$templateURI = get_template_directory_uri(); $homeURL = get_home_url(); if ( isset($bfa_ata_preview) OR $bfa_ata['css_external'] == "Inline" OR ( isset($bfa_ata_debug) AND $bfa_ata['allow_debug'] == "Yes" ) ) { echo '
|
|||
Now that the NBA season is upon us, I can officially offer congratulations to former Ladies of Ontario Fury Dancer Kaylee U. for being selected to the 2015 ā 2016 Golden State Warrior Girls. Kaylee was a member of the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team and the Ladies of Ontario Fury Dance Team. Both squads were under the direction of Lynae de Leon, who has a history of developing local dance talent that have gone on to greater challenges with such squads as the Clippers Spirit, Charger Girls, Laker Girls and now the Warrior Girls. I was fortunate to be able to photograph her for three years before she made the jump to the NBA. Congratulations Kaylee! One of the best kept secrets in Southern California is that the Anaheim Bolts have an amazing dance team.Ā Theyāre gorgeous.Ā Theyāre sexy.Ā Theyāre really nice.Ā And over the last two weeks, I got to spend some quality time with Southern Californiaās best kept secretā¦the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team. The Anaheim Bolts play in the Professional Arena Soccer League.Ā Indoor arena soccer is a fast pace game with lots of scoring action.Ā Ā That the Bolts have a dance team adds to the entertainment value of going to a game.Ā Itās a great way to spend a Saturday evening. Continue reading Spending Some Quality Time with the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team I bought some new camera equipment and I wanted to test it out in a “game situation” before I committed to using it in a “must deliver” event.Ā So I emailed Lynae de Leon, the Director of the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team, and asked her if I could come down and test out my new gear.Ā She graciously obliged and I was excited at the chance to shoot one of my favorite squads.Ā Photographing the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team would be a challenge because the convention center where they perform is very dark and the lighting comes fromĀ a very odd angle.Ā This would be a dry run for when I formally visit in February. My results were mixed and that was not to be unexpected, when trying out new gear.Ā I needed to get consistent results…consistently good or consistently bad…to be able to set a baseline from which I could make some adjustments and fine tune my technique.Ā And I will do so, but for now I wanted to share a couple shots that went well. My thanks to Lynae and the Anaheim Bolts organization for allowing me the opportunity to test my gear in a game setting.Ā If you’ve never been to a PASL game, you should check it out because it is literally fast break indoor soccer and the action is fast and furious.Ā And the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team is absolutely worth the price of admission. Now, I have to go back and analyze those “consistently bad” photos and see what I did wrong.Ā In the mean time, let these “good” photos entice you to stay tuned for my official visit to the Anaheim Bolts in February. Congratulations to the 16 young ladies selected to the newest edition of the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team! And a special woot woot to all the veterans, all of those who auditioned made it back for another year. Click here to visit the team on Facebook. The Anaheim Bolts begin their second year of play in the Professional Arena Soccer League and on Sunday, they held auditions for the 2012 Anaheim Bolts Dance Team.Ā I was there to cover all the action for UltimateCheerleaders.com. Registration was at 9:00 am and the auditions were scheduled to begin promptly at 9:30 am.Ā Because I got home rather late from the previous night’s Charger game, I arrived at the Double Tree Hotel around 9:15 am to get set up for what would be a long day.Ā I introduced myself to Lynae de Leon, the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team Director and Bernie Lilavois, Co-owner and coach of the soccer team.Ā We chatted for a bit about the evolution of the team and the cheerleaders and how in the second year of existence, both sides of the organization faced the same challenges in building awareness and support throughout the community.Ā Lynae indicated that seven veterans were trying out again this year, which meant that there were approximately eight open positions.Ā With forty girls in attendance, ranging in age from 18 to 30, there was a very good chance that several rookies would make this squad. The Anaheim Bolts Dance Team will be holding their auditions for the 2012-2013 squad on Sunday, August 19th.Ā Ā Please note the new location, the DoubleTree Hotel at 201 East MacArthur Boulevard, Santa Ana, CA 92707. For more information, please visit the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team facebook page. Orange County, California is known as a hotbed of athletic talent.Ā The region produces some of the world’s best professional athletes from baseball, basketball, football, softball to water polo.Ā But what you might not know is that Orange County is a hotbed of dance talent as well.Ā The area has a number of dance studios that feed local colleges and universities, which in turn serve as feeder programs to professional cheerleading and dance teams.Ā And one of the newest professional squads is the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team. The Anaheim Bolts are a professional soccer team that plays in the Premier Arena Soccer League (PASL).Ā In their first year of operation, the Anaheim Bolts wisely chose to field a dance team, mining the talent rich area to fill out their roster of beautiful and talented dancers.Ā I was fortunate enough to attend last Sunday’s season ending game to photograph the Anaheim Bolts Dance Team. Let me say, that my first impression of this team was amazing.Ā These girls are very beautiful…as is customary with professional cheerleaders…but I got a chance to talk to most of the girls and they’re really nice as well.Ā That is to say that they are not only good looking, but women of substance as well.