I've was contacted by North Duplin High School to create sports banners for their senior athletes. I have photographed many athletes at the high school before, but this was the first time that the school requested banners. So far this year we have photographed, football, volleyball, cheerleading, soccer, cross country and basketball for both boys and girls teams.

I came up with the idea of having a gold spray as the background for the senior athletes since their school colors are green and gold. I prefer to have a real background as opposed to having one created in an editing program. Many run of the mill sports photographers use templates as their backgrounds. I didn't want my banners looking like everyone else's. What's great about using the spray, is that every individual banner looks different! I used a black background behind the gold spray to create contrast. The spray was several feet behind the athletes, so they didn't have to worry about getting wet. 

I chose to photograph the athletes in the three quarters format. I did it so the athletes would be displayed more prominently on their banners. If I used a full body pose, then the athletes would have looked much smaller. I gave the athletes the opportunity to come up with their own poses, but if they didn't have any ideas, then I gave them suggestions. A majority of the athletes chose their own poses. I had to make sure that if they chose their own pose that it wasn't a really wide pose. The banners I used were 2 feet wide and 4 foot long, so I had to make sure that their poses were as narrow as possible or it would diminish their size on the banner. 

I acquired a new laptop and tethering system so I could immediately show the athletes the images I had just taken. This created quite a bit of excitement among the teams. It also helped me assist the players in getting the best looks possible. We had a great deal of fun during these sessions and we had a tremendous response from the coaches and players when they saw the images on the printed banners!