Gerard Piqué and the Kings League

Gerard Piqué and the Kings League

Nope, that is not the name of another bloody Guy Riche film.

I got a call late one night from The Sunday Times for a job the next day.

It was a portrait session for Gerard Piqué at the offices of KOSMOS where he is Founder, CEO, & President.

The recent run of corporate event work has been very welcome and fun to do; less exciting parts are perfect for experimenting with lighting, as they usually involve long sessions of speeches and seminars.

However a call from a national newspaper usually means portraits and probably a celeb or two.

Kosmos is reimagining yesterday’s sports and media businesses for the audiences of tomorrow. 

Merging sports, media, and entertainment innovation, Kosmos invests in impactful ventures that challenge the status quo. 

has introduced two new sports tournaments: the Kings League InfoJobs and the Queens League Oysho. 

That’s a lot of corporate blurb, the up-shot is basically this; there exits normal football and 5-a-side, so why not 7-a-side? 

It would be normal to be a tad skeptical. The ‘pitch’ is that it is not bound by the glacial speed of change in the traditional game.

So, basically, they are introducing the ‘Blue Card,’ which would see players sin-binned for 10 minutes should they get too cheeky, or a cynical foul. 

Anyway I was there to take some photos, not invest in the company.

The usual story when you are working with a journalist is that, you get an allotted amount of time which the journalists promises to share with you and then uses it all up for themselves.

Knowing this I decide don’t to hang around trying to get something half decent in the boring office and went off exploring. If I did not take some photos with them they would have to give me time afterwards.

This is a good tactic as you get a decent chunk of time to find locations. I found 2 options, one I knew would suit the newspaper and one I knew would suit me.

It all worked out ok in the end. The offices had a really cool space where they do live streaming, interviews etc. The people working there were nice and friendly and stood in for the test shoots. I lit the subject with 2 off-axis flashes and treated it like a portrait shoot.

I had him sat down which is maybe not normal a sports star, but what the hell, I liked the composition and he is quite lanky.

The second shot was the one I knew they would publish. I got down low to make him look dramatic, but the shot was still not quite working. 

I thought he might be a bit more in to posing etc as he could easily do modelling, but alas no. 

We finished the session and then as he was leaving I spotted some footballs and convinced him to come back. Just by adding the ball it changed the whole shape of the image and worked. Remember folks props are your friend.