But I digress.This week was Mallory's last day at gymnastics, at least for the current session. We'd thought we'd end the season here but she is still enjoying it so much that we signed her up for one last ten-week stint. Given that this was the last week of the current session though, we were invited to bring in our cameras. I gave this a big HELL YEAH because Mallory has been in gymnastics since September and we have NEVER been allowed to bring a camera. So I was all over this.
So were some of the other parents. We all showed up with lenses and flashes at the ready. The guy sitting next to me in the gallery started firing off some shots as the kids started out on the vault, and the instructor promptly turned around and told him to stop, that the flash was going to blind some of the kids vaulting and that we were not allowed to take pictures of the kids at the facility. This was perplexing, since a letter had come home saying we could take pictures, and he said so. The woman relented and said pictures were OK as long as there was no flash.
Then the instructors invited us down out of the gallery to join the class on the gym floor and get some shots from there... which we did. Except that I got to about shot number five and another woman then hauled me off the floor, saying the gym did not have insurance for us to be out there. Back up to the gallery we went.
Then we were told we could not take any pictures, because there could be other kids in our kids' photos, and that was not allowed, at least not unless all the parents agreed to it. I quickly made a pact with the other parents that we could all take photos even if they included the other kids. But to be honest, that was the point at which I lost my mojo. The whole photo-taking episode was too much of a clusterf*ck and I packed the camera away at that point. Besides, I was finding taking pictures there really tricky. I thought I'd chosen my lens wisely but it was turning out to be a lot more challenging than I'd thought.
So were some of the other parents. We all showed up with lenses and flashes at the ready. The guy sitting next to me in the gallery started firing off some shots as the kids started out on the vault, and the instructor promptly turned around and told him to stop, that the flash was going to blind some of the kids vaulting and that we were not allowed to take pictures of the kids at the facility. This was perplexing, since a letter had come home saying we could take pictures, and he said so. The woman relented and said pictures were OK as long as there was no flash.
Then the instructors invited us down out of the gallery to join the class on the gym floor and get some shots from there... which we did. Except that I got to about shot number five and another woman then hauled me off the floor, saying the gym did not have insurance for us to be out there. Back up to the gallery we went.
Then we were told we could not take any pictures, because there could be other kids in our kids' photos, and that was not allowed, at least not unless all the parents agreed to it. I quickly made a pact with the other parents that we could all take photos even if they included the other kids. But to be honest, that was the point at which I lost my mojo. The whole photo-taking episode was too much of a clusterf*ck and I packed the camera away at that point. Besides, I was finding taking pictures there really tricky. I thought I'd chosen my lens wisely but it was turning out to be a lot more challenging than I'd thought.
Mallory has now passed 3 out of 4 levels of Kindergym, the program for 3-5 year olds, and she is stoked to try to clear the last level and make it into the class of 6-8 year olds while she is still just 5. I am not sure that she can pull it off during this one last session of the year, but if not then she is gung ho to go back in September and clear it then. Maybe by then I will have my camera gear sorted out, and maybe by then the gym's policy on picture taking will actually be consistent.
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