Wrestler in a dark alley...

South High School's Jackson Wood in a dark alley.

Some kids are tough looking, some are tough talking, but Jackson Wood...he's just tough.

Wood,  who lost his first round match in the class 4A Colorado Wrestling Championships recently in the Pepsi Center in Denver, never gave up. He was able to put the loss out of his head and get right back to business winning the rest of the way in the 132-pound division to finish in third place. Wow!

So when I was thinking about shooting his photo I had to come up with a background that illustrated that this is a tough kid.

Where better to shoot a tough kid than in a dark alley? I did a little scouting around downtown Pueblo and was able to find the alley just to the west of Santa Fe Avenue behind Nachos Restaurant. It was exactly what I was looking for.

There were dumpsters, powerlines, grungy walls and a broken and gravely surface on the ground. Perfect.

I am not sure Jackson was real sure of what I was trying to do when we showed up to the alley and I explained how he was going to be in the alley in his wrestling singlet.  I explained it to him the best I could and he was great to work with. He even let me dump some water on his head to make it look like he was covered in sweat. It was about then that he really started to notice the wind that was whipping down the alley.

So I set up two lights. I put one on a light stand with a softbox just to my left to light him from the front. I also clipped one to a power box on the back of the building behind Jackson to give a bit of separation from the background.

Once the lights were in place, and I had dumped the last of my water bottle on Jackson's head, I started to shoot. I had several opportunities to get taillights in the background and the lights back there were awesome at slow shutter speeds.

I think we spend about 15 minutes shooting the photos, but to Jackson it most likely seemed a bit longer since he was exposed to the elements.

Nice work Jackson! (...both in the alley AND on the mat!)

A basketball, a sunset, and a Pringles can

Megan Patterson of South High School is the girls basketball playmaker.

I had been carrying the idea for the girls basketball "Playmaker" photo around in my head for a couple of months when it came time to shoot it. I was thrilled when I found out that Megan Patterson had been chosen as my subject. I photographed her once before when she was going to school at Delores Huerta Prep for a story on her shot putting and discus throwing.

(Megan will attend the University of Central Florida on an athletic scholarship for shot putting and discus.)

She was a joy to photograph both times.

This time I had a chance to talk with her and her parents for about a half an hour prior to photographing her. That was because I had not taken into account the fact that the clocks had recently been set to an hour later so the sunset was later than I had thought.

Once the sun dipped behind the mountains it was "game-on". I had about 15 minutes to get all the photos I could of Megan shooting layups.

I mounted a flash on a light stand just out of the frame on the left side and to control the light and keep it just on her face I used a very high-tech piece of equipment, a Pringles potato chip can. I cut the ends off and cover it with black gaffer's tape (to add some stability) and slide it over the end of my flash. It works very well.

So with the light in place, and the remotes on the flash and my camera, I stepped into the ditch across the road from the basketball court and started to shoot. I literally shot her so many times that the batteries in the camera completely died.

There had been a guy shoot some baskets on the other end of the court and for a brief minute thought about including him in the photo, but it just didn't work out. So I would wait for him to get out of the photo and shoot, shoot, shoot.

And then the sun went down on the photo shoot and I climbed out of the ditch grateful for a girl basketball player who is patient with a goofy shooter like me.

Making a SPLASH!

Pueblo South High School swimmer, Samantha Divelbiss.

The most recent round of "Playmaker" portraits was published in the Sunday edition of The Pueblo Chieftain. This was the athletes from the fall sports season. The first of the five was Samantha Divelbiss who was chosen as the playmaker for girls swimming.

I was thrilled that she was selected. I shot her senior portraits this past summer and she is a real joy to work with. She has a lot of fun with the whole photo thing. She comfortable in front of he camera and is very patient when it comes to my making adjustments mid-shoot.

I had this idea in my head and when I told her about it she was pretty excited. I enlisted the help of friend Raenie Pratt and we showed up at the South High School swimming pool just after the boys finished practice and as the Pueblo Swim Club was just starting their practice.

It didn't hurt that Samantha's mom is also the coach for the Pueblo Swim Club team.

I placed three lights strategically on the deck of the pool to light Samantha as I donned swim trunks and walked out from the shallow end holding my D3s camera with a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and a pocket wizard remote in the hot shoe.

And yes, I was IN the pool. I needed to get the angle from in the pool to get what I wanted as far as her face.

Samantha had just come from a Cross-Fit workout. If you don't know anything about Cross-Fit, the best way I can describe it is that it is like aerobics on steroids! So she told me her legs were hurting. This was tough for her as when she would get into the starting position on the blocks it really stretched her sore muscles. Lifting her head multiplied the pain even more.

So I made a deal with her. I told her that I would count to three, and on two I wanted her to raise her head and then on three she would get hit with two buckets of water. This seemed to work, but I could tell she was hurting after about a dozen or so photos. So she would take a break every so often to stretch out her legs.

I often hear that the photo shoots we do for "Playmakers" can be as tough, or tougher than an athlete's practice. This time she just had to stay still and I think it may have been more painful than a full on practice. Ha, ha.

Samantha was a great sport and I would like to congratulate her again on a great high school career!  Way to go Sam!

To see the slide show of all five images go to: http://www.imagesatchieftain.com/sports/winter-2012-playmakers/