One of the pleasures of living in NYC is certainly having the local newsstand just a short walk away (mine is across the street from another big pleasure, Chipotle). Today I spied the new issue of ESPN the Magazine (June 15) and was rewarded inside with both my feature of rad motocross driver Ashley Fiolek (story written by another rad chick, Alyssa Roenigk) and also a short and sweet “Ode” to the blocking sled with Miami Dolphins offensive tackle Jake Long. Two JLP tasty bits for the price of one!

The hook on Ashley’s story is that she is deaf but obviously no one told her that it could possibly slow her down, as she just took the crown as fastest woman racer in motocross as a rookie this season. Shooting with people who are deaf or mute or any other challenge can be tough, but often as not, and just like traveling in foreign countries, it’s all about the body language. Despite Ashley being deaf it was super easy to communicate and all of us spent the entire shoot doing a lot of laughing before hitting a local track near St. Augustine to rip it up.

Like a lot of my shoots this one was broken up into 2 parts… lit portraiture (in this case white seamless with a truck load of lights) and action/reportage. We started on the seamless in a tiny space (not easy but we made it work) shooting Ashley in her official racing gear (including the ultra heavy boots, which she even did her best Philip Halsman-esque jump in for me). My buddy Jimmy DeFlippo helped me out to keep things rolling and get everything we needed.

At the track it was pretty amazing to see a pro attacking the course just a couple of feet away (or above my head). Stupidly I totally lost my mind when I was packing for the trip and only had a pair of sandals which was especially fun in the dirt. I certainly don’t mind getting dirty (sort of live for it), and we wrapped up by playing with Ashley’s kid brother (he’s def going to be a fearless racer himself) and then listening to the most insane Elvis impersonator on record at a local dive with Alyssa and Jimmy. Basically a perfect shoot.

The inside baseball of the shoot was that I actually learned about 15 minutes before it began that the Dr. had gotten into her residency of choice and we were moving to NYC in about a month. Even if I didn’t crash the rental car, it was still tough to focus. Ultimately the technical lighting with the seamless sort of saved me and pulled me out of my head. Lugging around 8 lights can keep your head pretty clear it turns out. Here are a couple of more of Ashley that didn’t find a home in the magazine:

Next up is a quick one on a super rainy day (month?!) at the Miami Dolphins training facility with OT Jake Long in appreciation of one of the tools of the NFL trade: the lowly blocking sled. Honestly this one was brutal and sort of a miracle that we even got it in the can. Rain, last minute shoot, limited time with subject; I got a short break and got completely set up… and Jake was a bit behind schedule… and right when we get him, yep, the skies open up. So we wait around and chat. Jake is becoming a big golf fan, etc. Finally its only lightly raining (compared to hail that’s pretty good) and we run out there. 10 minutes  later the skies open up again. That’s a wrap!!

Many thanks to Ashley and Jake, to photo editor Jennifer Aborn, and I guess to the weather gods? Here is another of Jake that I liked:

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: