* Okay fine, nothing is “little” when it comes to road trips in Texas. Austin to Tyler is just shy of 250 miles each way–without a Starbucks in sight. On a side note, I’ve often wondered why Texans tend to be non-specific about their travels when it comes to the more far-flung reaches of their state. One does not head to, say, Tyler or Nacogdoches, one heads to “East Texas,” just as one does not head to Fort Stockton or Midland, one heads to “West Texas”–which is not to be confused with West, comma, Texas, which is off I-35 just south of Hillsboro on the way to Fort Worth. Anyway my theory on this is that such ambiguity is used to avoid the frown of sympathy you would inevitably get from your fellow big-city-dwelling interlocutor should you inform him or her that you’re headed to Tyler, or Nacogdoches, or Fort Stockton, or Midland.
** This is no small feat, as you may notice from one of the portraits below. The “rubber’ is just that–a solid block of it about a foot wide by a foot deep, and sunk all the way down into the pitcher’s mound. No, I had no idea, either.

Anyway, on to the individual pictures.

Technically curious? Everything: Canon 1DX. Gym shots: 50mm 1.4. Portraits: Canon 85mm 1.2. Indoor portraits: Profoto Acute 2400s; Outdoor portrait: Profoto 7B, Quantum Q-Flash. Feel free to e-mail if you want any more specifics.

One of my primary goals in any portrait shoot is to maximize my use of the time my subject has given me, and not to waste his. At the same time, I have a responsibility to give the client a number of different looks at a subject; I always like to discuss what they’d like to see, shoot that, and then throw in a couple of my other ideas, time permitting. It’s a delicate balancing act– I have a number of things I’d like to try and do; it’s my job to fit it into the time frame I’ve been given. That means that once I come up with what I’m trying to get out of a portrait shoot, it’s up to me to figure out a way to set up the various shoots to maximize efficiency and ensure that I stay within my allotted time.

I’m used to dealing with athletes with demanding schedules, and with their media or public relations managers who (rightfully) want to make sure that their player’s or client’s time isn’t taken advantage of. What was paramount for me, then, when ESPN: The Magazine assigned me to a portrait shoot with Arizona Diamondbacks right fielder Justin Upton, was to know what I wanted to shoot, where I wanted to shoot it, and finish on time.

I arrived in Phoenix on Monday, the day before the portrait shoot. The magazine had also assigned me to shoot action of Upton during three games of the Diamondbacks’ home stand; consequently I walked into Chase Field with a bit of an eye toward photo positions for the game that night, but more importantly, toward choosing a location for the portrait, which was scheduled for early Tuesday afternoon. After consulting with Casey Wilcox of the Diamondbacks media relations staff, and chatting about possibilities that would achieve both what I wanted from the shoot–shots with the stadium in the background, as well as the ability to to a medium shot with a baseball theme, and then a tight head shot–and minimize inconvenience for Justin (the massive goodwill factor of making it as easy as you can for an athlete to get to and from a shoot, even in if it is, quite literally, in his own ballpark, cannot be understated), we figured that the best place to shoot the portraits would be in the home team’s dugout.

With that in mind, I set about on a plan. For starters, I called Floyd Bannister (yes, 70′s and 80′s baseball junkies, *that* Floyd Bannister), who runs Loft 19 Studios in Phoenix. Quick side note here: I’ve shot in a lot of cities. I’ve seen a lot of studios. I’ve rented gear from a lot of places. This is one of, if not the, best place to get everything you need under one roof in the country. You get impeccable rental gear. You can get an unbelievable studio if you need it. And you get Floyd, who is not only an extremely knowledgeable lighting tech in his own right, but who will do whatever he can to make your shoot go smoothly–from opening up early or late to suit your schedule, to picking up or dropping off gear at your hotel. If you’re an out-of-towner with any kind of a production shoot in Phoenix, and Floyd isn’t your first call, you’re nuts. There. Totally unsolicited endorsement finished. Back to the shoot.

Anyway, as the shoot was going to be in the dugout with the stadium roof open (and, not to mention, at 1 in the afternoon with the sun high in the sky), the first order of business was to set up a 12×12 aluminum frame and drape a translucent silk over it. My assistant, Colin Mattson, and I rested one side of the frame on the dugout roof, and placed a couple of light stands to support the other side of it just outside the dugout on the warning track. Not only did it provide a little shade for us as we worked, but it also provided the perfect amount of fill, cutting the harsh sun by about 2 stops, for three of our four setups.

Underneath the 12×12, I planned out three different setups, keeping in mind my desire to make things flow as smoothly, and as quickly, as possible with the shoot.

1: We’d start with a full body shot of Justin seated on dugout steps, shooting out into the field with the right field stands as a backdrop (I wanted to try and preserve, as best I could, the ‘Uptown” sign in right field). My back would be up against the bat rack on the dugout wall behind me, and a 50mm 1.4 lens on a full-frame 35mm camera (a Canon 1DX) would frame things perfectly. This would be lit with a Profoto 7a pack and head in an Elinchrom Octabank tucked under the scrim at camera left, and a Profoto7b pack and head, also at camera left, coming in from behind the him with a bare 7-inch reflector to provide a little subject/background separation. Shooting at 1/60 of a second at f14, ISO 100, allowed me to balance out the sky outside the large stadium windows and retain enough depth of field to read the sign.

2: Justin would then stand up, walk to my camera position, and I would turn around and basically trade places with him. I asked Justin to take off his uniform top (we were going to switch to a white top for the next shot, so this was a good mid-way wardrobe change) and just wear his undershirt, which I thought might highlight a bit of athleticism. We had set up another light, this time a Pro 7B with a medium strip bank, at camera right; the idea was to use that as the main light and crank down a beauty dish we would be using for photo #3 (more on that in a minute) to pop in a little bit of fill.

3. From there, I would swing around to my right a little, with Justin standing in the same place. I moved off to the side to shoot a tight horizontal, using the grid lines of the helmet cubby holes on the wall as a diagonal background element. For this shot, I switched to an 85mm 1.2 lens. We set up another Pro 7a pack and head, also underneath the scrim, with a white beauty dish, 40-degree grid, and diffuser.By sliding to my left I was able to frame Justin in the helmet rack, using the grid as a geometric background element, while relying on the red helmets for a bit of color.

4. After that it was time for some tight portraits. Colin and I had set up a couple of reflectors in the dugout; the end wall was solid red, so I figured I could have Justin sit on the bench, turn toward me a little, and use that as a stand-in for a seamless. I used a Canon 85mm 1.2 lens at f4 for some really shallow depth of field, and shot available light in the open shade of the dugout, with Colin making some micro-adjustments on the reflectors as the situation warranted.

5. I had asked Justin to put on his white uniform top for the tight shots above, so as the session wound down I asked him to sit back in our first setup for a little variety. While I never want to waste time on my shoots, there are always a few moments needed for slight adjustments to lights, reflectors, camera angles, etc. at the start of each setup, and during those times I like to watch my subject out of the corner of my eye to see what they do when they’re a little more relaxed and unguarded. As we took a couple of meter readings and fired a test or two (he had switched from a red to a white top, remember) I noticed Justin sort of absent-mindedly taking half-swings with his bat as he sat there. I liked the look of that, as well as the idea of him being disengaged from the camera for a bit. I asked him to keep doing that for a while, and he obliged. It’s a good thing, too; that’s what ran as the opening spread in the magazine. As a side note, take a look at the difference between the quality of light on his face when he wore the two different tops. I’m not saying one is better than the other; they’re just different. But the difference in what happens to the exact same lighting setup depending on whether the subject wears a dark shirt or a white one is pretty striking, if you ask me.

And then we were done. The Diamondbacks had promised us half an hour, and we finished in half an hour. Of course Colin and I had spent about 4 hours on the setup, but I’d like to think it was time well spent in order to achieve the goal of maximizing our time with Justin, and not wasting any of his.

If there are milestones in a sports photographer’s career, I’m pretty sure covering your first World Series would be one of them. I was positively giddy when I got two simple words in an e-mail from Sports Illustrated picture editor Nate Gordon the day after the Rangers won the American League pennant: “You’re in.” After covering countless Rangers games in Arlington over the years, the league championship series both this year and last (and missing out on last year’s World Series because of a scheduling conflict), I was finally on my way to the Fall Classic.

