Girls tennis at Pilibos
Pilibos girls tennis was one of our early fall media days in Los Angeles. A tennis team is a small roster, which is a gift. It means every player gets real time in front of the lights instead of a quick click in a line.
Tennis is shot outside, so the sun sets the terms for the whole setup.
Soft light on a hard afternoon
Four Westcott FJ400 strobes, a Canon R5, and two lenses, the 70-200 and the 24-105. That is the whole kit. Two strobes go behind the player as rim lights and two go in front as mains.
For an outdoor shoot we start with the sun. The camera reads the ambient, we pull it about a stop under, and the strobes lift the faces back up. The result is soft, even light while the background keeps its color. We skip the light meter entirely and trust the camera meter and our eye. The angle and power of each head move as the afternoon goes on.
The order of the day
First the team, then seniors, then coaches. Once those are done we re-rig for the individual portraits. Every player gets the yearbook headshot, then a few stylized frames with some real tennis in them, a serve toss or a ready stance with the racket up. The point is to catch personality. Two players in the same uniform should not look like the same photo.
Your program's media day
If you run athletics at a school in Hollywood, Glendale, Burbank, or anywhere in Los Angeles, see how our high school media day works, or look through team and athlete work on our sports portraits page.
