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Tag : lighting

Gridiron 2019: The result of teamwork

We always try to one up ourselves when it comes to the highly conceptualized football preview tabs. Finishing these projects is always a display of teamwork. This year was no different. What was different was my role. I took a leadership role on the project this year. More of an artistic director so to speak. I used the opportunity to continue training one of my colleges on the complexity of lighting, framing and posing. This year’s theme was gold rush […]

2018 Gridiron football preview

It’s that time of year again. Although it may not feel like it in Florida, football season is upon us. Just like every year in Rockford, I was once again tapped to produce over the top portraits of our local high school football team. I was fortunate enough to get the help of my colleague, Michael Johnson, on this project. I guess it wasn’t really luck. I insisted on it. You see, during a planning meeting that I was not […]

Hoops wrecking crew

I’ve been part of many creative sports portrait shoots. My football portraiture pushed boundaries and set new standards and expectations for my paper. Shortly after moving to Florida and starting my career with The Villages Daily Sun, I was asked to do an over-the-top portrait shoot for our local high school basketball teams. The photo team worked with the sports department and our executive editor to brainstorm the theme. It didn’t take long for us to land on the theme: The […]

Lighting – Keep it simple

We’re all familiar with the saying K.I.S.S., Keep It Simple Stupid. Sometimes that the best advice we can follow. I’ve been known to get carried away with lighting setups. I’ve used as many as eight speedlights in repeating flash mode to create some of my sports portraits. However, often times the simple setup can yield just as nice of results. Case in point, I was tasked with photographing a tennis doubles team that was dominating the conference. I had a short […]

Wide world of “sportraits”

The sports department has kept me busy recently. On top of regular feature stories here and there, the paper is running articles on the players of the year from each sport. I’ve shot so many sports portraits that I tried to coin the phrase “sportrait.” (Don’t forget my underwater portrait of the two swimmers or the group shot of wrestlers.) Unfortunately, it only takes a quick Google search to see that I was not the first to be so clever. […]