Volleyball playmaker

The girls volleyball playmaker for 2007 is Brittany Maab of Pueblo West High School.

I showed up at the school near the end of the school day. We couldn’t use the gym after school as basketball practice was going to be taking place in the gym at that time. The school’s athletic director was gracious enough to set it up so that the P.E. class would us an auxiliary gym so that I could photograph Brittany in the main gym.

Brittany, along with the help of one of the P.E. instructors put up the standards and the net for the photo. I brought all my cameras, flashes, light stands, remotes and yes a mini trampoline. At first Brittany was a bit apprehensive about jumping on the trampoline as earlier in her high school athletic career she had knee surgery on each of her knees to repair torn anterior cruciate ligaments.

I couldn’t blame her, but I also told her I would let her jump on the tramp a couple of times to see if she thought she could do it and if not, we’d just scrap it. She gave it a try and decided that it wasn’t going to be that hard on her knees and we went ahead and used it. I brought the tramp because typically high school volleyball players don’t have a vertical jump that gets their faces above the net and that was where I wanted her for the photo.

I placed the tramp to the side and Brittany would take a few quick strides and then jump onto it and raise her arms as the P.E. instructor would through a ball for her to block. After a couple of dozen runs, jumps tosses, and blocks I had enough to chose from and our time in the gym was over. I thanked Brittany for all of her efforts and headed back to the paper.

After a few days of looking through the images I made in the gym I decided that the photo just needed something more but I wasn’t sure what that was. I finally decided that I would do some post processing to see if I could spice things up a bit. I happened upon an idea to add several more balls to the photo and that seemed to do the trick. The only other thing I did was add a bit of motion to each ball so that the balls didn’t look like they were hanging from strings or something. I am not big on doing post processing and most of my work doesn’t allow it, but this time it seemed to work.

Can you tell which ball is the only one in the original frame? I'll never tell.

Cross country playmaker (boy)

Pueblo Central High School’s Dominique Rael is this year’s cross country playmaker on the boys side of things.

It is always an extra challenge when I have to shoot two photos of athletes in the same sport in the same season. It means that I have to come up with two unique images to illustrate the same sport. But the cool thing is that I love challenges. And while the athletes may be in the same sport, they most certainly aren’t the same person, so that is where I start.

As it turns out, Dominique was actually taking part in two different sports in the same season. Pueblo Central High School didn’t have enough athletes to field a soccer team and a cross country team at the same time so Dominique signed up for both.

I wanted to illustrate Dominique’s dual sport season even though he was selected as the playmaker for cross country I wanted to make soccer a part of the photo.

I asked him to meet me at a local soccer complex and to wear his varsity cross country uniform. Dominique showed up and was a great subject. I lucked-out as there were a group of guys having an informal soccer practice on one of the fields at the soccer complex.

We found a piece of ground near where the soccer players were practicing and I set things up. I asked him to take up a position with his back to the soccer field and to get into a hurler’s stretch and actually lean forward and really stretch. I think that this was more difficult than all those times I had Sarah run toward the camera for the girl’s cross country photo.

You see, I had to wait for there to be good soccer action going on in the background before I could get the photo I wanted. He needed to be stretching the entire time to make this work. It did work and we got the image I was hoping for. However, I am afraid that Dominique had a difficult time walking when we had finished and he went to stand up.

Hopefully by now the cramp has worked it’s way out of his hamstring and Dominique can walk with out that pesky limp.

Cross country playmaker (girl)

Cross country runner, Sarah Kettelkamp, of Pueblo Centennial High School is the playmaker for her sport this year.

I spent weeks researching this photo. Well, sort of. Most mornings during the warmer months I ride my mountain bike along the “Nature Trail” from my home to the dam in Lake Pueblo State Park. (About 15 miles round trip) During these rides I do a lot of looking for photo locations. I guess I can’t help it. Some people see dead people, I see photo backgrounds.

This was one of the first photos on my list. I had to get to it soon because the leaves were quickly falling from the trees and I wanted to have a bit of a golden background with a fall flavor to it.

Sarah was very patient with me while we were shooting the photo. I had found the location on my bike rides and decided we’d go to that section of trail for the back ground. The early afternoon sun worked great as a rim light as it fell through the trees and onto her head, shoulders and back.

I set up a couple of strobes on the trail and positioned myself. Then came the fun part, at least for me. I had looked at a lot of running photos to find the way I wanted to pose Sarah. I didn’t want her to run directly at the camera because that can end up with a photo where you can only see one leg. It happens when one leg is bent and can appear to be amputated at the knee.

I decided to have her run down the left side of the trail (her left) and then at a predetermined point she would cross the trail so that I could see both of her feet in the photograph. Sarah was very good at getting the stride I was looking for. There is a place in a runner’s stride when for a split second both of the runner's feet are off of the ground and it was what I was shooting for.

After about 30 times running down the trail through this spot I had plenty to chose from and Sarah had gotten a pretty good warm-up if she wanted to go for a run.

Glad I could help.

Gymnasics playmaker

Tera Sisson was selected as the playmaker for girls gymnastics. There is only one gymnastics team in town and it bears the name of Central High School, but is made up of girls from several different schools in the district. Tera is actually an honor student at Pueblo South High School.

