Players of the Year...

It's that time of year again. Our annual football players of the year. I feel a lot better about shooting these now than when I first came here. It helps that I know how to light now, but that's not the reason why. Up until about five years ago, we used to shoot all of the players of the year as a group. And to be frank, the photo always looked like shit! When you put too many people in one photo it just looks like a jumbled mess. And that's exactly what we were doing, making a jumbled mess, when what we should have been doing is making nice images that these kids and their families would remember.

One thing I have found is the kids will give you a lot more of their time if they understand how good they can look. That's the great thing about shooting digital is being able to show them their photo on the LCD and if there's a problem (like a goofy look on their face etc.), it can be fixed. I'll usually start out shooting a few frames and getting my lights set right and show it too them. For the most part, after they see the photo and how they look, they are fine with working with me more.

One thing that has stayed relatively the same had been the style of the photos. They are pretty much all shot on a dark background. I'm ok with that. For the most part many of these kids are only on the team once. On a rare occasion we'll have somebody on the team twice, but I'll usually do a different pose. So, while I've seen them plenty, it doesn't necessarily mean that they have and ultimately that's what matters most.