During Spring break, my Son Aidan and I did some portraits in the setting sun at Midway Park.

My recipe for Sports Portraits is simple.  Work with the young athlete, and put them in the familiar situations of their sport.  Keep lighting changes quick to minimize change over time and maintain the focus.

With the sun setting, it also gives me some additional control over the light, shadow and backdrops.

And throw in some variation with lighting and posing to bring variety to the finished product.

The concepts for these are still a work in progress and will be taken further in the future.  My goals with the lighting was to help highlight the player as the subject, while reducing the background and improving the stop-action sharpness of the photographs.

The dig from a low angle:

With the weather we had in early December, we scheduled studio time instead of a location session.  The portraits were part of a photo book that I put together for Nathan’s Dad as a Christmas surprise.

I’m also now working on the studio experience – as the field of play is not always available, it makes sense to also provide a studio experience that has a twist versus the conventional sports portraits. I’m trying to do away with the well used looks and develop new ideas.

This is my son Aidan, who plays U6 Soccer at Atlanta Soccer Academy this fall.

Showing some juggling skills….

Giving it a good solid knock…

And a silly grin!

My goal in portraits is always to evoke the athlete’s natural personality, show their competitive side, and create some unique, powerful images that take advantage of what can be done in portraits versus what is available during a game.

I create several concepts before the shoot and then work each lighting concept from several angles and with different lenses to create different looks.  The 300mm/f2.8, which I regularly use as a sports lens, pulls double duty as an incredible portrait lens.

The eyes always are a huge part of a portrait, and of a competitor.  I’ve come in tight on Jessica to pick up her gaze at the catcher.

I use lighting to create specific effects, as well as isolation, on my subject.  The lighting in these two examples create more of a theatrical look by being brighter than the overall light provided by the sun.  A pair of Alien Bee 800′s, with the front light using a twenty-two inch Beauty Dish, and the rear an Apollo softbox.

Several big thanks to some partners and vendors for making this possible:

• Stars Soccer Club for making available part of their incredible campus in Milton. Simply put, there are not many facilities of this size or beauty in the Southeast.
• Willow Lloyd of Lloyd’s Promos and Lloyd’s Soccer in Charleston, South Carolina for pulling together a quick, small quantity apparel order for my athletes to wear.
• PPR Atlanta for having the best stock of any Photographic rental house, anywhere. PPR Atlanta provided Honda’s fantastic EU2000 generator for the shoot.
• Nick Jennings for the big assist Saturday night with all of the lights, generator and bags.
• Most of all, Britton and Colette for volunteering to model for the shoot, and persevering through two hours of shooting. Also a big thanks to Britton’s parents for driving both of the athletes to Stars for the shoot.