Today, the Portland Timbers introduced the new head coach for next years MLS team. Besides having a big press conference and talking to all the media, he gets to get his photo shot by me. I kid I kid. I setup a little studio in a conference room at Adidas and shot a bunch of stuff. Here is one of my favs. Cool dude looking forward to working with him.

I shot this portrait of Oregon Ducks Basketball coach Dana Altman a while back for USA Today. We shot him at the new Matthew Knight Arena that is still under construction in Eugene. The story finally ran in today’s paper after the Ducks hired a new Athletic Director yesterday.

The setup was pretty basic, one large softbox to the right and a light with a grid behind him to mimic the rim light coming off the windows at the top of the arena. Coach Altman was a very cool guy. I also shot the teams workout that day and for a while it was just the two of us at Mac Court while we waiting for the team to come up from the locker room and we talked about hockey and kids (his kids play hockey). The new arena is really amazing. Can’t wait for it to open.

Ryan Pore is a goal scoring machine. He has 9 of the team’s 13 goals this season and has played over 1,200 minutes on the pitch. The team wanted a photo of him for the next edition of the program/magazine. Ryan is a really nice guy, but on the pitch, he’s a tough as they come and works hard. We wanted to show his toughness and hard work in the photo. I shot him right after the team got done practicing. Right outside the team locker room, in the bowel’s of PGE Park near the kitchen, there was a silver garage door that would make for a perfect background. You can see a photo of the setup here. To make him look nice and sweaty I took a towel and wrung it out over his head a bunch of times until he was nice and soaked, then I had to try to get him to look mean and tough, easier said then done, but he was great and we made a cool photo. Shot with a 50mm at f2.0

Thursday’s game was a nightmare. Saturday was a dream come true for Blazer fans. At the last minute, the team activated Brandon Roy, who had knee surgery just 8 days earlier. The team and the arena was instantly energized just from watching him warm up. When he got off the bench to check into the game, the team went on a 9-2 run while he was at the scorers table. Just having him stand up seemed to do the trick. The team rallied, LaMarcus Aldridge scored 31 and the series is tied 2-2. The above photo is from late in the fourth quarter after Roy hit a key three pointer.
More photos after the jump…

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If you were like most people in Portland last night, you watched the Blazers and the Suns play in game 3. Well, the Suns came to play, the home team, not so much. They even got booed at the Rose Garden. It was awful. This photo is 2 of Jason Richardson’s 42 points. Taking with a remote camera mounted to the basket. I’m on the floor on the other side of the court. Portland better win game 4 or they are as good as done.