Steve Smith Workout

Over a year ago I was working with a great high school athlete and his trainer. The trainer mentioned to me that he and Steve Smith (NY Giants) do a beach workout from time to time. This sounded cool. Unfortunately it’s tough for photographers to directly pitch editorial departments on story ideas. Fortunately my friend writes for ESPN The Magazine. I mention it to him, he mentions it to his editor and presto, another shoot. Takeaway lesson: always keep ears open for other jobs.

So the premise is simple: Steve Smith, a wide receiver for the New York Giants and USC alumni, returns home in the off season and works out every-so-often on the beach. The workout activates and strengthens muscles that I presume I don’t have.

We (me, my assistant, the reporter and the video crew) show up early for the morning shoot. Not too long after his trainer shows up. By this point there were some thick, ominous clouds, which would definitely help with lighting. However, this is a typical Southern Californian morning so they will quickly cook off leaving me with just a blue sky and a harsh direct sunlight. I was praying we’d get this in before the clouds leave.

Once Smith arrives we all get formally introduced. The athletes then disrobe to their spandex-like padded underwear and jump in the water. Here’s where life gets tricky.

I needed to set up lights. I also heard somewhere by some wise person that water and electricity don’t mix well, leaving the powering of aforementioned lights to be, umm, challenging. With an extension cord that traced back to my battery packs I had my assistant stand in shin-high in the ocean holding the extension cord over his head, as to give the greatest distance away from the water. Like I said, this is where it gets tricky.

The shot I settle on is Smith doing lunges with a barbell over his shoulders in water that is, maybe, knee high. At this point I’ve given up on any dreams of staying dry. I’m shooting in a crouched position protecting my camera and lens as best I can from the waves. And I did a good job, or so I thought. Apparently I was wrong and some sand got in the lens, forcing me to have to get it repaired. The repair cost a couple hundred bucks. Ugh.

Here are some other photos from the shoot.

Here is the Lighting set up:

Pretty straight forward. Two lights, one either acting as a fill light or a rim light depending on the photo and 1  large octobox for the main light.

Here is a portrait I did of Football player Robert Woods a few months back. I couldn’t post it until it was printed.

I was very happy with how the shots turned out on this shoot. Robert was a real class act to work with and even told me about Sand Dune Park! Where he works out…along with a bunch of other athletes including Kobe Bryant. You might remember that guy from the NBA Championship he just won. Alas, I did not take a portraits (or even see him) on this shoot.

The first photo was at Sand Dune Park in Manhattan Beach CA. When you first step up to it, it looks simple but I was surely winded after just walking (at a fast pace) up the hill to a little over the half way point and I was training for a marathon!

I used one light with an octabank (held by my assistant Jake) with a battery pack. It was on full power to over power the ambient and make the clouds look dark and stormy.

My assistant Kicked sand in the front and I throw it to the back. We only did a few before it turned out like this. He is actually standing still and posing.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 15
ISO: 200
Aperture: 5.6
Shutter: 1/250

This is what the hill looked like. Had tons of people on it and It was VERY sandy as you would expect. My assistant Jake looks very displeased with the amount of sand in his shoes.

I also dump out enough sand to fill a childs sandbox after getting done with the shoot.

This shot was naturally lit! GASP! I used the light coming through the upper windows and set my white balance to 10k.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 48
ISO: 250
Aperture: 4
Shutter: 1/640

Two side lights with strip boxes and large octobank in the front.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 125
Aperture: 11
Shutter: 1/200

Two lights with strip boxes pointed in towards him for each side. I shot this on a dark grey background with no light hitting it. So it turned black.

Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 125
Aperture: 9
Shutter: 1/250

A set up shot. Dark Grey back ground.

Thanks for stopping by!

One of the baseball players I took pictures of for the cover of ESPN rise just graduated high school and was drafted 5th overall by the Orioles! Im really happy he went so high. Hes a great guy and I wish him the best.

Here are some photos.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 56
ISO: 250
Aperture: 10
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
Flash Comp.:
Program: Manual

Lighting: Two hard side lights, one front light with a 20 degree grid slightly under so his glove casts a shadow on his face.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS4 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 34
ISO: 250
Aperture: 8
Shutter: 1/160

Lighting
One light, with only a reflector hand held by my assistant straight in front of him.

Model: NIKON D3
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Frame #:
Lens (mm): 24
ISO: 100
Aperture: 10
Shutter: 1/320

I used hard side light by using two strip boxes but I took off the diffuser in the front for a higher output. Also, my assistant (Ric Tapia) is holding the light up towards him so its gets under his hat.

