North Oconee Defense

North Oconee defensive coordinator Bob Krieger is surrounded (l-r) Trent Mattox, Trey Reed, Sean Olinger, and Greg Hall on Thursday, October 28, 2010 in Bogart, Ga. North Oconee's defense has not allowed a point in their past three games.

As usual, I'm asked to do a group portrait involving the defensive coordinator. These are HARD because I need to highlight one person out of a group. How I did this after the jump....

Sportrait: Chandler Gunn

Athens Academy wide receiver Chandler Gunn on Thursday, October 21, 2010 in Watkinsville, Ga. Gunn went from being the teams kicker 2 years ago to its leading receiver.

I do this every week. I've photographed at least 100-125 high school athlete portraits in the past 3 years. That is a lot of practice at being able to do a simple, well-executed lit portrait in a short amount of time. More after the jump.

Kicking it

Winder-Barrow senior soccer player Rebekah Autry on Monday, April 12, 2010 in Winder, Ga. Autry broke the school record for career goals.

If it's Monday, it must be Player-of-the-Week. More after the jump.

FIsheye Ringflash

Commerce Tigers boys basketball coach Chad Bridges on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 in Commerce, Ga. Bridges was named Athens Banner-Herald boys basketball coach of the year.

How i did it after the jump.

Baseball Season!

Georgia starting pitchers Justin Grimm, Jeff Walters and Michael Palazzone on Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2010 in Athens, Ga.

Baseball season is now upon us. Rejoice and hope these three can keep the ball down in the zone.

The shoot after the jump....

Sportrait: Q Edition.

This is Quenshan Watson, otherwise known as Q. He's a sophomore running back for the Clarke Central Gladiators and was very, very cool to work with.

Sunset Sportrait

East Jackson Eagles running back Tyler Collins on Monday, November 16, 2009 in Commerce, Ga.

While i might be milking this sunset sportrait trend a bit, I really liked how this one came out.

Fall Sportraits

Oglethorpe Patriots quarterback A.J. Perlotte on Monday, November 2, 2009 in Lexington, Ga.

Two Sportraits from last week. I'm really trying to work more environmental features into my photos. Yes, its simple and basic but it works as far as I'm concerned. I'm feeling burned out on portraits and my creativity is lacking with them.



North Oconee Titans cross country runner Rebecca Greenwall on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 in Bogart, Ga.

Sportraits - Vacation Edition.

East Jackson Eagles running back C.J. Allen on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 in Commerce, Ga.

I'm off to Florida for 5 days so I leave my few readers with two sportraits from last month that fell through the cracks.

With portraiture, sometimes you get pretty light to work with and other times you have to make pretty light happen. Now if only i can get more than the 'tough football player' look out of them, it would be great.



Athens Academy tailback Henry Terrell in the locker room on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 in Watkinsville, Ga.

Player of the Week: Ryan Faust

Clarke Central's Ryan Faust was named ABH Player of the week after having 5 sacks against Loganville.

For once, having to wait until after practice paid off for me. Shot this at ISO 100 1/250th at f/29 and TWO Nikon speedlights at full power, camera left.

Of course i hyperextended my knee in the process on the very steep hill i was shooting up.

G-Day Preview

Georgia Bulldogs quarterback Joe Cox on Monday April 6, 2009 in Athens, Ga. (Image shot with a special-effect lens)

Today is Georgia's annual Spring Football game and is commonly referred to as G-Day. Earlier in the week, i shot some portraits for our "Gameday" section which comes out for every Georgia football game.

All of these were taken in the "Buttes/Mehre Photo Studio" otherwise known as the racquetball court. All of the players were super great to work with. I feel I'm in a photographic rut when its coming to sportraits seeing as I do somewhere between 40-50 a year.



Georgia Bulldogs running back Carlton Thomas on Monday April 6, 2009 in Athens, Ga.



Georgia Bulldogs cornerback Brandon Boykin on Monday April 6, 2009 in Athens, Ga.

Finally... BASEBALL.....

Georgia Bulldogs freshmen (standing, l-r) second baseman Levi Hyams, Center Fielder Zach Cone, right fielder Chase Davidson, third baseman Colby May and left fielder Johnathan Taylor (seated) on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 in Athens, Ga.



Georgia Bulldogs catcher Bryce Massanari, left, first baseman Rich Poythress, right, and pitcher Trevor Holder, seated, on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2009 in Athens, Ga.


It wasn't what i had in mind originally, then again shooting group shots of people really isn't my forte'. Doing a cool, shadowy portrait is. Its been a long time since Omaha and its good to get around these guys again.

Merry Christmas!!!

Athens Banner-Herald Football Player of the Year Darius Minor on Thursday, December 18, 2008.

My Christmas Gift to you, the 15 loyal readers i have, its the light portraits i was doing for some of our Players of the year. They're good for a first attempt at the concept but I think I'd do things a little differently.

In the process I broke the red set of rope lights and one string of regular christmas lights. Affixing battery powered LEDs to a football was troublesome and it just sure didn't work at all as we were trying to get a shot of the lights spiraling towards the camera. So instead i just stood behind him and twirled them.

