Sunday, February 12, 2012

Queen Underwood for The New York Times




This morning I woke up to an intense text message from a friend and a photo soon followed that explained his enthusiasm. The emotional story of olympic hopeful boxer Queen Underwood was on the front of the Sports Sunday section.

In a day and age where the digital medium dominates, it's cool to see photos in print that big.

In what seems to be a very consistent theme of all the Olympic hopefuls that I've photographed in the last month, Queen was gracious, humble and very helpful in allowing me to work how I needed.

In her hour long workout she barely stopped moving. I did my best to work the white walls, busy backgrounds and florescent lighting in that time.

Afterwards I had a few minutes to make a portrait that communicated, visually, what her story was all about. At first glance, it was stumping me. I continued to rack my brain throughout her workout and when all was said and done, despite bringing the entire kitchen sink of lighting gear with me, I ended up using a single speedlight to make my images.

I also liked this frame but I agree that the eye contact really works.

Sometimes simple really sings and apparently my editors agreed.

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