Only hours into the New Year I got a call from Runner’s World about shooting a feature on runner Darren Brown, who is a part of the first American father/son team to each run sub-4:00 miles. The story charts Darren’s rise into running from the deep shadow not only of his father’s incredible dedication and success, but also his 1992 suicide. I’m excited to now be able to share the images, which appear in the June issue, because Darren was such a pleasure to meet and photograph.

The Wife thinks it’s especially funny when I work for magazines geared towards fitness because of my lack thereof, but during this Runner’s World shoot we (assistant Ian Witlen and I) really did basically run a marathon. In total it was a 17+ hour day, from before sunrise to after sunset, with a total of 6 locations and 15+ lit setups, on a beautiful sunny day in western Florida. Long days can be tough, especially when there is a drive home looming overhead, but Darren made it so much easier on us by being so easy and patient, even when I was literally hanging over him on a not-so-steady ladder, shooting straight down on the hot track (which the magazine used as their contents page image, below).

Partly because the day was so long, we really dug in and used just about every trick I know, and hopefully invented a few new ones for myself. I make it a point to try to use every lens in my bag on any normal shoot, but this gig went way, way beyond that to the point that there wasn’t a single piece of camera or lighting gear that didn’t see some game time. No matter what effect the effort makes on the shoot that day, working hard and really going through the paces of your entire M.O. can make a huge impact on your overall workflow and ethic for the next set of shoots as well. And since this was my first shoot of the year, it really felt solid.

We parted ways with Darren and his very sweet family after dark at the Siesta Key public beach (really one of Florida’s most beautiful beaches) and hit the road back to Miami. By dark I mean I was shooting my 1DsM3 at ISO 1600 with something like an exposure of 1/8 sec. @ f/1.2 – dark, dark, dark. It was a really good shoot and affirming experience, and I’m proud with the results both in print and in my book. A few more that didn’t make the cut below:

At the top of my pile of pieces that appeared while I was away is the first of two recent features for ESPN the Magazine: the tale of the lone NFL prospect at the University of Miami. We followed around DB Bruce Johnson during the school’s Pro Day at the Coral Gables campus, where he tried to impress enough scouts that he would not end the 35-year streak at Miami of having at least 1 player get selected in the NFL draft. In a lot of ways the story was a small look into how the former powerhouse program has faded over the last several seasons.

The shoot began with full-on action photography of Johnson’s workouts, and by being very careful to not even remotely get in the way of any of the scouts (very sensitive, they certainly are). So it only made sense to pull out the remote camera gear. And then once we were good and sunburnt, we took over an adjacent practice field and shot 4 or 5 lit portrait set-ups with Bruce, who is just a really nice and hardworking guy. For once my presence was lucky as he added 5 inches! to his best vertical leap measurement from the NFL combine.

It was a fun though long and sweaty day, and assistant Ian Witlen earned his fee and then some. Go here to check out David Fleming’s story online, here to see more from the shoot in the JLP archive, and below for a few other favorite frames I liked from the shoot: