Alexis Cuarezma, whose illustrious credits include shoots for Sports Illustrated and The Ring Magazine, is a San Francisco-based photographer who excels at in-studio portraiture, be it of a famous boxer, Olympic swimmer, college football quarterback or World Cup superstar. Here, Cuarezma breaks down two recent sports shoots and the lighting setups behind them.

Team USA midfielder Kyle Beckerman is lit from the back with a Profoto B4 pack and a head equipped with a Narrow Beam reflector. This gives a very fine light that highlights his dreadlocks nicely. In front of him is another Profoto B4 with a softbox attached to the head; because its far away and feathered, it gives off an intense light. Both lights provide a nice visual contrast with the black background. All photos and diagrams © Alexis Cuarezma

For a Sports Illustrated shoot of the U.S. soccer team, I had ten lights, five different looks and one setup for three different stories: Meeting Team USA, a “Captain America” cover shoot with Clint Dempsey, and a group portrait of German players on Team USA. I had one minute with each player (23 total).

Shot Setups
One of the first things I like to do is draw up a lighting diagram. We ended up using all B4 and B2 packs because no B1 monolights were available and the final setup ended up slightly different. My time would be short with each player, so I wanted to shoot multiple looks simultaneously, which meant putting up different lighting setups on the same set, setting each one to a different letter group with PocketWizard Plus IIIs, and then firing each one back to back in succession with a three-shot burst on a Canon 1D X using the SpeedCycler on the MultiMAX.

Gear
Canon 1D X
Canon 5D Mark II
24-105mm f/4
24-70mm f/2.8
64GB SanDisk Extreme Pro cards
PocketWizard’s MultiMAX on the cameras
PocketWizard Plus IIIs on the strobes
7 Profoto B4 packs
4 Profoto B2 packs (back ups)
10 heads
6 medium softboxes
2 Narrow Beam reflectors
1 Magnum reflector
1 soft light reflector with grid
iPad
iUSBport Camera 2 (to review images wirelessly on the iPad)

1 Set, 10 lights
Although my time was short with each player, I still wanted to give the editors different visual options, shoot what they needed and get images for myself. The original plan was to do three sets and use 20 lights. However, the schedule changed last minute and we had to condense everything to one setup and use only ten lights.

Setup with Boards and Assistant
I kept in mind how these shots would look from a different angle and wanted to shoot profiles of each player to give a completely separate feel. Therefore I had an assistant hold a black board off to the side. When I moved to the side of the player to shoot his profile, that black board became the backdrop. You can see the entire setup and my assistant holding the board off to the side.

The Right Light
This shot (above) honors the best student athletes that attended my alma mater, Washington High School in Fremont, California.

I used harsh, direct and gridded light as back light and as rim lights to create separation between the subjects and the dark background. What that also does is creates shadows going toward the camera on the ground, making leading lines to the group. The harsh light was opposite very soft light that was lighting the group in front. Two large softboxes and one Octobox was used to light the group softly from the front.

Camera: Hasselblad 503CW with a CFV-39 digital back
Lens: Hasselblad 40mm f/4 CFE IF Zeiss Distagon
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/22
Shutter speed: 1/30 of a second

Note: To create extra impact, I had assistants stand behind the group with four bottles filled with water spraying mist. I hid them as much as possible behind the group and cloned them out in post. The back light makes the mist stand out.

Building Up the Group
I slowly brought people in, two to three at a time, to pose each of them. A quick lighting test was also done to see where my light is at and if I had to make any adjustments.

Final Composition
Once the entire group was in place, I made any final adjustments to their posing. Then I just focused on the group and had fun shooting.

Alexis Cuarezma attended the Eddie Adams Workshop (EAW) in 2011, a tuition-free workshop that gave him the opportunity to do assignments for The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and Sports Illustrated.

Related Links:

How to Light Bomb Senior Portraits Like Shawn Lee

Weird Sports: A New Book and Photo Essay by Sol Neelman

Photographing FIFA: Michael Donald Shoots Goal-Scoring Legends

Monte Isom’s Fired Up World Cup Fan Portraits