Back in April I was given the opportunity to work with 3-time Olympic medalist Jordan Larson @gov1007 for @espn. In the pre-production call with the creative team, I suggested a couple of techniques I could use as a way of capturing her power and grace.
One idea I suggested was to wrap her in LED lights and doing a long exposure as she served a volleyball, so that her movements were painted in with light (slides 1 & 4). In order to pull this off I needed to shoot in total darkness so that I could have an exposure time of at least five seconds. Since I was shooting at the USA Volleyball practice facility instead of a studio, I needed to use a windowless conference room to make it work (slide 8).
The other idea I suggested was to project the Olympic colors onto her and use shutter drag to turn the image into a blur of colors (slides 2 & 5). I needed a white backdrop to make this work, so I opted to use the dry erase board rather than take the time to swap out backgrounds (slide 9).
For the final scenario, I placed an LED behind Jordan and shot through a kaleidoscope prism (slides 3 & 6), but because of her height I had to have her sit on my suitcase in order to pull it off (slide 10).
I want to thank Jordan for being willing to help me bring all of these ideas to life. Thanks to senior multimedia manager Robert Booth and photo editors @matthewbecker and @kate_marron_ for the opportunity and creative freedom. I highly recommend reading the piece by @aishwaryakumar17, now on ESPN.com. My best of luck to Jordan and the rest of the US volleyball team, in Paris.
