X-Girls; An Exercise in Technology

There are many photographers who think Photoshop is evil. Some purists still insist on shooting film, even though it costs them a lot of money. But for so many working photographers, whether it’s a simple RAW conversion or hours of photoshop work and dozens of correction layers, no one sees our images right out of the camera. I recently had a project that left no options but several hours of photoshop work to achieve what I had hoped to do in camera.

I have long admired the edgy, rim-lighted sports portraits that fill the pages of leading sports magazines like ESPN and television ads. I have created a few of those myself. It was this type of shot I had in mind when asked to shoot the softball team of a friend’s daughter. But instead of being able to shoot this how and where I wanted, where I could control the light, I was forced to take this photo at 2:00 PM in full sunlight at a ball field with zero shade, nothing of great interest for a setting, and no electric power for plugging in powered strobes. So I had to try and wrestle back control of the light from the sun with speedlights. And that’s exactly what I did.

As best I could tell from the LCD, albeit in full sunlight, I composed a nice “tough girl” portrait of nine softball players. Using the eyeblack I had requested along with the bats, gloves, and balls used for props, no one looked terribly out of place. I had just about finished packing up my gear when the head coach said, “I hear you’re pretty good with Photoshop. We actually have one more player who didn’t show up.” Great. Nice to find out after the fact.

After a “makeup” shoot at a similar time and similar lighting conditions with the “missing” player and more hours of Photoshop work than I will divulge, I’m pretty pleased with the final product. It’s definitely a portfolio builder and a look that I will continue to use with future shots. And if you think you know, please drop me a line with a guess as to which player I composited in.