Last week I finally had the opportunity to photograph athletes from a different sport other than basketball, I photographed the Oakland Raiders!  The three day on location photoshoot was to help promote the Raider Image clothing store and the theme was local urban environments.    

Lee Smith, a lineman from Tennessee was an interesting guy to photograph, he was down to earth (like all of the guys) and had a natural tough guy look which made for intense images.

One of my goals was to bring out the player's character off the field and not just depict them as tough guys who don't smile.  I had a few tricks to get the players to laugh...

EJ (above) and Keith (below) were great to photograph, before getting started Keith showed me photos of his car which he took himself, he's a good photographer in his own right!

We photographed the two together with shipping containers and cranes in the background, this shot say's Oakland harbor! 

We had a ball photographing Donald Penn in front of the Raiders practice facility.

..and David Amerson too.  While photographing David, Marshawn Lynch came storming out of the front entrance on his beach cruiser bicycle and jokingly rode right through our set causing people to laugh while others jumped out of his way (I guess he's use to barreling through traffic). 

After photographing this team photo I had the opportunity to go out for a pass from Quarterback Connor Cook.  Receiving a pass from an NFL Quarterback - Check!

This is one of my favorite photographs from the week, of Jihad Ward.  Between scenes we chatted about where our familes are from in Philly!

I found out both Cooper and Taiwan are both from the Bay.

Makeup artist @Colleen and @Rochelle had the players looking their best.

What a surprise!  Taiwan and Cooper found the "Shaggin Wagon" from the movie Dumb n' Dumber at Faction Brewery on the Alameda navy base.

Silique and Brandon teased eachother when they were individually photographed, so when they stood in for a tandem picture they were on the verge of laughter the whole time.

Thank you Oakland Raiders you were amazing to work with!