Thanks for looking! I will should have another one pretty soon. I promise.

Blogging and I have a love/hate relationship and we weren’t speaking for quite a while, but now we are back together. (it was a very heartfelt reunion) Well anyway I have a few posts in the works so stay tuned.

These are not all of them, just some ones I had in front of me.

For the last few months, people have been asking me about the post-production involved in the photos on my blog post “70 basketball portraits I did in two days.”

I always planned on sharing it with everyone but just haven’t had time to put anything together until now. Recently, I was asked to do a guest post for Scott Kelby’s blog and thought, “What better way to share this Photoshop tip with everyone than on Mr. Photoshop himself’s blog, Scott Kelby?” I was pretty giddy, to say the least.

It’s actually a pretty simple process that has a few steps to get this “look” (and its not LucasArts or HDR:)).

I wanted to make sure everyone who reads my blog also got to check it out as well.

Here goes:
There is one thing you must promise me–and yourself–before reading this post. Repeat (or read) after me:

“I, (state your name, or clever web user ID) will not overuse this technique on EVERY photo I take. I will only use it in moderation.”

Good, now that we got that out of the way, I just want to say that I don’t have an action made, nor do I think you should make one with this style of post processing. It all has to be about feel and knowing when you have gone too far or when to go further. It all varies depending on the scene and lighting. On this session of portraits, I went further than I normally would because that is what the client needed.

Step one: Lighting

To get a hard look, you have to have a hard light. I started with a three-light setup for most shots: Two back lights set at full power (Alien Bees Ab800) behind the subject, hitting the sides of their faces, and one in the front at a lower power with a small softbox. I added a fill light and background light when needed. See setups here.

This light set up changed slightly depending on the subject.

Step two: RAW Conversion

On this photo I started with a raw conversion and just slightly tweak levels to get the photo at a good color and contrast. The photo below is very close to raw, I cleaned a few dust spots that were on the photos from not cleaning my camera before…oops.

Step three: Dodge and Burn

The next step is a the one that really gives it that 3-D look. It’s were you take the subject’s highlights, shadows and features and “Carve” them out using dodging and burning.

Now there are a ton of ways to do this but this is how I do it. I first create a new layer by pressing (apple shift N) or by going to Layer/New on the top bar. I then change the blending mode to Softlight. Then change your brushes opacity to 5% and make sure it’s on 0% hardness. You can make two layers, one for highlights, one for shadows, but I usually just use one.

Next I go along and “paint” (with the brush) or enhance shadows and highlights that are already there. This really makes the photo pop out.

After this is done.

Step four: High Pass

I enhanced the contrast by duplicating the original image layer and de-saturating it by pressing (command (apple)-shift-”U”). This is important. If you don’t do this, your photo’s color will be really off once you select your blending mode. Then I select either soft light or hard light, depending on the amount of contrast I want to add.

The next thing I do is go to filter/other/high pass. This is what gives it the shinier look. This is also a key step because you must use judgement to determine how much of the effect you want. I usually go from somewhere between 100-200 depending on the amount of highlights I want to bring out. Again, you have to use your best judgement on this.

If the effect is still to much be sure to use your layers window and decrease the opacity on the high pass layer.

Step five: Color

The next thing I did was desaturate the reds in the photo. I used the hue/saturation window for this and changed the edit color from “master” to “red.”

Again, use your best judgment on this as well and take down as much or little as needed.

After I de-saturated the reds, I cropped and turned the image.

Step six: Final Touches

I’m almost done and I have the look I want, so I increase the contrast and brighten the photo.

Below is my final layers window.

As you can see, a lot of it is manual Photoshop, where you should tweak certain aspects and not rely on an action.

I hope that helps some of you in your Photoshop quests.

I would love to see finished products, so be sure to leave your comments here or on my blog with links to your finished work. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

If you would like to see more photos and set up shots from the shoot click on the photo below.

Thanks for reading!

Here are some portraits I did for ESPN Rise magazine on one of the top female basketball players in the country. She was great to work with and was a natural in front of the camera.

Plus I felt pretty short next to here (shes 6’2).

This was for a cover and inside feature story so I tried to get some photos in her normal clothes as well as her uniform.

Here are some of my favorites.

Be sure to click on the photos for larger sizes.

