A portrait system built on the road
Client: HYROX
Role: Photography, lighting, tethered editing
Deliverables: Athlete media day portraits - delivering throughout the session.
Location: Phoenix, Arizona
The brief
HYROX held their major competition in Phoenix, and ahead of race day they asked me to support their athlete media day — athletes rotating through a series of photo stations. This was creative imagery they could use across their channels. So it was two things at once: a creative engagement and a quick-release one, during the week of the competition.
The approach
The concept centered on locker rooms. We had a couple of options in Phoenix and ended up using the Arizona Cardinals cheerleaders' locker room — a bright red, old-school look with a genuinely interesting space to work in.
We built the lighting locally, tracking down lights, diffusion, and blankets on the ground in Phoenix, and traveled with our photography gear and tethering setup. Running Capture One tethered let us hand athletes real-time imagery as they came in, so they could feel the look and try posing ideas right away. The athlete handlers and production team managed styling and prep, which kept the day moving.
We only had about five to ten minutes per athlete, so it was a lot of quick imagery — but the goal was always to let their personality show and give them freedom to do poses they thought were cool. We shot both singles and doubles, working with a lot of different people through the day.
Because we had the space to ourselves, we set up and tested the day before, locking in our edits on test images. That meant the next day we could shoot the athletes and push edited frames almost immediately through Capture One.
Challenges to navigate
The lockers themselves were a challenge: highly reflective. We killed a couple of the smaller lights that were throwing a hot spotlight onto the locker surfaces and switched to a bigger, wider light source that softened the reflection and didn’t reveal lighting setup in each image.
Working on the road meant we didn't have our traditional kit, so a lot of the lighting setup was improvised — running down tape and gear to make it work, and using blankets to block the lights on the opposite side of the room.
The overhead lights were a feature we wanted to include without a big affect on the subjects themselves. This light source was a little bit cool which made sure we had the color temperature dialed in on our Aputure lighting sources.
A Louis Vuitton world cup ball
Client: Louis Vuitton × UNICEF — featuring Hunter & Tara Woodhall
Role: Photography, Lighting, Production
Deliverables: Portraits of Hunter & Tara Woodhall with the Louis Vuitton World Cup ball. 10 final images.
Location: The Woodhalls' home gym, Kansas
The brief
UNICEF, partnering with Louis Vuitton, asked Hunter and Tara Woodhall to create images with the Louis Vuitton World Cup soccer ball, featuring influential athletes. The concept was to photograph the ball in their home environment so we decided to shoot in their new home gym.
The approach
Everything is easier with Hunter and Tara. They both have great style, which makes planning simple/
Their home gym was awesome, but it was also quite dark with mostly black mats and walls. The LED strips on the ceiling were warm and at a set temperature. From images Hunter had sent me beforehand, I knew we'd benefit from a bigger light source, both for the space and for capturing the two of them together. When we scouted, we saw these big garage doors and my first thought was to diffuse them — soften the incoming light, reduce the grid pattern from the doors, and knock down harsh shadows. We rigged up a 12x12 half grid cloth in anticipation of direct sun. (We unplugged the garage door mechanism and taped off the remote). Ironically it ended up overcast, so the diffusion wasn't as necessary as I'd expected.
We added a 7' umbrella just to the right of them as our key light, with the diffused daylight becoming more of a fill. I shot on a 24mm lens — I like what that focal length does in a space like this. We shot tethered so Tara and Hunter could see what things looked like and make adjustments.
The complementary color to the ball leans royal blue. We shifted toward a more analogous palette of greens and blues, and Tara ended up in an awesome Nike set that played into it.
Challenges to navigate
The trickiest part was exposure between Hunter and Tara. With the umbrella close to them — trying to make it feel like a larger source — the difference between them was more noticeable than I expected, and Hunter was popping brighter, especially early on in white. Tara actually caught it first. We adjusted wardrobe after reviewing test shots, then I subtly brought Hunter down in exposure so he didn't overpower the frame, and everything started to balance.
The black gym was the other constraint — it swallows light, which is why we planned for a bigger key and diffused the garage doors before we even arrived. The decision was made to kill the overhead lights because they were more distracting than beneficial to the look.
We had an hour time limitation. Tara’s hair took longer than expected so we only had a short period where the lighting worked as it came into the gym space.
Stills alongside a Live motion production
Client: PennyMac (via their production company)
Role: Stills photography
Deliverables: Stills from the commercial shoot + behind the scenes images for PennyMac's channels and website, ahead of and during the Olympics.
The brief
PennyMac reached out through their production company for a stills project with Hunter and Tara Woodhall. They needed a photographer to sit alongside the video team and capture stills of the couple during the commercial production. PennyMac's commercial was slated to be aired during the Winter Olympics.
The approach
The guiding principle was do no harm: very low impact on the production and on their home in general. I was carved out 10 to 15 minutes to work with them in between commercial and lighting sets. As the crew worked through a build, I'd capture stills on the back end of the previous lighting setup, then we'd skip to the next build. So I shot through the video production and then got solo time as a photographer in those windows.
Challenges to navigate
The real challenge was navigating a large production — lots of people on set — and getting the images we needed without affecting anyone else's work. The amount of lighting setup added its own constraint too: with everything rigged for the video, I had limitations on the angles and focal lengths I could use, so I had to find the shots that worked within what was already built.
The set crew was very. accommodating, allowing us to manage certain stills shots differently than the video production. For example, some images we wanted to use a wider angle lens which required moving additional items in the house.
