Drew - Fairport HS Senior Portraits, Class of 2014

 Drew comes from a family of soccer players.  He has three younger brothers and they all play, sometimes totally 11-12 games a week for the family.  Knowing how important it is, and knowing how good of a player Drew is, I had planned something special for him.  Little did I know it would be over so quickly.

Corteney - Fairport HS - Senior Portraits

I love photographing the contrast of warm and cool colors together, as shown here by the warm reddish orange of Corteney's dress and the cool blue of the worn denim jacket, then the warn rusty tones of the hand-painted background.  Corteney was the first to be photographed against this background, and it looks like it was made just for her. 

From The Sports Desk...

Numerous HS Senior athletes have come through the Luke Photography studio recently, and I look at each and every one of them as a challenge: how do I make them look like professional athletes, make them all look different, and make them look realistic, all at the same time?

I go into each session with an athlete with the idea that I'm creating a cover photo for a story in Sports Illustrated.  There has to be drama and impact on first sight....something to entice you into stopping to read the article.  Drama and impact are usually created by lighting.  Sometimes it's a different vantage point of the viewer...but most often it's the lighting.  Here are some examples of some HS senior athletes with impact.

Workin' up a sweat during the session

A puck's eye view of a face off

Blue turf and sky...amazing color.

Intensity shows in the eyes

An 8 ft. stepladder...on the ice.

Would you want to bat against him?

Old school basketball in an old school gymnasium

The red and blue create the impact...his look creates the drama

Team chemistry and intangibles...that's what leads to trophies

Yeah, you wish you could play like a girl

Can't argue with the great John Wooden.  She knows it

You can't mask dedication.....it always shines through

During games, her expressive eyes just radiate through this mask

Drama, impact and intensity....it's all here

All soccer...all the time

Fairport HS Senior - Drew

Composite Portrait of Drew, a Fairport Varsity Soccer Player

Creating the Story of Someone in Photographs

Sometimes your job as a photographer is difficult.  Maybe your subject woke up on the wrong side of the bed…maybe they aren’t having a good hair day….maybe they just don’t want their portrait taken.  It’s days like those that truly make me appreciate the session I had recently with Drew, a junior from Fairport High School.  Not only is he easy-going, but has great looks, a great personality, and was actually looking forward to his session.  That is what we in the photography world call a “trifecta”.  I was the big winner that day.

Drew plays varsity and travel league soccer, and has been playing it forever, so the sport was going to be a big part of his session.  But there were plenty of other aspects of his personality to investigate.  He is planning on going into the ROTC program at his college of choice, Grove City, which is where is parents went and older brother is.  But I couldn’t get away from the soccer images.  I selected several images and created a composite that included several other elements.  Because sometimes just one or two (or three or four) images do not tell the story of a person.  Sometimes it takes many.

Drew brought his own flag for this patriotic-themed image

The monochromatic grey tones work well together in this color image

Soccer plays a big part in Drew's life, so we had to make it larger than life

This head shot is dominated by cool blue and grey colors