Whenever someone asks to do a senior picture with their sports stuff I sorta cringe a little. I remember seeing photographs of sports equipment strewn across a white background with these white pedestals and the senior just sorta posed in the middle of it and I'm always afraid that is what people are looking for. I never think of a portrait as a formula, I always think we need to 'find' the portrait. So I'm always nervous that the client has a particular thing in mind and I might not give them that. Communication is key and I usually trust that clients are doing their homework to know what we offer and know we don't really approach photography in a cookie cutter fashion(the beauty of this digital age is that we don't have to do long set ups and take only 12 photographs--we can work an idea a little more). When I was chatting with Eric's mom we talked about photographing Eric at the rink with his gear. I wouldn't mind that but it is a scheduling nightmare to schedule the time I would want to be sure I set up the lights in order to have the background not be distracting. So we opted for in studio and tried a couple different things, but mostly we just went with the smoke machine and dark background with some strong light to light Eric. I have about 4 version of this set-up that work a little different and we'll sit down sometime soon when I'm done getting the rest of the proofs ready and decide if this will be something he wants as a senior picture. It was at least a good laugh filling the studio with smoke and opening the doors just to wonder if the sirens we were hearing in the distance were coming our way! SayerMotter Photograph by Richard Sayer