Hannover 96

Always interesting to read the reactions to pictures once they have been published. Click on the photos below to connect to the direct link on the Hannover 96 facebook fan page. Plenty of discussion going on there. These photos are part of their 2011 campaign shoot. The best pictures are still to come.

Steven Cherundolo, Sergio Pinto, Emanuel Pogatetz

Sergio Pinto, Steven Cherundolo, Didier Ya Konan

  The office for a day

At night they play

Every night the kids come and play and play and play. Some play on beat up sandals, many barefoot. This is my first trip to the African continent. So many impressions come and go each day. My photographic roots lie somewhere in between portrait photography and shooting sports action. I come across new and amazing football pitches here all the time. When I find a good one I have the urge to pull my camera out of the bag and shoot until my trigger finger bleeds. Like anywhere there is a balance here in wanting to get the photo and peoples basic respect for privacy.

Under Armour Football/Soccer

This viral teaser was a Storeage creation for the kick off of the European Under Armour football boot launch. I shot the stills on location and we shot the player and referee on green screen @ DESMET studio's in Amsterdam.

We used the Panasonic P2 cam for the green screen (wish I had my 5D MK2 at the time). Dealing with the Panasonic MTS file format within your workflow can be a struggle if you do not work with it day in day out. It cost us some time to come to grips with it but in the end it worked out fine.

The beautiful high bit rate H.264 codec on the Canon DSLRs are perfect for these kind of effects shots (make sure you dial down sharpening). The 5DMK2 and the 7D are now in my bag at all times. Next time!

Credits: Agency - Storeage, Art Direction - Moritz von Graevenitz, Motion Graphics - Jay Goodman, Visual Effects - Joe Pavlo, Producer/DP - Arnout Groen

Phase One P65+ on a Hasselblad H3

NDAs (non-disclosure agreement) are no fun for photographer. Clients working on campaigns need them and we sign and honor them (of course). Photographers love to show their work. Showing new work also helps to getting more work. Here is what I can show you. A test shot from a recent photo shoot. I can't say much about the job other than that we were working with 180 Amsterdam for Adidas on a World Cup related project.

I'm the one holding the beast of large format camera. Dropping this camera would cost me $50K. Big Bird covers the athlete for now.

Below is a test shot. Levi helped out with the lighting during this shoot. Locking down a good skate phot was the perfect way to test our set-up.  The final set-up was Phase One P65+ on a Hasselblad H3 hard synced to Profoto strobes.

Working with the Phase One P65+ on a Hasselblad H3 body was fun. I shoot mostly with the Canon DSLRs. In many cases the Canon cameras hold up more than fine. We've printed 80 meter wide billboards from processed Canon RAW files with no problems. Aside from the crazy 65 mega pixel files, this new large format kit excels in flash sync speeds. Canon is stuck @ around 1/250th of a second. This is fine for most studio situations though I wish they could get things working up to 1/500th. If you want to capture fast sports action without the usual motion blurs you need to get up to around 1/500th-1/800th. The Phase One / Hasselblad kit got me there.

In short, my opinion on cameras is that a good photographer will get shots with whatever he or she is holding. Technology helps but it does not take the picture. That said it was a pleasure to work with this kit. Bit of a bummer I would need to fork out $50K to own one!

UA11 launch

Under Armour 11 as they are called. We photographed this series a few months ago for Under Armour. Now after months of hard work by agencies Store-Age and Perfect Fools the campaign has launched. I have not seen all the final images, but I like this one.

Concept and Art Direction by Perfect Fools: UA11 in Action

HANNOVER 96 FOOTBALL

I worked with the Hannover 96 fooball team for their player signature cards and merchandising photography. This was one day full day of going all out and getting the entire team photographed in action in the studio as individuals. The challenge was to get each player performing a move they would do regularly in a real game situation. The whole shoot was hard work, but we had good fun. I had worked with a few of the players already from previous shoots so at this point the players knew how I worked and what was expected of them. Everyone worked hard and that made my life so much easier.

Graphic Design by Karina Engedal. Photo Illustration by Moritz von Graevenitz: Tim Hofmann going for the ball.

Valerien Ismael going for a header.

This is what the photos look like before the post production. Because the schedule was really tight we had a lot of people on the photo set. The good thing about having more athletes on the shoot set at the same time is that they start to compete with each-other to get the best shot. This little trick helps create the loose atmosphere you need to get the special photos. Digital workflow has really helped as well. I typically will have my assistant immediately load the photos onto a computer to view the photos on a large LCD. I personally do not need the large screen to see if I am getting my shots. The large screen does help pump the athlete up to go harder to get the perfect photo (or at least a better one than the other guys). The client also loves seeing the immediate feedback.

