John Boal Photography

Here are some final headshots I accumulated after thinking about it in a different way (like I talked about in my previous posts). Anyway, creating these photographs made going to high school football practice a far more interesting endeavor, even if each kid stood in front of me for a maximum of 5 seconds.

I've now found something to focus on when I shoot football practice. The headshots. Once a throwaway 3 second moment, I'm now realizing, with just another half a moment to compose yourself, some pictures can look great. That I just wrote that last sentence embarasses me. This is what should separate professionals from the others. But sometimes it's very difficult to embrace making memorable photographs when you are in the throws of trying to wrangle 20+ kids from the football coach in their first week's practice. If you last more than 5 seconds with these kids, the annoyance factor rises exponentially between you and the coach. So generally speaking, headshots never were anything I focused on, until the other day ( my last post ), when I stumbled into a couple I liked. Here are some more, with an action shot to boot. The one headshot is in color, because, well, his eyes were such a striking color, that monochrome didn't do it justice...for once... Maybe he...

I was planning on sharing some photos from the early goings-on of the two-a-days that signal the start of the high school football season and school year. I thought of shots of players pushing the sleds with coaches shouting the whole time. I thought recievers catching, quarterbacks throwing and running backs, well, running. You get the idea. And then today happened. Today was a black flag day. Meaning no one could practice outside. I had a list of shots to get for the preview page for this particular school. No worries I could still grab a few headshots while they were lifting weights. Lo and behold, the 10 seconds I took to make pictures in teh entryway of the gym, are some of my favorites in the past few weeks. Some nice natural reflective light while we stood in the shade with a white door to frame their heads. But when I converted them to black and white to archive into our system, I couldn't help but linger over some of the pictures. They just look a little more classic and i...