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