Sea Gals | First Round Auditions

Over 180 hopeful women showed up for the first round of open Sea Gals auditions Sunday, April 14, 2013, at the CenturyLink Field Event Center in Seattle. Contestants were judged on dance ability, pizzazz and physical appearance. Nearly half of the attendees made the preliminary cut. (Jordan Stead, seattlepi.com)

Ghost | EAW XXV

Eddie Adams Workshop XXV • The Story | Johanna Shaver

Each of the ten photographers on Team Turquoise (aka, the best EAW team of all time) was locked into the theme of "tough cookies / girl power" for our individual stories. I was assigned to shed light on the story of Johanna Shaver, a 16-year-old girl who, in a tragic accident, lost her leg in lawnmower accident at age four. Since the event, Shaver has sported an artificial limb to countless sports games - tennis, swimming, cross country - and has gone on to be known as a beacon of hope and determination in the Jeffersonville community for her unrelenting persistence in pursuing a wholesome lifestyle, despite her handicap. Getting to know Johanna, was quite simply, an absolute pleasure.  A bright, bubbly young woman with a huge heart and a knack for giving me a hard time.  I was ecstatic when she and her mother attended the final slideshow at the end of the workshop to view my images (and be massively embarrassed by a standing ovation for her awesome-ness).

And for the behind the scenes reminder… After dumping off my cards to editors and rushing off to presentations, my work was downloaded, sifted through, tagged and slimmed down. My lead editor, Santiago Lyon, of the Associated Press, carefully considered each image by our team's photographers to craft a concise 8-12 image edit for every individual. The following is just that for Johanna's story. Enjoy.

The Eddie Adams Workshop XXV | Johanna - The Extra Pictures

Due to the tight deadlines, no sleep, a crammed schedule and a different editing tastes, a number of images either get omitted or left out entirely of each person's final EAW story.  Below are a number of images that were tagged as keepers from my time with Johanna, but never made it to the final edit. Enjoy.

The Eddie Adams Workshop XXV | Team Turquoise Portraits

Reppin' Team Turquoise until the end. Loved my teammates, our leader Emilio Morenatti, our editor Santiago Lyon and producer Natan Dvir. Below are a couple sheets of final day portraits of everyone - no sleep and all.'

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.