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.

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.

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.

I have been doing a lot of portraits lately (as you can see) and after Jamie (my boss at Icon) sent some of my portraits to a few magazines I got a email from the editor at Rise with three upcoming assignments. Here are a few images from the first assignment.

For the shot my two assistants and I hiked up the side of a hill to try and get away from the “school feel.” The girls were nice and once they got the “giggles” out of them they were awesome models for the shoot.

p.s. Thanks to Jake and Brian, who are awesome for hiking up about a mile to the spot on the hillside with 7 lights about 60 pounds of extension cords, battery pack and extra lightstands and modifiers and we only used two, oops. Thanks!

The lighting is very simple. big Softbox in the front. (30×60 inch with an alienbee 800 inside) and an alienbee 800 with an umbrella on the right to give the background a little light.

I know, I know. Its weird. But I do take photos of things that do not have a stick and ball in them.
This was an impromptu photo taken on a tram in Las Vegas at about 4 am when we were coming back from various casinos. The man in the back was pretty darn drunk but was able to hold his match long enough to get his face to glow. The guy in the front is my friend Dan.
Believe it or not, I did not use a strobe on this. It was purely all available light from the tram (hence the random colors) I had one but it killed the natural color so I decided to not use it.

The shot was taken at 1/30 of a second, aperture 2.8! and Iso 500 on my trusty Canon 30D (a great camera to carry around Las Vegas so you dont get your expensive ones stolen)

The reflection on the window of the guy was placed there in photoshop.

I got to go on a road trip recently to the San Francisco bay area and shoot a basketball game and some portraits of Australian basketball players from Saint Mary’s college in Moraga CA.

To top it off, the night before I shot a basketball game at UCLA which ended at 10 then I went straight to san fran after that and didn’t get to my hotel in (scary scary) Oakland until 4am in the morning only to wake up at 9 to get ready for the portrait, FUN!

Seriously, I had a great time. I had the help of a pro and some fun guys to shoot.
Thanks for looking!

This is the one they picked for Sports Illustrated.

One room, one chair (which i stole from the lobby..err ask politely for), and like 30 people with an average of 1-5 min each. Here are some of my favorites.

Remember to click on the photos for larger sizes and true color.

Bryce Taylor, Oregon

Taj Gibson, USC

O.J. Mayo, USC

Kevin Love, UCLA
Dustin Snipes, Awesomeville

The set up, it was different depending on the person but this is the room i was in. The white background over on the wall was used for headshots. The table had a white table cloth on it and we used it as a reflector. The shot with the dark background was done with a black table cloth held up by Ric.
Thanks for looking!