Opportunity knocks…. at Jon Boyes - Photographer

Here’s an image from a shoot this week that wasn’t planned at all. As with life in general, sometimes things don’t go to plan. When this happens there are two things you can do: a) give up; or b) make the best out of the situation. I had been commissioned by FourFourTwo football magazine to shoot three football players for a feature. On the morning of the shoot one of the players had to pull-out which left me with two to shoot. The magazine wanted a white background so I arrived at the club and set up the background and lighting. Shot the first player in his kit, as per the brief, and all was well…

The player I was now waiting for was Isaiah Rankin. I was really looking forward to the shoot with him as I’d seen him play (and score) at Brentford FC a few years back a few times (I’ve got a pal who’s a major Brentford fan and anytime I was in London he’d drag me along to Griffin Park).

Isaiah turned up. I greeted him then asked him to get changed in his kit then come back upstairs to the onsite studio.

“What kit?”….he said.

I had one of those moments where you know somewhere along the line wires have got twisted…..

After explaining that he should have been told that he needed to arrive with full kit for the shoot it transpired that he had only been told where and when to turn up for a shoot - nothing about appearing in full Saturday afternoon regalia. We were shooting at another club (not his own) quite a few miles away so we called a few people at his club but nobody was around to get one over for us. It was a midweek afternoon. We were well and truly scuppered.

It was at this point that I looked at the lighting and background that I had heaved up three flights of stairs on a really hot day; looked at Isaiah and decided to see if he’d give me 10 mins for a few headshots. Being the very nice guy that he is, he agreed. I decided to go really close in for a tight headshot lit very hard and here’s the result. Having seen the results I’m glad we gave it a go.