Italy-May 2008
I went to rome in the middle of may to shoot the new “superheros” ad campaign for the Womens Tennis Association. I got a call from the creative director, Tina Lauffer, asking if I would be interested in going to rome to photograph 20 of the top womens tennis stars today. Rome? Spring? Tennis? Yes! It made perfect sense to phototgraph the best tennis players in the world in the birthplace of competitive sport, rome. The campaign is built around the idea that the ladies are normal people living everyday glamorous lives, and every now and then they transform into the super athletes that we know them as. Think charlies angels meets wonder woman. I was to photograph them in their tennis gear in 2 scenarios. One was a strong, cocky, heroic portrait, and the other was an action shot. The portrait was fairly straightforward and easy to get. We had great hair and makeup, a fan, and a stage so I could shoot from a really low angle. The action shot was a bit more difficult to get, as we were in the studio and space was limited. The big surprise to me though was how great the girls were at nailing the action shot. They were very comfortable making these short, intense moves up on my stage. Here’s a couple of early layouts for ads, and of course yours truly couldn’t resist getting in front of the camera for a couple of snaps!
