Student Athlete Senior Picture Ideas

If you have spent four years in a jersey, your senior pictures should say so. The best athlete portraits are not just a headshot with a ball added at the end. They come from the same place the sport does: the field you actually played on, the gear you actually used, and the face you actually make in the last minute of a close game.

Marvin photographs sports around mid-Michigan, so he arrives at an athlete session already knowing what your sport looks like. He knows how a field reads late in the day, how a gym reads on camera, and which moments are worth setting up for. Below are the ideas that work, sport by sport, drawn from more than 35 years behind the camera in this area.

Bring the ideas you have already saved. Bring the ones your teammates are doing. We will tell you honestly which will photograph well and which will not, and we will build the session around the ones that will.

Football gives you the most to work with, because the uniform is dramatic and the field is a location in its own right. The strongest football senior pictures usually come from the end of the day, when the light is low and the stadium is empty.

• Full pads under the lights on your home field, shot late enough that the sky still has colour in it
• Helmet held at your side or resting on one hip, so your face is the subject and the gear is the frame
• The jersey number filling the frame, with you slightly out of focus behind it
• On the line in a three point stance, low angle, shot from ground level
• A clean studio portrait in the jersey with a dark background, which is the one your parents will actually hang
• The letterman jacket over ordinary clothes, for the shot that still looks right in ten years

Indoor sports are harder to photograph and better for it, because almost nobody gets them right with a phone. An empty gym is one of the most striking backdrops there is when it is lit properly.

• Alone in an empty gym with the house lights down and the ball at your feet
• Mid air at the rim or at the net, shot fast enough to freeze completely
• Basketball spinning or held overhead, with the court lines running away behind you
• Volleyball at the moment of contact, from the far side of the net
• Wrestling singlet with the mat as a field of flat colour, shot from directly above
• The whole senior class of your team together, which is the photograph they all keep

Spring and outdoor sports give you the best light of the year and the most room to move, because the location does so much of the work.

• On the mound or in the batter's box at golden hour, with the infield dirt in the frame
• Bat over the shoulder, glove on, walking out of the dugout
• Cleats and a scuffed ball as a close detail, shot alongside the portraits
• Soccer on an open pitch with the goal small in the distance, so the field reads as space
• Starting blocks from a low angle on the track, with the lane lines converging
• Cross country on the course you actually run, in the fall colour
• Golf on the tee at first light, which is the only time the course is empty and the light is soft

A few things decide whether these ideas turn into photographs you keep. None of them is expensive, and all of them are easier to get right before the session than after.

• Book around your season, not in the middle of it. The week after your last game is ideal, because you still look like an athlete and you are not exhausted.
• Get permission for the field or gym early, and ask your school rather than assuming. A locked gate ends a session.
• Bring both uniforms if you have them, home and away, plus the letterman jacket and one set of ordinary clothes.
• Wash the uniform. It sounds obvious, and grass stains and creases photograph clearly.
• Shoot late in the day. Midday sun is the hardest light there is and it is unkind to faces under helmets and caps.
• Decide who the photographs are for. The ones for your teammates and the ones your grandmother frames are rarely the same picture, and a good session gets you both.

Marvin has photographed people in the Lansing area for more than 35 years, athletes included, from the studio in Holt to home fields and gyms around mid-Michigan. If you have seen him on your sideline, this is the same person, with more time and better light.

Ready to talk it through, or still collecting ideas? Either is a fine reason to get in touch. Give the studio a call at 517-709-3757 or use the contact form below, and we will start with what you want the photographs to say.