Last year while exploring sportsshooter.com I saw a series of football preview images by Corey Perrine that was based on the theme Friday Night Lights. The images inspired me and I wanted to do something a little different with our football preview this year. I approached our sports editor and told him I wanted to take portraits based on comic book characters, which he approved. I gave him the names of characters that I wanted to make images for and he found players that fit. For the most part, I'm happy with the results.
The shot above of Sycamore quarterback Ryan Bartels was definitely the least difficult, however the most expensive. The Sycamore Spartans colors are black and gold, so when I found the Superman shirt in those colors I was thrilled.
Shanon Davis of Hiawatha plays on the defensive line and was the biggest of all the athletes that I had to take a portrait of and fit the bill for my Juggernaut themed character. This is for sure my favorite of the six and the one I worried most about making. I used green floral foam bricks that I sprayed red for the wall and I used toothpicks and skewers to give the appearance of bricks flying as Shanon busted through. We have a Hobby Lobby right down the road from our office, so when they had their 40% off one item coupon in the paper, I visited their business just about every day to buy more bricks. James Nokes, one of our writers for the preview tab, got a great quote from Davis to fit the photo, "I like to run people over. I run people over a lot; as much as I can."
Joe Diedrich is a center for the DeKalb Barbs. If I had the time to, I would have liked to re-shoot this one, but I think it still works.
Gabe Williams is a running back for Genoa-Kingston. Before I shot this I had planned to use the rear curtain sync function on my camera to fire my flashes at the end of the exposure. For some reason when it was time to shoot I couldn't get the function to work on site and I had to improvise.
Jordan Kalk plays at least three different positions each game; kicker/punter, linebacker and wide receiver. Batman was the original character that I wanted to base Kalk's portrait on because he's a utility player and the Dark Knight has a belt with which has many uses. I couldn't really come up with anything other than a cape, so I researched more characters and I found Multiple Man. This is a composite and I used three images to create this illustration. The front image of Kalk is the original. I used a tripod and had him move to the sides of the frame to get the two other shots.
Quinn Buschbacher is a wide receiver for the Kaneland Knights. I made the web using a dowel rod painted white and a hot glue gun. I suspended the ball with fishing line and I came up with this.
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