NIKE, ADIDAS, CADBURYS, SPORT RELIEF, POSI+V, UNION DIRECT

For this Nike kit launch photoshoot we worked with Premier League, Scottish Premier League and Greek Super League football players George Karagounis, George Samaras and Konstantinos “Kostas” Katsouranis.

On June 7th the the Greek National football team played in their first ever Nike kit in their first game of the tournament which was against Lithuania. The kit paid homage to the country’s national heritage and features classic football uniform design. Read more: nikeinc.com/news

We photographed two players at The Worx studios in London and the third in a studio in Thessalonika, Greece. The lighting had to be consistent as the players comped together by the back in London at Paperhat FTP.

Using the amazing Broncolor Para 222 as a a main light. You can see the set-up here in the creative portfolio link.

This was the production (with Dinamo) and photoshoot of Nike’s Hypervenom 2 – Deceptive by Nature campaign with other football players being photographed at the same time in other cities in time for the launch. We photographed Dutch professional football player Wesley Sneijder at the Istanbul Film Studios in Turkey.

The photoshoot took place in a large film studio so we had a good amount of space for our lighting set-ups. You can see the studio set-up of Arri Fresnel tungsten lamps, polyboards, backdrops, the Profoto Pro-10’s and Profoto softboxes and umbrellas etc. in this creative portfolio link – Film Studio Set-Up, Istanbul.

There is a GoPro time-lapse video where you can see our team of lighting technicians, digi ops, art directors and film crews running around.

The lighting on this shoot is very similar to the Nike Greece kit launch photoshoot and the Michael Essien Boom shoot filmed near the Chelsea training centre in Cobham.

Danish professional footballer Christian Eriksen photoshoot for Nike in new Nike Majista Obra 1 boots. Eriksen is an attacking midfielder for Spurs in the Premier League and also for the Danish national team. He was the youngest player of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

This was a great photoshoot in Tottenham, at Studio 28 in North London in a New York style portrait studio using a big Broncolor Para 222 instead of the usual Profoto Giant Reflectors. That’s nearly a thousand pounds (hired from ThreeFourSnap) of pure heaven in an “extremely complex and convertible light system”. Wedged over to one side (left) to give a good contrast look. Similar to the Greece Nike National Football Kit and Michael Essien Boom Nike shoots.

This photoshoot was of Ghanaian professional football player Michael Essien as part of the Nike Boom Campaign. Wearing T90 Strike boots with the Taser ball. Check out Hypebeast’s run down of the campaign.

See Essien at his glorious best in the Unforgettable 30 Goals In Football History.

We hung these huge heavy black drapes around the hotel conference room just off from Chelsea’s training centre to darken it down, as well as using polyboards and flags to control the studio flash lighting. I used 4 x 2400w Profoto generators and 8 x  profoto flash heads with different light shapers (pro big, strip lights) to give us this bold, contrasty lighting.

Check out the interview with me called Lighting Secrets Exposed about the lighting set-up in Professional Photo Magazine.

Double front cover photoshoot of Spanish football striker Fernando Torres (Athletico Madrid, Liverpool FC, Chelsea, AC Milan) and English football striker Wayne Rooney (Everton, Manchester United FC, D.C. United) for monthly football magazine FourFourTwo. Published by Future.

The Fernando Torres photoshoot took place in a hotel room in Manchester, close to a TV ad they were filiming. So there wasn’t much height for jumping around. Fernando nailed this pose in the first shot by the way.

The Wayne Rooney shoot took place a week or two later in The Pie Factory film studio, so we had loads of space for that one. Amazing, amazing players and both front covers were released for the same month. Boom.

All lighting and equipment for both shoots we hired from PKE Lighting. They have, everything and deliver everywhere.

See the Rugby World front cover photoshoots as well. Similarly shot in small spaces.

Client: Nike / 442 (Haymarket Media Group).

Editorial photoshoots and front covers for Rugby World magazine of world cup winning English rugby player Lewis Moody. During a full on press day for all the players we had a studio set-up was in small conference room next to the Leicester Tigers training ground.

We had a small lighting set-up as space was limited and I worked formed a team with Claire Parnell of Nike to produce the clean, sharp lighting we had worked on before on previous premier league football player shoots with Theo Walcott and Michael Essien advertising shoots.

Using two portable Profoto flash lights on the backdrop and one main light gave a great editorial look and feel. Similar to a two light set-up for the rugby union player Geoff Parling shoot which you can see more of in the creative portfolio.

Location and client: Oval Park Training Ground, Oadby. Freuds / Rugby World.

Six days shooting at Black Island Studios in London and Manchester to produce the F50 campaign of world class premiership football players Ashley Young (Manchester United), Gareth Bale (Real Madrid), Emmanuel Adebayor (Kayserispor, Turkey), Shaun Wright-Phillips (ex Manchester City / Chelsea), Petr Czech (Arsenal / Chelsea). In both cities the shoots were produced with the 24 Productions team.

Another big studio set-up for this job with a black background set with large black velvet drapes at the back and sides. The second set was with extra wide arctic white colorama.