The team practices in a local gym that supplies gymnasts with every piece of gymnastics equipment available. That is great for the athletes, but can make for a rather cluttered background due to limited space in the gym.

Taking this all into consideration I had determined ahead of time that I wanted to shoot a photo where there was a cloud of chalk in the air. I hadn’t really figured out how I was going to do this prior to going to the gym to make the photo.

I decided that the best piece of equipment for the chalk would be on the uneven bars. Tera was very helpful in making things work for the photo. Originally I had her leaping to the low bar and grabbing it. I thought it might make for a chalk cloud , but it produced little or no cloud so we had to come up with something else.

We eventually decided on having her jump up and slap the lower bar which was achieving the desired effect. What really made the photo was when Tera filled her hands with chalk before turning them over and slapping the bar. Sure it was over the top, but that was what I was hoping for.

Now if I can just get this taste of chalk out of my mouth...

Soccer playmaker

Matt Karn of Pueblo Centennial High School was chosen as the playmaker for boys soccer.

I have seen many amazing action portraits of soccer players. Now I had a chance to try something a little different myself.

A couple hours before Matt showed up at The Chieftain I was across the street at the glass store trying to buy a piece of glass that would support a 170-pound high school athlete. The response I got from the folks at the glass company was, “You want to do what with the glass?” I am not real sure that they understood what I was going to do with the Plexiglas even after I explained it to them.

They did find a piece of Plexiglas form me. I got it, headed back across the street to the paper and proceeded to try to figure out what to do next. Originally I was going to shoot the photo on the school’s practice field, but it was an extremely windy day so that was out of the question.

I walked around our building and managed to find a corner of the parking lot that was shielded from the wind by the building. It also offered me a chance to plug an extension cord in to an outlet in the building for the one Elinchrom strobe I would be using.

I kidnapped four chairs from our lunchroom to rest the Plexiglas on. I then set up the light and crawled under the Plexiglas with my camera and wide-angled lens. Matt was tentative at first, but after he realized that the Plexiglas would support his weight he was fine.

I discovered that the chairs that the Plexiglas was resting on were about 6 inches too short to get the photo I was trying to get. I basically had to frame the photo and then place the camera on the ground to squeeze him in to the frame.

You can picture me laying in the parking lot under glass with a high school soccer player standing on glass suspended on chairs above me as I squirmed around with my camera and my boss was listening to my direction and trying to aim the light and softbox diffuser the direction I needed it. It was quite a site!

All in all I would say it was worth the effort and the stains to my clothes from laying in the parking lot. And mother nature did a pretty amazing job on the sky too!

Football playmaker

The football playmaker for the 2007 season is Mike Bechina (BA-KEEN-A) of Pueblo Centennial High School.

Mike was very open to the ideas that I had for his portrait. The sportswriter who selected informed me that Mike is not only a football player and a 4.0 student, but he also plays guitar in a band that specializes in classic rock and roll music. The light bulb above my head instantly lit up.

I have been looking for an excuse to do a portrait of someone in mid-flight doing what I call the “Eddie Van Halen Jump” for a long time. This was my chance. To aid Mike in doing the jump I went to a local sporting goods store and purchased a mini trampoline.

The idea was to get Mike to jump on the tramp and do the jump while wearing his varsity football uniform and holding his guitar. I set things up in the studio at the paper and used Nikon speedlights instead of the big studio strobes that are on a track system in the studio. I did this because the speedlights allow me the ability have more precise control of the light.

I used four speedlights. I used snoots on three of them to prevent too much light spill. The set up was tight as our studio isn’t all that big. I was against the back wall of the studio and Mike was nearly out-jumping the background. All in all it went well and with a little coaching on the body position I needed from him we were able to get the above photo.

I think that by the time we were finished, Mike was really starting to get into the rock’n roll mentality. I think it shows in the photo. Rock on Mike!

Softball playmaker

Amber Pacheco of Pueblo Central High School was chosen as the playmaker for softball. I had decided that I wanted to do a photo of the Wildcat shortstop sliding head first into second base.

I wanted the photo to give the illusion of her sliding into the bag and yet still show off one of her trademark ear-to-ear grins.

I was able to get Amber’s coach to provide us with a helmet that didn’t have the required football-style facial protection. That way I could get an unobstructed view of her face.

I had Amber lay down on the ground with her hands stretched out to the bag as if she were sliding into it. I also asked her to lift her feet to give it more of an actual slide feel.

Then the fun began. My boss, and Amber’s coach began throwing hand-fulls of dirt at Amber’s legs and feet as I was shooting the photos to add the look of her in motion. Amber was covered in dirt when we finished but she was still smiling.

What a great sport she was!

Golf playmaker

Zane Covey of Pueblo West High School was selected as the golf playmaker. I had him meet me at Liberty Point about 45 minutes before the sun set. (Liberty Point is a very scenic outcropping above Lake Pueblo State Park.)

I had visualized a photo of him where the majority of him was in silhouette and I only lit his face. I had originally thought about going out on to the point to shoot the photo, but after I arrived I decided that the parking lot would work just fine. And be a better place to set up my light stand.

