Westminister, CO – There are photo shoots that you plan for and can control and then there are photo shoots that in the control of others and you are merely there to capture the best image possible given the current conditions. This is what happened the other day when I was asked to shoot the Rocky Mountain Roughrider U16 AAA team and individual photos. I had plans of an on-ice session complete with benches for the players, strobes to manage the light and the usual stuff that I do. However, this day would prove to be very different.
Off-Ice Session
The first strange part of the shoot was that I was not allowed any ice time…none. All of my shots had to be taken somewhere else around the rink. Time to get creative. After scouting many locations around the rink, the best spot or perhaps I should say, the only spot, that would even remotely work for the team shot would have to be in the locker room. I only brought down my Canon 17-40/4.0 L lens and my trusty 70-200/2.8L. My 17-40 would have to do in the locker room, but my Canon 10-22 would have sure come in handy in this situation.
The other real kicker is I would have 15 minutes to setup and get the shot done in the locker room. Not much time especially if you consider all the changes to my normal team picture routine.
I used a two light setup with my Alien Bees B400s. I used a 24×36 softbox as my main light and then bounced the other light of the back wall for fill. I used two Pocket Wizards, one on the camera the other on my main Alien Bee. I set my second Alien Bee into slave mode to trigger off the light from the first flash. The light setup went up quick and easy…now to get 20 hockey players setup.
The locker room was very cramped and a bit too messy for my liking, but you have to make due with what you are given. I cleaned the room as best I could and started organizing the boys. I sure could have used that 10-22 right about now. I had a hard time getting all the boys to fit into the view finder. With my back up against the wall, literally, I was shooting with my back against the wall to get the widest shot possible, I started firing away. Here is what we came up with. I am entirely excited over the results, but the team was very happy.
Individual Shot
Now with about an hour of time to setup the next shot, I set out around the rink to see what I could come up with. I remember a shoot by Rick Denham a few months back that I really liked and at this point I wasn’t above using a little inspiration. I ended up finding the old Zamboni door and used that as a backdrop for the individual shots. I setup one Alien Bee behind the player and pointing up at the zamboni door. I added a green gel to match the teams colors. I then put my main light up in front of the player and off to the side at about a 45 degree angle. The softbox delivers a lot of soft light so I turned it down to about 1/8 power and got a nice exposure.
The boys had a lot of fun with different poses and the pictures turned out pretty nice.
