From an early age, I played soccer. Starting with the leagues where all the kids chase the ball around the field, eventually moving on to indoor leagues and high school soccer. I was never the best but always had fun playing. After high school, I stopped playing, but I still enjoy kicking the ball around.

As I work to diversify my portfolio I had this idea to shoot soccer over the summer when we had the heavy forest fire smoke. The idea was to utilize the smoke from the fire to and hide the background and make the field be less recognizable. Schedules were busy and I was never able to make it happen, but with the fall and the rainy weather, I knew I would be able to get a similar look with the atmospheric conditions. Laura Zgud came out for a few hours in the rain and was more than happy to kick the ball around to help create some images.

I haven’t worked with the strobes as much in recent years and it’s been a lot of fun breaking them out again to work with the light and really create an image.