Before the sun started to set I shot a few images of Zane with strong backlight. It helped me figure out how I wanted Zane to pose. Then as the light was changing I set up one SB-800 (speedlight flash) on a light stand with a snoot to direct the light to Zane's face.

The sun began to set and I had just a few minutes to make the image I wanted with the best possible light. Zane was great to work with and I credit the success of the image to him and to the fact that my 10 year-old son (who I brought as an assistant) didn’t hit anyone with the rocks he was tossing off of the point. (By the way, he promises not to do that again.)

Fall Playmakers...

At the end of each high school sports season the sports writers at The Pueblo Chieftain select one athlete from each of the sports as the “Playmaker” to represent that sport.
The playmakers are defined by the writers as the student athletes who left a lasting impression on those of us who chronicled their efforts. These athletes may or may not be the best in their sport; they do, however, represent the reasons why we love sport so much. -The Pueblo Chieftain

I have been lucky enough to have the task of creating portraits of each of the playmaker athletes assigned to me. I have come to enjoy the process of creating these images.

First off, I do some research. I spend time looking at as many photos of each sport as possible. I find inspiration in images created by other photographers who have worked to illustrate similar subjects.

I then try to come up with an idea that will help me to visually expose each athlete’s personality in the most dynamic way possible. There is no real form to my creative process. I just kind of toss everything into the pot, turn up the heat, stir it a few times and see what turns out. Sometimes things go as planned and that is fine.

Sometimes I throw away the recipe in the middle of the shoot and just wing it. That can be fine too. And sometimes it just depends on how the planets line up or on what I had for breakfast, or which socks I am wearing...

(In subsequent posts I will share each of the images with some background on the photo shoots.)

Signs of the times.

I can't believe that it is basketball season already.I am still shooting high school football playoffs which, for me, is the best time of year for shooting high school football. I am very fond of day games as opposed to the Friday night lights games.

But before the football ends, the college basketball season begins. Last night I was at the first games for both the CSU-Pueblo men's and women's basketball teams. The teams are playing at the Colorado State Fair Events Center while their home arena is being renovated. This is a good thing as the paper has strobes mounted in each arena allowing for well-lit images.

There wasn't much out of the ordinary in either game. But something else caught my attention. In the seats during the game I saw three signs being held up as a fourth person stepped out of the stands to take a picture.The fans were there to see CSU-Pueblo forward Sarah Staggs from Glendale, Arizona and they weren't shy about it.

Each time she got into the game or did something positive while on the floor, a cheer would come from the section of sign-holders. I shot the photo without really reading what was written on the signs. I went back and looked at them when I had a free moment during a timeout. The sentiments were such that it brought a smile to my face and made me think.

The game on the court was the job-at-hand for the team, but in the bigger scheme of things, the outcome of the game didn't really matter nearly as much as the people who would come a great distance to see it because of their attachment to just one player.

And while an athletic scholarship may get you through college, it is your friends and family that help get you through life.

I'd say that no matter what the final score is, Sarah Staggs is a winning a much more important game...Life. (And not the Milton Bradley version...LOL)

Gettin' in the swing of things...

One of the terrific things about my job is that from time to time I get to bring one, or both of my sons with me when I shoot something. About half of the time it is because I want to the rest of the time it is out of necessity that I have the boys in tow.

They are my entertainment, junior navigators, art directors, and feature photo spotters. My boys have become a tuned to what I do and what I am looking for when we go looking for a feature photo (enterprise photo). If it were up to them I would be shooting skateboarding every day. Fortunately I am the one at the controls of my truck and get to decide where we are headed.

A week or two ago I had my youngest, Barry, with me when I was hunting the elusive enterprise photo. We did a quick look in all the normal places and then I thought we'd give a few of the smaller parks a quick look. It is nice to change-up the scenery when we go looking for photos and sometimes the smaller parks get passed over for the larger more popular parks.

We started our tour of parks and with each one we passed Barry asked if we could stop and he could play for a while. I told him that eventually if I was able to find a photo he may get the chance to play in one of the parks. He said that was okay and continued to ask if he could play at each park we passed. (He is 10 and nothing if not persistant.)

Finally I passed by a park where I saw some activity that caught my attention. I parked and Barry asked (as expected) if he could get out and play. I told him that he could but he would have to wait in the truck first while I got my photo.He wasn't happy about waiting in the truck, but reluctantly he did as I asked. However, I did have to endure a barrage of "why" questions while I was getting my cameras out. If you have kids you know what I am talking about, the child asks why and you answer and their response to your answer is another "why?". Ugh... And it can go on forever, or at least until I tell Barry, because that is what "I" said.

So I dashed off leaving him at the truck (but still in full view of where I was) to shoot some teenagers on a set of swings. They spun around, slammed into each other and did what teenagers do before heading off. I got my photo and the caption information I needed then turned to my waiting son and waved him over to the playground equipment.

Then we spent the next 15-20 minutes laughing and giggling on the playground before we headed back to the newsroom, but if you tell my boss I will deny it.