Environmental Portraits

FSU Quarterback Christian Ponder in Tallahassee

A daub of peanut butter helped to create a moment between Christian Ponder and Dallas in Tallahassee, Florida. 1/250 sec f/8 at ISO 400. © Scott Holstein/Rowland Publishing

Tallahassee Magazine was doing a story on the local animal shelter – the Tallahassee-Leon County Animal Service Center – which was recently awarded $25,000 from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals for inspiring the community and adopting out 1,200 animals in 90 days.

As it turns out, local celebrity Christian Ponder, star quarterback for the Florida State University Seminoles’ football team, had recently adopted a dog from the shelter. So a couple of days before his last game in his college career, I photographed Ponder with Dallas, his black Labrador retriever.

Lighting for this shot was simple; I placed Ponder in the shade of a tree in his back yard and lit him with a Profoto 7b in a 5’ Octa. Since Dallas is black and will act as a light sponge, the light is on his side of Ponder. The background greenery is lit with dappled sunlight.

Ponder has since been drafted by the Minnesota Vikings to play in the NFL.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 3rd, 2011 at 12:00 AM. It is filed under On Assignment and tagged with Canon 1D Mark IV, Christian Ponder, Florida State University, Football, FSU, Magazine, Minnesota, Octa, On Assignment, On Location, Outdoors, Portrait, Profoto 7b, Quarterback, Seminoles, Tallahassee, Vikings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.