3 lights, 1 beauty dish in front two lights in back with strip boxes. (same light set up as below minus the background light and background.) You may notice this pose from a recent post of mine.

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 62
ISO: 200
Aperture: 13
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 200
Aperture: 14
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

1 beauty dish off to the right of the camera sun used for back light

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 29
ISO: 200
Aperture: 14
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

1 beauty dish with ab800 front, strip box upper right corner (behind)(for separation) a 20 degree grid spot on the basket (low power)

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 42
ISO: 200
Aperture: 16
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

Assistant Ric holds the Beauty dish and Christina’s mom helps out by holding the side light.

Ric again holds the beauty dish, up and over this time. AB800.

1 beauty dish with ab800 off to the left, sun from back

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 60
ISO: 200
Aperture: 13
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

1 beauty dish with ab800 off to the left, sun from back

Camera: NIKON D3
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 70
ISO: 200
Aperture: 13
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Program: Manual
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998)

I had the privilege to photograph a boxer a few weeks ago and here is one of my favorite shots from the short session. I had to place black stretching mats behind the ropes because there were large mirrors surrounding the ring. I placed them behind the ropes so I wouldn’t get a lot of reflection from the light and so you wouldn’t see me in the frame.

For the shot I used a ABR800 ring flash at a very low power to fill the front (I find it very harsh at higher settings) I also used an Alien bee B800 with a beauty dish above him pointing towards his back for separation from the background.

Settings:
Model: NIKON D700
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 24-70mm at 24mm
ISO: 200
Aperture: 18
Shutter: 1/200

Here is Jake and his friend Matt helping out by being a boom arm for me. They are holding the beauty dish above and pointing toward his back.

So, its been a long time since my last entry, I know. I have a few excuses! I swear! First, the magazines I work for have to print the photos before I can post them. Second, I’m lazy. OK, well I’m not lazy, but over the past few months I have been neglecting my blog. That is going to change. I am going to try and blog a lot more often. I have a few blogs I am going to try and post this week starting with this one, so please stay tuned.

For this shoot I was in Hawaii for one of my friends from highs schools wedding. He asked if I could come by and bring my camera and In return he would pay for mine and my wife’s plane tickets and condo stay for a week. Not a bad deal if I say so. He also gave me a little cash

Every day we drove by this sugar cane field on the way to the beach I wanted to stop and take a photo in, so finally on the day of there wedding the brides hair and makeup was late so I had an extra hour to kill. I took the my friend and his best man out to the field and did a few shots. This is my favorite one.

I used one Strip box with a grid on the front. The box was set up in the front right vertically. There wasn’t much going in the photo so I decided to have his best man throw up his tie to make it look like it was flying in the wind. I later added a plane in photoshop. There were planes coming and going over that location but we had very little time to shoot and he really wanted it in there.

Settings:

Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark III
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Lens (mm): 24
ISO: 100
Aperture: 9
Shutter: 1/160

I will be speaking at the PDN Photo Plus expo in New York this year for the “Sports Photography Today” session. I had the opportunity to do this last year and am very grateful to be ask back again to act as newcomer on this panel with three of the greatest sports photography minds of all time.

Bill Frakes (who gives the best presentations and is one of the best action photographers I have ever seen), legend Walter Iooss (his work and over 300 SI covers speak for themselves), and magazine photo editor of the year and Sports Illustrated editor Jimmy Colton. So, to say the least, these guys know their stuff!

So if you are in NYC on 23rd at around 9am and have 3 hours to kill, be sure to stop by the Jacob Javits Center.

Also, during that week (and I think the week prior) some of my photos will be on the Time Square jumbotron (which I will believe when I see:) ) thanks to Kodak and PDN30. 

So people have asked to see the PDN 30 magazine with my page in it (Mom) so here it is.

This isnt my photo, just the cover of the issue.

I will definitly try to get a picture of me in front of the jumbotron with my pics on it in NYC too.

I just got a few tear sheets (PDF’s) from ESPN Rise magazine the other day as well as a nice surprise from SI in the mail.

These photos where chosen by the magazine but were part of my initial edit when I sent them the raw files.

The rise magazine photos booth ran at a page and a quarter (or so).

(this is a scan from the magazine)

This photo was taken during the 70 Portraits in 2 Days shoot. (Click on the link for behind the scenes photos.) This is the number one player in high school right now. Remember the name John Wall hes going to be pretty big in about a year.

The photo above was part of the Cross Country Girls photo shoot I previous blogged about.