Snap

A personal ad for my sister's high school volleyball yearbook.

A couple months ago, I was commissioned (by my mother, of course) to create a yearbook ad that had to rival the one I made previous year (see here). With that, I set out to capture my sister Shirley in all her athletic essence. MVP of her high school varsity volleyball team, she's a superstar, balancing honors academics with volleyball practices and whatever else a sixteen-year-old does during her little free time.

Wanting to depict this double-life persona, I was inspired by Olympic athlete portraits and sports ads to create this series of little Shirleys jumping out of her desk from one setting to another. To add a self-promotional blurb to the ad, I included playful hand-drawn illustrations of "snapshots" that characterizes my whimsical photography style. 

This project involved many days of brainstorming, planning, shooting, re-shooting, and editing. Here's a little behind the scenes look into the process.

My first idea was a yearbook mug-style collage shoot. Here is our star holding her own reflector in our very DIY garage studio. We work with what we've got! 

Then the mother told me she wanted more action. Gotta show off those athletic family genes! (Something I must've forgotten to inherit, sigh.) 

Back to the sketchpad.

Inspiration + our final storyboard.

Time to shoot! Without access to a fancy seamless backdrop, we used the whitest wall we could find - our garage door. It doesn't get more homemade than this.