I got the opportunity to shoot my first prep athlete of the week sportrait on Tuesday evening. Every week, the paper names an athlete from a local high school, which gives the photo staff a nice opportunity to go all-out on a sportrait. Given that it was my first one, I played it pretty safe and didn’t do anything too experimental out of the gate. It’s a pretty basic three-light setup with two back lights at 45 degree angles from the subject. The key light was shot through a gridded softbox from a 45 degree angle to the right next to the camera. The subject was a pretty nice guy who helped me unload the lights from my truck before the shoot and was extremely patient while I look about 20 minutes to set everything up.
Bob Lash says
Greetings, James. I really like this wrestling photo – simple but very effective. Can you expand a little on how you had your lights set up (TTL/manual, umbrella’s, etc.) and the exposer/camera settings you used to darken the background like you did?
Thanks!
James Brosher says
Well it’s been about a year so I’m not exactly sure what power levels I used. I fired the strobes using Pocketwizards if I remember correctly. I was most likely at full power to get the background to disappear (there was a wrestling practice going on in the background). My exposure was 1/250th sec, f/6.3, 200 ISO.