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:
