Washington Nationals Spring Training Shoot 2013

National League Rookie of the Year, Bryce Harper standing strong with the curly W.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to fly out to Florida for a week to shoot my fourth campaign for the Washington Nationals  before their spring training began. The Nats have a great young squad, including National League Rookie of the Year Bryce Harper, and they picked up some key position players in the off season. In 2012 the Washington Nats won 98 games which is more then most expected and is a great sign of possibly an even better 2013 season. And with this being Davey Johnson’s final year as a baseball manager for the Nats, I’m sure everyone on the team is going to push themselves that much harder.

For the first couple of days we set up our lighting equipment on the open practice field like years past on the pitchers mound and on homplate, then ran through a series of shots with most of the athletes. The lighting setup consisted of two beauty dishes with diffusers over them to soften the light a bit and a light with narrow grid spot to focus the light on the face. A large scrim jim reflector was also used to cut the face shadow and add a little more detail. All of this was used with Profoto lights and 7b Profoto battery packs, synched with pocket wizard FlexTT on hypersynch to freeze the action.

Behind the scenes with Jordan Zimmerman…

From this setup we would move to another location nearby to shoot players gritty portraits of players in dugout as well as looking out on the field. The lighting on the majority of these shots was much more simple using a reflector and maybe one strobe with softbox. Being able to move and shoot as quickly as possible was important when moving with these athletes from location to location, because you don’t want to loose their interest or waste their time!

But having the ability to improvise is very important as a photographer. Once we realized it was going to rain on our final 3 days of the shoot we had to move our main setup to the concourse of Space Coast Stadium so we could keep everything dry. Luckily for us there was an open area for a clear shot of the sky in the background, where we could position the players ontop of large steel benches to create the illusion that we were shooting on the field with a blue sky day (when actually it was really cold and wet outside). The rain ended up being  a blessing in disguise because these shots ended up being my favorites with a very heroic feel larger-than-life players dramatically lit against a beautiful sky.

The days were long and started before sunrise and ended near sunset, but it was such a great experience getting to work with these players once again. Having the players be on first name basis and be comfortable with you, is a huge asset which really translates into the photos. This was my 4th campaign with the Nats and it has been a pleasure to see them grow, see their huge upside and the potential they have towards making it to the World Series. Big thanks to Chad Kurz, John Guagliano, Jacqueline Coleman, Dave Lundin, Meghan Garner, Lara Potter and Andrew Feffer of the Washington Nationals, my man John Trotter from 40/40, my assistants Octavian Cantilli and Brandon Magnus, and Stash & Dan and the video crew at East Pleasant. And of course the Washington Nationals Players!

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Nats Bryce Harper named NL Rookie of the Year

 

Photo by Donald Miralle for the Washington Nationals

From the first moment I met Bryce Harper two years ago at Spring training for the Washington Nationals, I knew this guy was going to be great. For a three hour shoot, he did whatever I asked of him on cue, gave 100% effort and focus for every take, and was a consummate professional and a joy to work with. Today when he was named National League Rookie of the Year, which is not only huge for him indivdually, but also for his team, the fans, the league and the sport. It’s great to see an athlete with so much hype coming out of high school to live up to the hype. Nice read on the curlyw blog here about Harper and here are some pictures from my three shoots I had with him, couldn’t be happier for the new NL Rookie of the Year.

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Washington Nationals Shoot

(Click on above image to be redirected to Nationals Video Site. Our video is on the 5th page of the playlist on 11/30/10)

A couple weeks ago I wrapped up a great project for the Washington Nationals Baseball Club in D.C.  I shot six of their key players for their branding campaign including 3rd Baseman Ryan Zimmerman, Shortstop Ian Desmond, and Reliever Drew Storen. Since it was the off-season, the Nationals flew in the players for the shoot (with the exception of Zimmerman who lives outside the DC area) and the unveiling of their new jerseys. We had each player for about six hours, which we split with the East Pleasant video crew, whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with in the past.  So we had three exciting hours with each of these professional athletes, and we really covered all the bases for the team and the ad agency 40-40, including various action, portrait, and feature photography we could squeeze in our time. I had great success using the high speed synch and with the new Pocket Wizard Flex-TT5′s, shooting up to 1000th of a second on my profotos, which was amazing for freezing the action on my Canon 5D Mark II. We had full access of the facilities at Nationals Park which was amazing, and the staff there was unbelievable to work with. All in all it was a blast – we saw some old friends and made some new ones while coming away with some memorable imagery for the team. Special thanks to Andy Feffer, Lara Potter, Daniel Kasper, Jacqueline Coleman, John Guagliano, Lisa Grondines, Mark Jackson, and Ben Smith of the Washington Nationals for facilitating a fantastic shoot. Here’s a link to a great behind the scenes video put together by the team videographer that shows some of the favorite shots from the shoot. Enjoy!