Korbin Levin | Athlete of the Year

I present to you another in the series of the Utah Valley Athlete of Year portraits, this time with a young man named Korbin Levin.  Not only does the dude have a great name, but just like Ms. Riggs from the previous post, he let me do what I had to do - no time crunch whatsoever. The image that ran in print is not pictured here (as it's my least favorite), but I decided to share a couple for the sake of the work put in. My only regret is utilizing a limited distance light kit for the shoot. It would have been great to spread my strobes out and shoot more environmental, but hey - that is the nature of the beast. Enjoy these outtakes from the afternoon's session.

Mercedes Riggs | Athlete of the Year

Year after year, all over the country, youth athletes are awarded this prestigious honor... and local photographers struggle to do something different with each new batch of portraits. After I got assigned this year's load of portraits, my editor Mark Johnston made a simple request: "let's bring these back to strong, clean photography," he said. Sounds good to me.

I lucked out with Mercedes Riggs, the Utah Valley female basketball player of 2012. Not only was she a total sweetheart and came prepared in a badass Timpanogos jersey, but she allowed me to corral her around for over an hour and half as I executed various portrait ideas I had been cooking up for the shoot. The paper ended up running three portraits of her, pictured below. My only wish is that the high school had stocked more basketballs for the first image.  Another hundred orange orbs in the background of the picture couldn't have hurt. I can only hope that she enjoyed seeing them in print as much as I enjoyed shooting them.

Kayden Porter | Anatomy of a Baseball Portrait

Before covering a baseball game in Spanish Fork, Utah, I was instructed to shoot a portrait of Kayden Porter. This kid (more like a 6-foot 3-inch, 235-pound, home-run-derby-winning man) is a beast, bottom line. Luckily, he is also a good sport. I had five minutes before the game to bust out an image to use for a highlight piece on the pitching powerhouse. Armed with a combination of two Elinchrom strobes, the greatest light of them all (the sun) and a red outfield fence that had caught my eye, we went to work. In less than a few turns of the minute hand, I had balanced my strobes to daylight and fired off 20 to 30 frames. Kayden - who had apparently done this many times before - was a natural. With little coaxing and positioning, I was getting the look I wanted. The second image was chosen to run in print.

What works for me is the punch of color and contrast provided by the reds of the fence and and outfit, especially when in competition with those eyeballs. The flesh and and hair catches the pure white of the strobes to produce an almost plastic feel, which I love in an artificially lit portrait. The detail in the stitching of the glove and hat adds tasty little details. While he may not be too stoked on it, the cracked lip is awesome.

While it is by no means a perfect portrait, I sure hope he digs it. After all, he looks like a total badass. Read the accompanying story about Kayden here. Enjoy!

Technical info: (1) bare Elinchrom strobe to the left (set cheek-high), (1) bare Elinchrom strobe to the rear-ish right (cheek-level), sun from high and behind, powerpack, Canon 5D Mark II, 135mm f/2L @ 1/200th and f/11... from what I can remember.