As in most years, we made the rounds to the local high schools sending football players on to the college level yesterday on National Signing Day. Its always a challenge to do something other than an image of a stiff kid scratching his signature flanked by family. I gave it a shot. I feel pretty good about it.
Both of these guys were headed to four year schools after playing at Northside High School, Warner Robins, GA. I don't think either of them were often in suits. Jeqaundus Albritton, the player on the left, was tying a tie for Steven Nelson, right.
More from the same school. I love the idea that they needed fresh breath to sign their letters of intent. You have to do it up right, you know?
This is the kind of moment I guess I was trying to mine. Steven Nelson gets a kiss from his mom. They are, football prowess notwithstanding, somebody's baby.
Different school, different kids. Chris Swain, left, of Mount de Sales Academy, a Catholic school in Macon, GA, was the only kid in our city to get the nod from a big time program this year. He's headed to Navy. Brandon Sartin, on the right, will play at Morehouse. Here they get the attaboys from classmates after signing their letters.
Well, that was my attempt at breathing something into signing day. Thanks for looking, take it easy.
GB
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label football. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Sportrait
I'm not really sure when I first heard the term Sportrait. I think maybe Tommy Metthe, a college friend who shoots in TX, taught me the term. He's good at them, for sure. Here's the link to Tommy's blog..... http://tommysmodernlife.blogspot.com/ .
An obvious bit of short hand, Sportrait denotes a portrait made of an athlete. You do a lot of these at a newspaper.
Why all the sportraits? You have a lot of stories, and a lot of sports pages to fill, between games. And obsession of fans continues unabated between Fridays, at least in the case of high school football. We produce a lot of stories during the week to keep interest up, contextualize the upcoming slate of games, etc. Those stories often get illustrated by the Sportrait.
So here we have the roster of receivers for the Peach County Trojans. They are undefeated in the regular season and headed into the first round of playoffs this Friday. The request to get all six (!!!) of these receivers begged for, say it with me, the Sportrait.
For the gear heads, I shot this with a mix of natural light from the burning ball of hydrogen that fails to make bad light this time of year and two Nikon speedlights triggered remotely. They added some light to the guy fully in shadow and opened up the shadows on the down sun (is that a term?) sides of the other players' faces. Chris Deighan, the writer of the story, was kind enough to throw the ball over and over while my timing got sorted.
Cheers,
Grant B.
An obvious bit of short hand, Sportrait denotes a portrait made of an athlete. You do a lot of these at a newspaper.
Why all the sportraits? You have a lot of stories, and a lot of sports pages to fill, between games. And obsession of fans continues unabated between Fridays, at least in the case of high school football. We produce a lot of stories during the week to keep interest up, contextualize the upcoming slate of games, etc. Those stories often get illustrated by the Sportrait.
So here we have the roster of receivers for the Peach County Trojans. They are undefeated in the regular season and headed into the first round of playoffs this Friday. The request to get all six (!!!) of these receivers begged for, say it with me, the Sportrait.
For the gear heads, I shot this with a mix of natural light from the burning ball of hydrogen that fails to make bad light this time of year and two Nikon speedlights triggered remotely. They added some light to the guy fully in shadow and opened up the shadows on the down sun (is that a term?) sides of the other players' faces. Chris Deighan, the writer of the story, was kind enough to throw the ball over and over while my timing got sorted.
Cheers,
Grant B.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
After the last pass...dejection and jube.
My friend Ross Taylor has a photo blog called Fries at the Bottom of the Bag. Here's the link.... http://rosstaylorfoto.blogspot.com/. I didn't think too hard about the name for a while except to think that Ross really likes fries. This morning I get it.
It's a "duh" moment, for sure. He's talking about the images you file from something that you really, really love that, for whatever reason, never see the light of day in the paper. And like the fries at the bottom of the bag, those lonely, forgotten greasiness sticks, those neglected images are often, to me, the best ones of the day.
Two examples from shooting the game between Fort Valley State University and Albany State University in Columbus yesterday.
So Fort Valley lost, which was really disappointing since they would have won their conference title otherwise. So, sure, the winning side got the whole tank of gatorade thing to look at, but frankly I prefer moments like this. Major let down seems less scripted, in a way.
Jube is the news photographer term for post game celebration, aka jubilation. If jube is what you are after, which my paper wasn't, I have this image of the father of the MVP of the winning team heading back to his car with the MVP trophy. "My boy's gonna play on Sunday!" he said more than once.
It's a "duh" moment, for sure. He's talking about the images you file from something that you really, really love that, for whatever reason, never see the light of day in the paper. And like the fries at the bottom of the bag, those lonely, forgotten greasiness sticks, those neglected images are often, to me, the best ones of the day.
Two examples from shooting the game between Fort Valley State University and Albany State University in Columbus yesterday.
So Fort Valley lost, which was really disappointing since they would have won their conference title otherwise. So, sure, the winning side got the whole tank of gatorade thing to look at, but frankly I prefer moments like this. Major let down seems less scripted, in a way.
Jube is the news photographer term for post game celebration, aka jubilation. If jube is what you are after, which my paper wasn't, I have this image of the father of the MVP of the winning team heading back to his car with the MVP trophy. "My boy's gonna play on Sunday!" he said more than once.
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