Florida QB Tim Tebow for the Sporting News

Tim Tebow shares the cover with Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy

I have had the opportunity to photograph Florida QB Tim Tebow every year that he has played in Gainesville. He is probably the nicest and most personable athlete that I have ever worked with. He always arrives on time and has a great attitude. That is very impressive considering how many photo shoots, interviews and other media requests he gets. For this latest assignment, I had only 15 minutes to get 2 variations of a cover image and a separate, more intimate portrait.

The Sporting News emailed the cover concept to me. They were going to feature the big three quarterbacks - Sam Bradford from Oklahoma, Colt McCoy from Texas and Tim Tebow. I had to match Tim into the middle of a giant "QB". After speaking with the editors, I knew what kind of poses they needed. Working with the Florida Sports Information Department is always a pleasure. They are very professional and detail oriented. They quickly secured the F Club Room, a special Booster reception area at The Swamp. It is a large circular room with a high ceiling. That is all you could ask for in a location!

The first thing that Jorge, my assistant, and I set up were the two backgrounds. I had the main setup with a slate grey seamless paper background. It was lit with one Profoto 7B with a 5' Octobank.

All the other players were to be shot with a soft light from the right side, so this was going to match it.

For the second backdrop, I used my

favorite Westcott blue muslin. I really like how the background blue would compliment the colors in the Gator uniform. I used a Profoto 1200 with 2 heads. A 3X4 Profoto softbox from the left for the main light, and a small light dome to the back right of the subject, aimed right at the left shoulder. When Tim arrived, we chatted about his busy off season and the impending bankruptcy of the footwear company Crocs. He was shocked... He loves his Gator Crocs! He is rarely seen without them on!

Set up #1 - I was going to make sure the cover image was taken care of. The preferred image was Tim with his right arm up, resting on an imaginary Q. I used an old lightstand as a guide. I shot about 40 variations, with him smiling, serious, throwing a ball and just

standing there.

As a backup pose, I also shot him with out the light stand, in case they wanted to pose him in front of the "QB". It is always good to try and make life easy for the photo editors. Always give them options. I used a Nikon D3 with the 24-70 2.8 zoom at 70mm.

(The exposure for this cover shot was 1/250th @ f/7.1 at ASA 200)

Set up #2 - I wanted to make a beautiful headshot portrait. In all my other 3 photo shoots with Tim, I made really good full and half body shots, but I never had time to make a nice, intimate close up portrait. I used my Nikon D300 with my 85 f/1.8 lens.

(That makes the lens effectively 127.5mm with the D300 DX factor). I had also outfitted the lens with a 8x Neutral density filter so I could really control the depth of field. I had Tim sit down on an apple box, and I worked portraits from a silghtly downward angle.

I had him give me a wide range of expressions. I think that the Nikon 85 f/1.8 is sharpest at around f/2.8, so I try not to shoot it wide open. (The exposure was 1/200th between f/2.8 and f/4 at ASA 200).

The inside shot that the Sporting News decided on using was one of the extra shots I took when I backed up from my headshot.

I think this opening spread looks great. It was a great assignment and I was honored to contribute to the final cover.

Sports Illustrated - Portrait of the Jacksonville Jaguar receivers

The Jacksonville Jaguars Wide Receivers

When I was a staff photographer at the South Florida Sun Sentinel, I had the opportunity to shoot the portraits for the the annual football preview section. These section covers would feature an athlete from the Miami Dolphins, a Florida NCAA team (UM, FSU or UF) and the local high school powerhouse. Subjects over the years have included Jimmy Johnson, Jevon Kearse, Edgerrin James and Chris Weinke. Although I love to shoot individual portraits, I have always wanted to shoot a bunch of receivers - a group of players making a stylized catch in the frame. When I left the newspaper business in 2000, I just filed away that idea...

During the second week of August, I received a call from George Washington, the football photo editor for Sports Illustrated. He told me that they were working on a story about the “units” of a football team - and that he wanted me to shoot the wide receivers for the Jacksonville Jaguars. I knew exactly what I wanted to shoot. He gave me a list of different scenarios that he thought would work well, which included different groupings and angles. I wanted to make sure that I understood everything he was asking for, so I did a test shoot in my neighborhood with a local pop warner team.

I took all the footballs I owned, my lighting assistant and shot every possible grouping and angle I could think of. The last test I shot was my “group reception” shot. I thought that the energy was there in the frame, and if I had the chance, I could make the Jaguar receivers get into it.

When I got to Alltel Stadium on the day of the photo shoot, the Florida weather was doing its usual summertime dance. Intermittent cloudiness was being broken up by torrential rainstorms. Since we had been given a fairly small window of time (30 minutes, total) for the photo shoot, there was a chance for a rainout. I had 3 Profoto 7b’s, 4 heads and a complicated lighting scheme mapped out. The rain pretty much eliminated my grand light, and I had to settle for two heads running off of one 7B pack.

I got lucky and the rain did stop long enough for the Jaguar receivers to come out on the field. We quickly ran through all of the photos that George wanted me to get (You always need to make sure that you have the magazine covered, CYA!). The very last thing I asked for was the “group reception” photo. I showed the 6 receivers a print out of the kids, and they all really liked it. They all started to have fun, pose and jump around for me.

In the end, I shot seven different poses, high and low angles and the final picture in 15 minutes. That doesn’t sound like much time, but when you deal with professional athletes, you are always under the clock. But, compared to my recent 20 second portrait shoot of Tiger Woods, it was an eternity!

In closing, I need to thank the IOC for awarding the Olympics to China (I tend to get more assignments when the SI staffers are away), George Washington at Sports Illustrated for giving this assignment to me, the Jacksonville Jaguars PR staff, the Jaguar wide receivers (who’s energy makes the photo great) and the Avalon Wolves Pop Warner defense who came out to pose for me!

(A reprint from the sportsshooter.com website, originally published on 9-4-2008)