Ā Well rounded and well spoken, these girls are excellent representatives of the organization because they are not only great dancers, but a vital component in reaching out to the community and marketing the team. Continue reading Shock and Awe: The Anaheim Bolts Dance Team Click here to check out individual photos and bios on one of the PASL’s newest dance teams! ![]() Heather, Alex, and Stephanie The Anaheim Bolts are one of the newest teams in the PASL. The PASL season starts at the end of the month, and the dance team has a lot to accomplish before then. High up on the priority list: team photo. They’ve got to have a photo to autograph and hand out to fans, so this is one item of business that needs to be handled ASAP. With that in mind, the Bolts Dancers gathered together early one day last month for the team’s first photo shoot. Team Director Taylor Hooks had an ambitious plan for the day: uniforms in the morning and swimsuits in the afternoon. With 15 dancers to prep and primp, they had their work cut out for them. The morning shoot took place at a studio in San Clemente (between Los Angeles and San Diego.) By the time I arrived there, most of the hair and makeup was done and they were about ready to begin the photography. (Perfect timing on my part, if I do say so myself.) Each dancer was to be photographed in two outfits, the dance costume, and a Bolts t-shirt. This was also a reunion of sorts, as five members of the 2007-08 Clippers Spirit Dance Team were in the mix. It was a nostalgia moment for me, since that year’s team was the first team I ever got to cover in person. (Thank you Jessie Christensen!) It’s always awesome to see what the girls have been up to since then. Taylor and Lynae are the Director and Assistant Director of the Bolts Dancers, respectively. Alex is a member of the team. Kelley, a professional make up artist, and Harmony, a professional hair stylist were part of the team responsible for beautifying the dancers. Ahhh, memories…
The first thing that happens at any photo shoot is the waiting. You get your makeup done, and wait. You get your hair done, and wait. You put your outfit on, and wait some more.
One thing I have learned over the past few years is that photo shoots are a unique and special kind of torture for dancers. On the one hand, they know they’re going to be wearing little bitty outfits, so they don’t want to eat anything. On the other hand, there is a lot of waiting around. It’s always a looooong day. And what’s the most common activity for the trapped and the bored? Eating. They resist and resist.
Around 1pm we jumped into our cars and drove to a house in Coto de Caza for the swimsuit shoot. Coto is a huge, gated, master planned community in the OC. If you’ve ever watched “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” this is the “Coto” they’re always talking about. As in “All the right people live in Coto” blah blah blah. (I only watched the first season. Hopefully they’re over themselves by now.) I’m not entirely clear on how this house wound up being the location for the shoot. I think the homeowners were friends of the photographer, or something like that. Anyway, nice place! A great setting for the team’s calendar.
For the most part, everyone’s makeup was still looking good from the morning. All the makeup artists had to do was a little touch up.
The photographer, who has a swimwear company, provided swimsuits in the Bolts team colors for the shoot.
While the girls were changing, Taylor and Lynae worked out the various locations around the property. They needed at least 12 setups, plus a location for the cover. There was an interesting rock feature behind the pool, that looked like a good spot for the group shot.
Once all the girls were ready, Taylor gave everyone a once-over to make sure the whole look worked. Between you and me, those were some tiny little suits. They were ruched in the back and everyone’s buns got a little more sun than they expected. (You’ll have to take my word for that, as there are no booty shots in this collection.) When everything was ready, Taylor picked out the first few girls, and the shooting began.
I mentioned that there was a lot of waiting in the morning, right? Stanko proceeded to make the rounds, sniffing everyone and their possessions thoroughly. He wandered into a couple of the shots, but that was an accident. See, Stanko thinks if you’re looking at him, it must be because you want to pet him, so of course he’s going to come over and make himself available for a good scratch behind the ears. In his world “Stanko, get out out of there!” translates roughly into “Please let me rub your belly.”
It wasn’t until Myra pulled out some food that we discovered Stanko does in fact know how to sit and lie down.
The girls dealt with the waiting in different ways…
Some shoots were easier than others
Once all of the individual/duo/trio shots were done, it was time for the all-terrain portion of the shoot: the cover. Taylor explained what she wanted the girls to do. They looked at her. They looked at the rocks. They looked at her again. They looked back at the rocks. Everyone’s thought bubble was “You’re kidding, right?” Plenty of trepidation, but no complaints. What a bunch of troopers.
It took some finessing to get everyone in place. Once everyone was in place, Taylor started moving peple around so the yellow and blue suits were evenly distributed. I had my eye on a few of the girls as the ones mostly like to take a swim. The hair and makeup artists were long gone, so if anyone fell in the pool, it would NOT be a good thing.
Once they got a few good shots for the cover, they did a few silly ones.
And then they carefully…ever so carefully, climbed down, one by one. At that point, I was kind of hoping that someone would fall in, but nope. The shoot concluded like most of these shoots do – with FOOD. The girls had been day dreaming about El Torito all afternoon, and they wasted no time packing up and heading to the restaurant. I feel bad for not calling ahead to tell the staff to throw the nachos on the table and get the heck out of the way. In all, they managed to accomplish everything Taylor had planned for the day. I was pretty impressed. I know I couldn’t have pulled it off. From what I understand the calendar is at the printers right now.Hopefully we’ll see the finished product soon. In the meantime, you can click here to check out the rest of my photos from the day, and here’s a little sneak preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PuaFNT0SN0&feature=player_embedded |
|||
Copyright © 2021
UltimateCheerleaders.com - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa 31 queries. 0.247 seconds. |