David Boisture of Cornwall HS is the Times Herald-Record’s 2008 Baseball Player of the Year. He’s photographed at the school on Wednesday, June 25, 2008.
*I’m real happy with these images of our paper’s baseball player of the year, photographed a few days ago, but it took much more than just showing up at the field on Wednesday evening. I’d seen this image in my mind’s eye for quite some time and knew it would take some preparatory legwork to get the results I was after. I hadn’t shot any games at their school since I’ve been here at this paper, so again I went on a scouting mission to the school to see the field on my day off, particularly at the time of day I wanted to make these images. (similar to last year’s preparation for our HS Basketball POY Justin Rutty.) We’re usually assigned to make these type of portraits smack in the middle of the day, but with a few suggestions to the sports writer, we were able to set the shoot time for 7PM, as I didn’t want the field in full sun, nor did I want the subject squinting and fighting a full afternoon sun in his face. Otherwise, I probably would’ve ended up shooting him on the bench in the shade of the dugout or something. I was hoping for a nice blue sky, and got lucky as there weren’t any late afternoon thunderstorms rolling thru. Most importantly, I wanted to light him up just a bit with strobes (initially I brought a full compliment of Dyna-Lite studio strobes, complete with softbox, umbrellas, etc. – but we couldn’t get reliable electricity down on the field or from a car inter-voltmeter.)
With the help of a dependable assistant, we dug out my “quick & dirty” location set-up of portable camera strobes; putting one into a umbrella, and another as a slight fill from the subject’s left with a Stofen Omni-Dome. I also had the assistant hold a large Photo-Flex reflector, with the gold reflective surface bouncing some of the sunlight back into the subject’s face. I know now I should’ve probably made a few more images, to include bracketing exposures a little more to darken the sky a little more, but during the shoot I was happy with the poses, and the subject’s facial expressions, and after 20 minutes or so I felt we had enough to go with. Total time on location: 15 – 20 minutes setup. 20 minutes of shooting, 15 minutes to pack-up. Drive time to/from the school; approximately 90 minutes. -cg.
Here are a few of my earlier P/COY (Player/Coach of the Year) portraits shot on location, utilizing the full assortment of Dyna-Lites, softbox, umbrellas, gizmos, clamps, radio triggers, and other miscellaneous “whizz-bang” but necessary “what ‘chama-call-its…” (Saving you the trouble of searching back through earlier posts here on the blog):
“Go early. Stay late. Get the uniform dirty…” *(oh yea, bring lights too, when necessary.) -cg.
Chet Gordon resides in the lower Hudson Valley region of New York. A photojournalist for more than 25 years, he recently worked as Westchester Magazine's first photo editor, and previously was a staff photographer at four NYC metro area newspapers. He was also a photo editor at the NY Daily News for 5 years. His work has appeared in The New York Times, International Herald-Tribune, USA Today, MailOnline (UK), Army Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and Popular Photography magazines, among others. He is a career member of the National Press Photographer’s Association (NPPA), and a former board member of the NY Press Photographer’s Association (NYPPA). He served honorably as a U.S. Marine in the mid-1980's, including 2+ years stationed on Okinawa, Japan, and throughout Southeast Asia. A longtime volunteer and travel enthusiast, he accompanies several humanitarian aid clients on their international disaster relief and medical missions. Since 1997, he's worked in several African countries, the Middle East, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti, the Russian Federation, and Thailand. He routinely mentors young photographers looking to break into the industry and vacations in Bermuda and Kenya.
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