The overall concept ended up as trying to capture a sense of motion and i think it worked.



Athens Banner-Herald Volleyball Player of the Year Tania Tauiliili on Thursday, December 18, 2008.



Athens Banner-Herald softball Player of the year Megan McClain on Thursday , December 11, 2008.

Sportrait Roulette

Athens Academy quarterback Will Daniel on Monday, September 29, 2008. Daniel passed for six touchdowns in a 42-13 win over Prince Avenue.

I've been working on getting a different look for some of my sportraits of late. Beyond trying to get any sense of emotion out of a high schooler (everyone wants to look tough) I'm trying for something more interesting lighting wise and concept wise.

Once again, gotta reitterate about the ball on fire shots. Safety first. That's an f/22 shot with the ball on a light stand and about 3 feet between the two. I've seen that done before by a lot of people, including Pouya Dianat who works for the AJC. His had more flame and probably wasn't dealing with the wind that i was. Murphys law guaranteed that the minute we started playing with the fire, the wind would pick up quickly. And it did.



Jefferson Dragons running back Virgil Appleby on Monday, September 22, 2008. Appleby scored 4 touchdowns in Jefferson's 48-20 win over Oglethorpe County.

The other fun thing is that usually these things are scheduled for before practice, which means 3-3:30 PM. Hard to make things look dramatic with steep sunlight and 5-10 minutes with a player. I like the idea of building a plexiglass stage (or renting one) for some of the basketball ones, but these things take money.



Clarke Central Gladiator defensive end Terrance Bradshaw on Tuesday, September 30, 2008.




Athens Academy receiver McKay Matthews on Monday, September 29, 2008



Commerce Tigers lineman Austin Hanley in the weight room at Commerce High School on Tuesday, September 30, 2008.

Weekend Update Pt 2 - Sportraits

Our paper loves sportraits.... and i love just using one or two speedlights and using the environment near the football field.



Athens Christian quarterback Tyson Beacham on Monday, September 8, 2008. Beacham had 3 touchdowns in the Eagle's 26-6 victory over Pace Academy.



Jefferson Dragons running back Virgil Appleby.



Athens Academy lineman Will Jenkins on Thursday, September 11, 2008.

Hangin With.....

Athens Academy Spartans senior Claire McDonald on Wednesday, January 23, 2008.

Every Friday our Sports section runs a feature called "Hangin With" wherein they have a silly-ish Q&A with a high school athlete. They want a portrait that's a little more unusual or goofy or silly or something that shows some personality. I ran out of creativity so i went for the multiple-exposure trick and i think it works well.

Sportrats, Basketball Edition. V1.

Georgia Bulldogs sophomore point guard Ashley Houst.

Turns out its hoops season now, So its more sportrait time. Until i actually get the sports section to run a mixed lighting balanced picture in color, i'm going to continue to turn them in. Its not my only trick, but its something i want ti run. I'm still peeved about the Knowshon picture (see below), so until they get it right, i'm going to continue to at least turn one in.



I had a really cool idea with this that just did NOT turn out whatsoever. So back to the lab with that one.




And on a housekeeping note here, thanks to Josh who pointed out that you couldn't do a google search on my name and photoblog and get this page. Instead, you would get my sportsshooter page and then a refer to a blog containing a photo of Sir David Manning. (Clearly i am not an older British gentleman) But thats fixed now.

Fun with designers, Part 2.

Time is very limited with athletes. VERY limited when it comes to football. So imagine my surprise when i found out i had 8 minutes to photograph running back Knowshon Moreno at Sandford Stadium.

It was supposed to be 15 but he was in the middle of a phone interview with .... a dying sports publication (last i worked with them, they didnt even have an assistant's fee) So 1/2 my time got cut by an interview.

I ended up getting 4 shots. One on the field (for inside), a portrait in the stands, a tunnel shot (that didn't work because it wasn't a true tunnel) and this (see above) portrait that is a mix of daylight and tungston lighting. SO i figured if they used the funky white balance mixes, it would be in color. Instead, they turned it into a 6-column, B&W mug that embarrassed me a lot.

So naturally I'm going to complain about the same designer here and show the picture as it was meant to be seen.

Fun with Smoke Machines

So i've been wanting to pull off the Smoke Machine sportrait for a couple of weeks now.

Of course I didn't test the machine out before hand! A highly motivated person (meaning smart) would have teched that thing out in the living room before hand. Me? I opened the box for the first time at the shoot.

It turned out pretty well. I used the target branded one for $20. Its pretty much.... eh. You get what you pay for. I really wouldn't recommend it to all that many people. I feel i need more control over the smoke and its direction. It turned out nice i think.

The smoke was behind him and really behaving badly. The light was clearly behind. (Yeah, that was an oopsie) And the main light was a 10 degree grid spot with a CTO gel over it, shot in tung/incandescent to make the smoke really blue.

(Next time I'll probably shoot it on cloudy and toss that CTO gel on the rear light giving a big orange glow.)