Close-up portraits and capturing movement in the images were part of the brief. As well as keeping an advertising quality feel by producing clean and punchy images.

All the premiership football players were in the photo studio as they were released from other media duties and came to our set. Shooting them in various kit and boot changes, in different poses, and with different lighting set-ups. Very similar (black cloth background and white colorama background) to the British and Irish Lions shoot.

We had two main set-ups; one with 2400w Profoto 8a flash lighting power packs and another with arri 1.8k hmi continuous light hired from PKE Lighting.

Client: adidas / Hill & Knowlton Strategies. Location: London / Manchester.

This was the adidas photoshoot of the the 2009 British and Irish Lions at Wimbledon Television and Film Studios. In two days we photographed Brian O’Driscoll, Mike Blair, Tom Croft, Neil Jenkins, Colin Patterson, Andy Powell, Tom Shanklin, Danny Cipriani, Riki Flutey, James Haskell, James Hook, Alun Wyn Jones, Paul O’Connell, Ronan O’Gara, Mike Phillips, Stephen Jones, Andrew Sheridan all as potentials for squad announcements.

We had two set-ups; one with huge black drapes as a backdrop and along the sides, and the other was with an arctic white 3.5m colorama, and white acrylic perspex flooring.

The lighting set-up was very similar to the adidas F50 campaign except both the black backdrop and white backdrop sets had Profoto flash lighting throughout. No continuous Arri tungsten lighting on this one.

You can see all the press releases in the gallery below:
Squad announcements in the:
National Press (The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Times),
Regional Press (Wales Daily Post, South Wales Evening Post),
Vertical Press (The Rugby Times, Rugby World, TheSun, ThisIsSouthWales.co.uk),
Player Interviews (Daily Telegraph, Metro, The Independent, Observer Sports Monthly, Sports Magazine, Zoo, GQ, Rugby World),
General Imagery Use (SkySports.com, Sun online, The Scotsman, Metro, Sunday Telegraph, The Sun, Independent, Mail on Sunday, The Sun, Rugby World).

Client: adidas / Hill and Knowlton. Location: Wimbledon Television and Film Studios.

Photographing British diving double world champion Tom Daley at the recently built London Aquatics centre. Tom was launched as the face of adidas’ new streetwear brand Neo.

The images were published online that week in Hello magazine, OK magazine, Marie Claire, Metro, the Daily Mail and on Tom’s facebook page.

The lighting kit and camera equipment was minimal. We had a small studio set up with the chroma green (colorama) backdrop which we hired from the ProCentre but you can also buy from Wex photographic. We used the Profoto B1 Air TTLs as the portable lighting kit so we could dash off using different backdrops of the aquatics centre to change things up.

It’s a great simple lighting set up, you can literally get in anywhere with it and get punchy clean shots. We used it for the Rugby World front covers and also the London Olympic Training Grounds project as it’s so light and portable. Great for editorial and social media / marketing shoots.

Client: adidas Neo / Hill+Knowlton Strategies. Location: Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London

This photoshoot was to launch the innovative energy drink POSI+IV with English, PGA Tour and European Tour, professional golfer Ian Poulter as it’s global brand ambassador.

The multi-year agreement was brokered by sports marketing agency Aurum PMG. Creating joint marketing collateral and social media engagement as part of the relationship.

We worked with Formidable Productions to produce the studio-lit (flash lighting on location) advertising imagery whilst on set of the commercial.

Ian Poulter has previously been as high as number 4 in the world rankings and has a formidable Ryder Cup record. Read more with behind the scenes with Ian Poulter and the Posi+iv Facebook Page.

This photoshoot was to launch the innovative energy drink POSI+IV with English, PGA Tour and European Tour, professional golfer Ian Poulter as it’s global brand ambassador.

The multi-year agreement was brokered by sports marketing agency Aurum PMG. Creating joint marketing collateral and social media engagement as part of the relationship.

We worked with Formidable Productions to produce the studio-lit (flash lighting on location) advertising imagery whilst on set of the commercial.

Ian Poulter has previously been as high as number 4 in the world rankings and has a formidable Ryder Cup record. Read more with behind the scenes with Ian Poulter and the Posi+iv Facebook Page.

A great photoshoot with Olympic athletes Louise Hazel (track and field), indoor and beach volleyball team Zara Dampney & Shauna Mullin and diving silver medalist Pete Waterfield.

Shooting in one of Plough Studio’s car-sized film studio in Clapham, London. Lot’s of space for a full Profoto lighting studio set-up with 4 flash head lights on the back drop and anothe 4 lighting from the front. All on a huge white infinity cove. Great for very clean shots and focusing on the athletes.

There was the usual quick turnaround on the editing and retouching of the images with Paperhat FTP and ad campaigns running in national magazines (Elle, Glamour, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Company etc).

In the last image below you can see the studio set from the back of the infinity cove. Showing the Elinchrom Octa modified to have a Profoto Flash Head inserted. You can see some more behind the scenes shots and studio set-ups with the Para 222 Broncolor umbrella as main light in the Nike Greece studio set-up page in creative portfolio section.

Client: Union Direct. Location: Plough Studios, London.