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Lifestyle Portraits with Florida Gators Women's Basketball

A multi-day marketing photo shoot with the student-athletes of the Florida Gators Women's Basketball team

By Matt Pendleton Photography

February 13^th, 2018

Go Gators!

During the summer of 2017, the Florida Gators Women's Basketball team reached out to us to discuss a new photo project. They were looking to create lifestyle portraits featuring the student-athletes away from the basketball court. After a few planning meetings, we decided to shoot outside at a local park and near Downtown Gainesville.

We had 12 athletes to shoot and one week to get it done. We chose to shoot over four days at sunrise each morning during the second week of October 2017.

Scroll down to see our favorite images from the multi-day shoot and go behind-the-scenes thanks to our assistant photographer, Anthony Moreira.

Here's some of the gear we used for this shoot:

Photographers: Matt Pendleton, Anthony Moreira (BTS)
Camera Gear: Canon 1D-X, Canon 70-200mm f2.8L II, Canon 17-40mm f4L, Canon 24-70mm f2.8L, Canon 50mm f1.2L, Lexar 32GB Memory Cards, Spider Holster SpiderPro Dual Holster system, and Tiffen UV filters
Lighting: Buff AlienBees B800, PocketWizard Plus X radios, and Buff Vagabond Lithium portable batteries
Locations: Downtown Gainesville and Depot Park in Gainesville, Florida

Lifestyle Portraits with Florida Gators Women's Basketball

Day 1

Delicia Washington, Haley Lorenzen, and Tameria Johnson joined us for the first day of shooting. It was an early morning wake up (6:30am) for the athletes so we had to keep the energy levels high. That was no problem with this group.

During planning, we agreed to using two outfits for each student-athlete: Gator-inspired and formal. This allowed us to keep the shoot moving and maximize sunlight.

We started shooting in the downtown area near the Hippodrome Theater and Bo Diddley Plaza also using the brick laden streets for a few fun shots. We finished up next to one of Gainesville's 352Creates murals.

Day 2

For the second day of shooting, we were joined by Dyandria Anderson and Zada Williams. They were a little quiet to start but once they warmed up, we had tons of energy.

The idea for the day was brick. We started this shoot outside of a brick building then used the brick laden streets for more looks.

We finished shoot near the stone steps of the Hippodrome Theater with some beautiful sunrise light.

Day 3

We started day three of shooting at a new location: Depot Park. It is one of the newest parks in Gainesville and is built around a historic train station. We were blown away by the beautiful light and gorgeous backdrops.

Mikayla Hayes, Paulina Hersler, and Elif Portakal joined us for this shoot. They brought tons of energy especially with it being so early in the morning.

We finished shooting near the Hippodrome Theater and behind Bo Diddley Plaza.

Day 4

Sydney Morang, Funda Nakkasoglu, Corey Staples, and Jalayshia Thomas joined us on our fourth day of shooting. We loved the sunrises at Depot Park so we again started there first.

Sydney had to leave early to make class which allowed Funda, Corey, and Jalayshia more time to get creative.

Day 5

To round off our Lifestyle Portrait session, we shot a few months later with Danielle Rainey. She's a recent transfer from Texas and joined the team midway through their season. We shot in Downtown Gainesville at Bo Diddley Plaza, the Hippodrome State Theatre, and a beautiful designed wall outside the Palomino.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES

Go behind-the-scenes of our multi-day shoot with the Florida Gators! We had tons of fun working with the Gators support staff to make this shoot a success. The city of Gainesville provided a beautiful backdrop at all of our locations.

Thank you Florida Gators!

A huge thanks goes to the Florida Gators Women's Basketball team, Assistant Coach Kelly Finley, and the team support staff for waking up early and working with us on this exciting shoot. It's such a treat seeing our images on the GatorsWBK social media accounts.

Make sure to tap ENJOY if you liked our story.

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