I was faced with a dilemma recently: how do you photograph a tennis player differently than everyone else does? Tennis takes place on the ground, on a standard sized court, in daylight. Usually. That is, unless you fly over Arthur Ashe Stadium in NY in the evening and get to see the US Open Tennis Championships from 800 feet in the air, like I did last night. I swear I could hear Maria Sharapova grunting from that high up.
Kayla is a Rush-Henrietta high school senior who plays tennis. When she came to my studio, and I felt like I owed her something different…something that no one else had. It required a change of perspective…a different point of view. After photographing her near the net in different standing and sitting poses, I brought out a new weapon: an 8 ft. step ladder.