Shooting Mike Hanke @ Hannover 96

Mike and I have worked together a couple of times now and he knows the drill. We pushed things pretty hard on the first shoot and got some great shots. He's a powerful athlete and a strong personality in front of the camera. The design below was used for advertising in the German market.

Design by Michael Todas @ Under Armour

There is plenty more to show and tell. We shot most of the Hannover 96 team in one day. For our part it was a team effort as well with everyone behind the camera working just as hard to get the photos we needed as the athletes in the spotlights. This shoot was done mostly with  Canon 1Ds MK3 and a 85mm 1/2L and big Profoto strobes.

Design by Moritz von Graevenitz

Hannover 96 Fooball Kids

This was an Under Armour photo shoot we did together with the Hannover 96 bundes league team. These little guys are part of the select team at the club. These kids came in a little shy but once we gave them a football things got nutty. We were all standing around amazed at the control these little guys had. That was a good thing because I had a lot of photo gear set up as we were also shooting the Hannover 96 pros later that same day. Even with all the kicking and jumping around, all my gear remained upright. The one on the right in the shot below could not get a game face on for one of the shots we had in mind. He just kept on smiling and laughing no matter what we did.

This photo below is one of the ad designs Under Armour put together with a photo from the shoot. This was for their kids football gear.

Design by Michael Todas @ Under Armour

The photos against white need some cleaning and whitening up but you get the idea.

Here above is another one I like. This little guy would just cross his arms and look angry when asked to pose. Worked for me! It was a fun shoot and the next day the parents told us the kids had a lot of fun too.

SHOOTING THE BRAZILIANS

I went on a number of shoots with Nike during their Jogabonito campaign. I was there mostly to shoot stills during the commercial campaign for TV ads that were being shot. We were lucky enough to spend some quality time with the Brazilian team. These guys are under so much pressure to perform and have so many people coming at them, you wonder how they can get loose enough to play the game they love. The shoot was high pressure, but also loose and fun. The key with top footballers under pressure is to give them a ball. It's pretty much that simple. Once they have a ball, the play factor comes in. Once the play factor is in you have a shot at getting some real moments to photograph.

Ronaldinho

This all sounds easier than it really is. A shoot like this goes way beyond me and my power to control a moment. I am just a cog on the wheel. I need to make sure I get my shots during the brief time I have with them. That is what the client pays me for. The players have so much going on they are not going to wait for me to get it right. In situations like this you really only get one shot. There is no time to be nervous.

Robinho: Art direction and design by Pierre Jeannau.

Ronaldo

Ronaldinho at play. Art direction and design by Pierre Jeannau.

This design from a wallpaper that is downloadable from the Nike site.

Shooting Zlatan

Every once in a while you get really lucky on your photo shoots. Having a chance to get one on one with Zlatan was one of these moment.

On set with film maker Mark Hoffman

This one was part of a profile story Apple did on the shoot. I was there to shoot the stills.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic dropping by to say hi to Ronaldinho during the JOGABONITO commercial.

We had a little down time during the shoot . Zlatan knew that Ronaldinho was shooting a commercial spot for the same campaign near by. Zlatan asked me to come with him to take a picture of him meeting the 'champion' as he referred to Ronaldinho. It's was good fun to tag along.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic

We had an early morning shoot on the pitch in Barcelona. I got lucky with the right light and the right background coming together for this one. There were a lot of people on the set and I had no say in getting Zlatan into position. I was focused on getting the shots when the opportunity came. I'm not sure how Nike used this shot. It is one of my favs.

Fernando Torres

I was part of a team who went around to profile key Nike football athletes during the Jogabonito campaign leading up to the world cup 2006. Don't need to tell you, this was amazing fun. Nike sorted access to the players and I had decent freedom to get the shots I wanted to get. Fernando is a super mellow and nice guy. We shot him when he was still at Atlético Madrid. He was already a great player, but really just getting started and still a little camera shy. The thing that blew me away while shooting him was how much power he could generate when kicking the ball from an almost stand still position. We were shooting him in the center of the main pitch at Atlético and I was booming balls at the goal with ease.

This one below was actually shot with my point and shoot while I was changing the battery on my SLR.

Fernando Torres getting his game face on. Shot with a small point and shoot.

Design by Moritz von Graevenitz

This photo was not used for the Jogabonito campaign. The design is part of a series of design tests that Mortiz made with the Liverpool logo. I just really like what he did with the image. I shot this one in bright daylight on the Atlético stadium field with my Canon 1D MKII and a 70-200mm 2.8L