Sports Fans Stock Image Series

When developing ideas for my stock image series, I will normally get a trigger from some event or something I’ve seen, and then I will sit down with my idea notebook.  I’ll write down the idea, maybe pencil in a few models to play the parts for the event, and then brainstorm for a while on what would best illustrate the series, as well as any more off-the-wall or conceptual shots that may play to different buyer types – advertisers, bloggers, etc.

Almost a year ago, I had an idea to do a series based on “football fans in the stands”.  I had written down various shots, sketched out some rough layouts and expanded it a bit to include baseball fans as well.  I realized this was going to take a larger number of people to flesh out a bit of realism than my usual shoots, and I also needed a specific location that would give the look I wanted.  Also, quite a bit of costuming would be needed to give that “home team advantage” feel.  Of course, all this means lots of money invested in the session.

So, the series is something that was on the back burner for quite a while, always bugging me to get done.  I decided in March that this was the time, so I set out to secure a venue for the shoot, really the most important part.  I was able to discuss the project with two locations – an outdoor field with appropriate bleachers, and an indoor arena with more conventional stadium seats.  Due to the craziness of the St. Louis weather, I ended up going with the indoor arena – I didn’t want to put all this effort into it and have it rain that day.  However, the day of the shoot, I discovered a local morning show DJ was having his annual “World’s Biggest Garage Sale” in the parking lot of the arena and had to email instructions to the models on how to navigate the storm of shoppers to find the way into the arena.

Several weeks were spent securing appropriate clothing for both football fans and baseball fans.  Various shops on the internet, and locally, provided baseball and football jerseys, tshirts, caps, jackets as well as other props (anyone need a double can beer hat?).  I contacted pretty much all the models I have used in the past.  Enough were available that day to make it work, so everything was a go!

Tomorrow, I’ll post some behind the scenes images, as I had two assistants for this, and one manned the Canon G12 when not doing other things.  Today, I’m posting some of the baseball fans shots (football to come in a few weeks).  You can see this multi-ethnic group of fans are cheering for their favorite team, booing a bad call, jumping to catch a foul ball, using technology while at the game and more.  There are opportunities for direct interaction with the viewer, as well as more candid shots viewing the baseball game.  Click the images to see the whole series at my personal Photoshelter stock site.  Thanks!

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