Cover Story - Kaufman County Life fall edition

For the fall edition of Kaufman County Life, we featured three new head football coaches at area schools.  Unlike the last cover (coffee!), this one required some more preparation and logistics.

The concept was to have all three coaches standing together on a football field.  At this point in the year, brand new head coaches are the busiest people on the planet, so actually getting them together would be impossible.

They were generous with their time, however, and traveled to the Tribune office for individual shots.  I chose a very high angle (from a stepladder) to give an exaggerated perspective.  A low angle would have worked too, but the high angle emphasized their faces, and allows the football field background to have more impact while not identifying any particular school as a location.

Keeping the camera, lens, lighting and shooting angle the same is the only way to make the images come together well.  I shot everything with a 5D and 14mm lens.  Key light was a 3x4 softbox high and just to camera left, and 2x2 softboxes on each side and slightly behind the subjects.

Each coach posed separately, so I did my best to pose them in the right spot as if they were standing together, in relation to the ladder.  Everything was on white seamless to make the cutout easier.

Terrell coach Kevin Wilson came in first and chose to be on the right.  That is a full 9' roll of paper to get an idea of how the 14mm lens warps perspective.

North Forney coach Lance Gary was up next in the center spot.


And Crandall coach Todd  John rounded out the bunch.


The field was a bit trickier, because there is no way to really match the light.  Instead I went to the North Forney field early one morning to catch nice light that would show the texture of the turf.  I wanted to make sure to get some lines or numbers to identify it as a football field.  The only problems were dodging the shadows from the light poles and some kids playing ultimate frisbee :)


Time was short, but it all came together pretty nicely.  I would like to go back and adjust some things in photoshop after seeing the final print, but overall, I think it works.  It is visually interesting enough to draw the eye.


Next up, I will tell you about my trip to jail for another story in this magazine....

Don J.