I’ve been meaning to get some cool shots of my son on the soccer pitch for a while now. Finally, yesterday when he was home from school, I got him dressed in his (last year’s) uniform and we headed down to the park. The weather was perfect, with storm clouds providing the ideal backdrop and some nice shade. But, between the threat of rain, and his desire to play soccer instead of pose for pictures (go figure!), I didn’t have much time to work with!

I am working on some ideas for sports portraits with a much more complicated lighting setup, but for this shoot it was very quick and simple, with just a speedlight in a softbox. Once I found a good location for my son to stand, I quickly setup and grabbed what I could. 

Of course, no “nice” photo of my son can be taken without a “crazy” one to go with it (it’s actually more like 1 nice for every 5 crazy), so with a little direction, I got his best crazy/angry look… I know I wouldn’t want to be up against a player with that look on his face. I did something a little different with the post-processing on this photo to give a more edgy feel to go along with that pose.