Sports Photography – Nina Hibbler

I had a hankering to do a sports/athletic session, so I posted a casting call on ModelMayhem and was contacted by the lovely Nina Hibbler. I browsed through her bio and saw that she was interested in volleyball, so we got a date planned.

I didn’t know of any public volleyball courts nearby, but Nina recommended the one at Madison Park, so we met up there at 4pm. Chance of rain? 80%. What did we get? A beautiful blue sky which provided us with a nice background for several shots.

We were in a public park, so I wasn’t surprised when a few kids came by and asked, “Are you famous?” I was trying my very best to remain humble…until I realized they were talking to Nina and not me! I, of course, said, “She sure is! You haven’t heard of Nina Hibbler, an up and coming volleyball professional?”

Their eyes got wide and their jaws dropped open. They went running away and came back a few minutes later with a pen and a piece of paper, asking Nina to give them an autograph. But it didn’t stop there; 5 minutes later, another kid came running from the ball field (complete in his baseball uniform) asking for an autograph. We told the boy that this would be the last autograph for the day because we have a deadline to meet.

The first three boys came in handy, however; we used them to return the ball while we were working on the serving shots!

All of these shots were done with either available sunlight or with the addition of a Canon 580EX II crosslighting against the sun. I didn’t use an type of diffuser; just bare bulb to give me a harsher, more dramatic light that I felt was needed for a sports shoot.