There were four of us in Arlington for the magazine, each with our assigned duties. Mine was to stay in the outfield, between the foul poles, and work on feature and loose compositions for possible opening spreads and covers. I also had an assigned position out in center field from which to shoot straight action; thanks to the ingenuity of Rangers’ PR man John Blake and the perseverance of MLB Photos photo boss Rich Pilling, a new position was created for a couple of photographers with a much lower angle than the regular-season spot at the top of the hill in center. It was a great place to shoot from and yielded some interesting angles on plays in the infield.

I don’t cover a lot of night baseball–during the regular season, unless there’s some overbearing necessity to the game like a feature story on a starting pitcher or something, it’s pretty pointless. It was kind of nice to be able to wander about the ballpark during pre-game, whether it was shooting pictures of the Cardinals’ pitchers throwing long-toss in the outfield as I set up a remote down the left field line, or Rangers’ manager Ron Washington throwing batting practice, and take advantage of the golden afternoon light peeking through the nooks and crannies of Rangers Ballpark that doesn’t normally coincide with game times in Arlington, and it was a real challenge and testament to the high-ISO capabilities of today’s DSLRs (in my case, the Canon Mark IV) to be able to shoot with the necessary long glass (a 600mm f4, with a big assist to the Wimberley tripod head) out in the center field position as that gorgeous light turned to darkness and, as is the case with just about any baseball game where Tony LaRussa is involved, we all settled in for a bunch of very late nights.

Nate and I discussed the picture he was looking for–low angle, wide, yet still a bit from the front if at all possible. Of course, you can’t be out on the field shooting when the players are running on to it, so I suggested mounting the camera on a ballhead, and then on a monopod, and using the monopd as a boom. Just before the Rangers took the field, I extended the monopod and shoved the camera out on to the warning track, firing it with a release cord. The previous day’s rainout had afforded me the chance to go to the park and set my angles, focus, and mark the position where I needed to be to make it happen, so it wasn’t a wasted day. Before the game, Nate told me they were holding the space open for that picture to open the story. No pressure, right? In the middle of the 4th inning I got a text from him telling me the shot was a success and that it was indeed running as the opener. That was a load off of my mind, and it allowed me to relax a bit and get into the rhythm of the rest of the game.

The rest of the game lasted another 3 hours, with the Rangers eventually winning on the walk-off by Cruz. Nate and I had discussed the importance of giving the pictures from the ALCS a sense of place, so I decided to pull back and shoot the potential winning hit loose, using a Canon EOS 1D Mark IV (with a special thanks to Jerry Ward and Bob Malash at Canon USA in Dallas for the loaner!) and a 70-200mm f4 lens. It was way too late to make it in the magazine, but it did get into the iPad edition, which isn’t a bad thing, either.

I don’t think I was prepared for the heart-pounding electricity that enveloped the ballpark as Neftali Feliz faced Alex Rodriguez (how fitting!) with two outs in the ninth. I try not to get caught up in stuff like that but sometimes it’s so all-encompassing as to be unavoidable. Staying focused and on-point is difficult, as the myriad thoughts of what’s going to happen in the next few crucial seconds–do I stay with the pitcher? Go to the dugout? Are my remotes going to work?–compete with space in your brain otherwise occupied by something so simple as trying to keep that 200 1.8 you’ve got in your hands steady when the moment arrives. So with that in mind, I’ll leave you with this thought as I offer my favorite image from the game: Everything you’ve heard about Canon autofocus is absolutely true.

And yes, sometimes it’s even serendipitous…

…and if you’re curious:

• Yes, I like to move around. Arlington has some great angles from up in the concourses and mezzanines, and there are little, if any restrictions on where we can go. And the people are friendly. It’s a great place to work.

• The portraits of Ken Griffey, Jr. and Ichiro Suzuki were shot in the dugout during the game.

• The image of Ichiro at the plate was shot with an old Nikkor 500mm f8 mirror lens with a Nikon F to Canon EF mount adapter available here.

• Yes, there is a certain amount of luck involved in getting a bat-on-ball picture. But at the same time, let’s not forget what Louis Pasteur once said: “Fortune favors the prepared mind.”

• The last two images, of Casey Kotchman being tagged out at home plate by Matt Treanor, were made with remote cameras: one with a 70-200mm lens (at about 135mm) in the inside-first base well, and the other with a 300mm lens in the outside-third base well. If you look carefully, you can see the latter camera in the shot from the first base angle.

* Not-so-subtle reference to “Bull Durham,” for those not familiar with the greatest baseball movie ever made.