I signed Emilio up for the local soccer team this spring with no expectation on myself, this is something he wanted, and all his friends do it and even played on the same team since last fall (if not longer), so we got him in.
And it’s just a few days before the season started that Zara Kids posted this editorial on instagram, and it lit a little light in my brain – as these things often do…
BTW, I have tried and tried and tried looking for who made these images for Zara Kids, and failed miserably. If you know the photographer and the team who did this, please let me know, I want to credit their work…
Anyways, from the moment I saw these, I knew I couldn’t just spend a season just watching (or reading, ahem) from the sidelines, I wanted to document it, and not just the action, other people do better at this than me, but the spirit of the team, on the bench and on the field, so I brought my cameras at every game, and at a few trainings, and I made my own collection of child’s athletics photographs…
Before you continue, please bear in mind that Zara’s editorials are made with professional models, no matter how young, and there are teams (many people from styling, to HMU, to agents, to eager parents knowing they have a job to do, etc.) working on these shoots, so please be kind in comparing my work to these, I show you to bare my process and credit my inspiration, nothing more… My work is candid, un-helped and unprompted, I didn’t sell anything to anyone, I just live my own creative truth as it comes.
I mean, he’s nearing 7 years old, and he’s become very self-conscious about himself, and it got harder to get him to just be himself in front of the camera, so this was a great opportunity to take portraits of him, being proud of his kid and all…
For these I hung my charcoal painted muslin backdrop on our backyard tree (mostly because I disagree with the landscaping choices of our neighbours, lovely people otherwise, but I’m like to hide their homes, yards and cars in my photos…), and used a little flash to fill the dappled shade cast on Emilio.
Also these are digital photos, I had no energy for film in April, remember I could barely hear a thing from my ear infections…
With the white jerseys:
With the blue jerseys:
And some film images I made during a few training sessions:
I made these with the Kodak Retina IIIc on Ilford HP5+, and with the Holga 120GFN on Lomography’s new Color ’92 color film.
Of course, while I beg of you not to discard my photography by comparing it to a big budget fashion production, this didn’t come out of the blue. As most of you know, I am a children photographer in Madison, WI, and I photograph families, milestones portraits and school portraits. So if any of these are what you’re looking for, or if you’re dissatisfied with the less-than-great picture-day photos your kid comes back with year after year, please don’t hesitate to either get in touch with me, or spread the word!
And now that I finally published this selected compilation of Emilio’s first season of soccer, I want to print it, so let me get to making a zine out of them right away, before I get distracted and forget…
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