Sierra Canyon Volleyball Media Day: Photographing the No. 1 Team in the Nation
Media Day With the Best High School Volleyball Team in America
Sierra Canyon girls volleyball came into this season ranked No. 1 in the country, and they have played like it. The Trailblazers went 41-4 last year, lost only two players, and brought back a roster that reads like a college recruiting board: Nebraska commit Kendall Omoruyi, Missouri commit Lucky Fasavalu, Tennessee commit Eva Jeffries, Texas Tech commit Hanna McGinest, and USC commit McKenna McIntosh. We have photographed this program's media day for several seasons now, and this was the one where the whole gym knew something special was on the floor.
This is our third year shooting Sierra Canyon volleyball in their gym in Chatsworth, and the assignment is the same every August: a formal team photo, senior and coaches groups, and a full set of individual portraits for every varsity and JV player that the school can use for social, hype graphics, and the banners in the gym. The difference this year was the pressure to make the pictures live up to the ranking.
Kendall Omoruyi, Nebraska commit and No. 1 recruit in the 2027 class, at Sierra Canyon volleyball media day
Killing the Gym Lights: How We Get the Cinematic Look Indoors
Indoor media days are a different animal from a field shoot. Outside, the sun is the boss and we work around it. Inside, the goal is the opposite: kill nearly all of the ambient light so the overhead gym lights are barely a glow, then build the picture back up one strobe at a time. We start from the back with two rim lights that carve the players off the background, then bring in the two main lights up front. Four Westcott FJ400 strobes, a Canon R5, and the 70-200 and 24-105 do the work. No light meter. We dial it in by eye and by the camera's meter until the contrast looks the way we want it.
The blue haze in these frames is not a Photoshop effect. We run a haze machine in the gym and gel the rim lights to match the school colors, so the light itself turns Sierra Canyon blue. The result is contrasty, cinematic light that looks like a game broadcast intro instead of a yearbook page, and it is the look coaches ask us for by name.
A Senior Class Headed to Nebraska, USC, Tennessee, Texas Tech, and Missouri
Above, left to right: Lucky Fasavalu (Missouri), Eva Jeffries (Tennessee), Hanna McGinest (Texas Tech), and McKenna McIntosh (USC). Add Kendall Omoruyi, the 6-foot-4 middle blocker headed to Nebraska and the No. 1 ranked recruit in the 2027 class, and you have five MaxPreps preseason All-Americans on one high school roster. Setter Olive Shum rounds out a senior group that has been through a state final together.
Photographing players at this level changes the job a little. These are athletes whose portraits will end up on recruiting sites, in college social feeds, and in national coverage, so the standard portrait has to be clean enough to run anywhere. But we still push for the personality frames, because a straight headshot does not tell you anything about who these players are. The pointing shot, the shush, the ball held out at the lens: those are the ones the team actually posts.
Team First, Then Seniors, Then Coaches, Then Everyone Else
Every media day we shoot runs in the same order, and a No. 1 ranking does not change it. Team photo first, while the jerseys are straight and the energy is fresh. Then the senior group, then the coaching staff, and then we re-rig the lights and start the individual portraits, varsity through JV. Coach Stefanie Wigfall's staff had the roster moving through the gym like a practice drill, which is the reason a shoot this size wraps on time.
On the left above is the varsity group with a coach in the middle, and on the right the senior group that has been through a state final together. The team photo at the top of this post, with the full roster and staff, is the one the program will use all season.
If you run an athletic program in Los Angeles and want media day photos that look like this, take a look at our high school media day page or the team and athlete work on our sports portraits page. We shoot indoor and outdoor media days across the San Fernando Valley, Pasadena, and the greater LA area every fall and winter, and the calendar fills by the week, so reach out as soon as your season dates are set.
