WINTER PLAYMAKERS

It is nearly time for me to start shooting the "Playmaker" feature again. This time I will be shooting the high school athletes chosen by Chieftain sportswriters for the spring sports season.

I figured that it was a good time to share some of the photos I made for the winter sports season.

This first photo was one of the easiest and most definitely got the most attention. To make this photo of a high school basketball player I went to the school gymnasium and started by putting black background paper on the floor of the gym. I then asked my subject to collect as many basketballs as possible for the photo. She returned with several balls at which point I explained that I wanted her to lie down and I would then surround her with the balls.

I placed my subject, the paper and the balls on the floor beneath a press box that is attached to the wall more than 10 feet above the gym floor. I also placed two SB-800 strobes on stands and bounced the light from the strobe on to my subject with two white umbrellas. I then climbed into the box to shoot straight down to make the photo I had composed. The resulting image is the one above.

The high school hockey player was a fun image to make, at least for me. I didn't have to jump on skates a dozen times or more, so I was just fine after this shoot. Ha!

I am sure that my subject was just fine too as he is in very good condition.
To shoot this image I placed two SB-800 strobes on stands and placed snoots on then to direct the light as I cross lit the place on the ice where I told the play to leap.

I was actually very lucky when I went to shoot this photo as the staff of the ice arena had turned most of the lights over the rink off to save on energy while the ice was empty. This allowed me to photograph the hockey player without worrying about the background. I also took advantage of the ability of the strobes to fire with a faster shutter speed when the Nikon controller was used. I shot this one at a 500th of a second to freeze the hockey player in mid-air without any blur.

After several jumps and showing the player how I wanted him to position his body in the air I made this photo.

The photo of the wrestler was an idea I came up with while watching one of my many favorite "Law & Order" episodes on television. The athlete finished the season as one of the top wrestlers in the state and I wanted to illustrate that fact in the photo.

The tape job on the mat was very entertaining to both the wrestler and his coach as we taped the mat around the body of a teammate in the school's wrestling room. The coach was the one who suggested that we tape it in such a way as to look like the body on the mat had a leg bent back underneath it. I thought it was a nice touch.

After taping an extra mat to the wall over a window in the room to block out some sunlight, I set up two strobes reflecting light into white umbrellas and shot the image while standing on a small platform. All in all a very simple set up and a fun image to shoot with one exception. Have you ever smelled a wrestling room?

In this case I wanted to show what the view that opposing teams had as this basketball player brought the ball up court. More often than not this kind of a move would lead to a basket for this player's team.

There is a moment when a basketball player is running up the floor when both feet leave the ground and that was the moment I wanted to capture. I set up to strobes on stands cross lighting a place on the court where the white practice hoop would be directly behind the player as he ran toward the camera. I explained what I wanted him to do and he did exactly what I was hoping he would do.

I originally had a third head pointed at the hoop in the background but I wasn't able to get it to fire, so I just lightened the backboard a bit in photoshop and was able to get the desired result. This was another time when I made use of the Nikon controller to get the strobes to fire at a 500th of a second to freeze the atlete in motion. I sure do like that feature!