Photographer's Spotlight: LSU Tigers

Aug 2, 2013 by The GymShark

This installment of the Photographer’s Spotlight features the 2013 LSU Tigers.

2013 was a special year to cover LSU Gymnastics. The Tigers finished third at the SEC Championships (197.70), advanced to the Super-Six Finals (placing fifth with a 197.050), and set a new record for home meet attendance.

The opening photos above feature LSU’s top gymnast, the SEC Gymnast of the Year, SEC All-Around Co-Champion, and NCAA vault national champion, Rheagan Courville.

A sports photographer dreams of capturing great moments, and Rheagan is a gymnast capable of greatness on every event. She can make the extraordinary look easy, and the simplest things look extraordinary. The balance beam sequences above illustrate this point.

Rheagan does a Standing Arabian like its no big deal, and yet looks beautiful and amazing on relatively simple skills.

When proofing action shots with a client, I like to change up the image styles to hopefully give the customer something they find cool and entertaining.

In the two photos above, the first one is of Kaleigh Dickson and LSU associate head coach Jay Clark. The shot is a typical transition to the low bar, but I used a high-contrast black and white tone for the subjects while the background is completely underexposed, which makes the image pop.

The second photo features Randii Wyrick performing an awesome release from the top bar. For this image I used a technique called a graduated or split-tone filter. In this case, I split the frame in half and toned each half in LSU’s school colors. The image was simplified to only include two subject elements – the gymnast and the bar – everything else was cut-out and replaced with a pure-black layer.

In full HD, both halves look awesome; the canary yellow/gold looks bright and stunning against the black background, while the purple is just the right hue – deep and resonant without distracting from the gymnast.

If you follow my sports photography at all, you know I’m a fan of monochrome palettes, and a fan of capturing moments in gymnastics meets with a portrait photographer’s mindset.

The three photos above use a variation of a cream-toned monochrome palette that I’m especially fond of for portrait-type headshots. The three gymnasts featured are Randii Wyrick, Sarie Morrison and Rheagan Courville, respectively.

Although the photo of Randii was not posed and taken while she was actively practicing, the photo still makes for a nice “portrait”.

Randii looks beautiful here; she was in a good spot where the light shined on her face at an optimal angle. (You can't take lighting for granted in sports arenas.) The in-camera contrast and sharpening settings combined with the cream tone allows details to come through, such as each strand of her eyelashes, but is not too intense, which allows her skin and other features to look smooth and natural.

The photos of Sarie and Rheagan were taken the day before the SEC Championships, after podium training had just finished.

The above photo of Sarie is one of the best pictures of her I’ve seen. As she sat on the edge of the podium, I stood at a spot which forced her to turn her head at a subtle angle towards the camera. I think the angle compliments her features and combined with her smile, results in a beautiful impromptu portrait.

What can one say about Rheagan; minimal makeup and just finished practicing gymnastics for two hours - no problem! She looks great in any circumstance. In my opinion she could easily get work as a model for commercial / promotional work, conventions, marketing brochures, stuff like that.

If I had it to do over again, I would have used a speedlight (flash) unit to fill in the light in her eyes, but that's the breaks, you live and learn.

The gymnast in the above “portrait” is Jessie Jordan.

The inspiration for this photo was 1920’s silent films. In movies from that era, it was not unusual for scenes to sometimes be slightly overexposed. That, combined with the makeup artist trends of the period, resulted in very bright flesh tones.

The tone for the monochrome palette was a blend of sepia and chocolate that I’ve been playing around with, and I thought this photo was the perfect setting for it.

The composition is intentionally simple, allowing the viewer to pause and take-in Jessie’s statuesque features and intense eyes.

I have to extend my greatest heartfelt thanks to LSU head coach D-D Breaux and Associate Sports Information Director Jake Terry for their support of my photographic endeavors.

From day one of the season, Jake was extremely helpful, detail oriented, kind and respectful. D-D is a head coach at a big-time SEC university and didn’t know me from anyone, yet made me feel welcomed, appreciated, and was very accessible and cordial.

LSU Gymnastics operates like an organization that wants and appreciates coverage of their team. They have the foresight and discernment to see value in allowing sports photographers and other members of the media to do their job.

It was an honor and privilege to cover LSU Gymnastics in 2013. I wish the Tigers continued success and hope to be able to cover them in future seasons.

The GymShark's 2013 LSU Tigers photo album on Gymnastike can be found here:

http://www.gymnastike.org/photoalbum/449093

The GymShark is now on Facebook and Twitter:

Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gymshark/214755135342483

Twitter – https://twitter.com/TheGymShark