I'd at least wind up with something as a memento, but far from what I really wanted. In January, my Olympus C750, 10x stopped working (I was almost HAPPY, since that meant "new camera time!") and I tried several other models, trying each new one out at my youngest daughter's next winter drumline competition... dissatisfied, I'd return the camera and try another one. Finally, just in time for the championships, I tried the Canon S3 IS, and was THRILLED with the results. For being someone who knows nothing more than how to aim and shoot a camera, I was totally stoked with how good the photos turned out, especially for the winter guard show,which I only shot because a guard mom begged me to, after seeing the drumline shots I'd taken... With the 12x zoom, I was able to get some great closeups (a higher resolution would probably be good, I think mine is only a 6.0, but I'm happy with it still), even from pretty high up, and when I used the tripod, they were even better. The detail on facial expressions I caught was amazing - better than what the professional on site had taken! There's a mode on the dial that is for "sports", and it's like a motor drive, so all I do, literally, is hold the shutter down, hold the camera and move it around, pointing it wherever I feel like, not really even knowing for sure what I'm taking pictures of! When I get home, I'm amazed at how now, almost ALL the shots are good ones, instead of only a couple.

A couple of weeks ago, a robin built a nest in our patio overhang... the photos I got over the next two weeks of the babies are incredible. You can even see the little fuzz on top of the heads when their eyes are still closed... for those i didn't even use a tripod, but the built-in image stabilizer works well on its own. We've also got a new hummingbird feeder, and I got some really good shots of the hummers... it makes me so excited to think what I will one day be able to do if I get a GOOD camera, and thank goodness, they've come way down in price... I'd love a nice zoom lens too.

Anyway, maybe some of you out there will apply to be jolesch photographers! And if they say 'no thank you' the first time, send them some of your shots and offer to pay your own expenses... I can't image anything more fun than to be down on that field with a camera in hand! Wearing the staff badge wouldn't be bad either! :)

[BariGirlMom]

Here's a gallery from 2007 Nightbeat in Charlotte

RussK's Pbase

And one example which shows his excellent results in tough conditions:

1/200s f/2.8 at 175.0mm iso400 [/url]

Here's another gallery from the same event that I shot from the stands:

flickr Nightbeat set

and one example:

I think we have the right to expect great photos from DCI sanctioned shooters.

OMG! Those are incredible... okay, so now my little Canon S3 is nothing special, BUT, for those who really only want to spend $300, it's a GREAT camera...

And now my spiel about Jolesch has been shot all to pieces too! None of these photos are taken from down on the field, yet they're drastically better than what Jolesch produces... in RussK's photos of SCV, I could actually see the sweat on one guy's face! And I finally saw a photo of a rookie contra player I know!

Would it be "allowable" for people, who are willing to share their albums with others, to have a thread with links to them? I'm not sure if that's allowed, but I would never have seen some of those photos, had you not posted the links. Is that something that would be frowned upon? I know a lot of parents out there would be more than willing to pay for copies of some of those!