Earlier this weekend, I had the pleasure of shooting portraits of several players from an 11U baseball team that I am coaching this season. I do very little portrait work, so having willing subjects (or at least subjects with willing parents) gave me an opportunity to practice this area of photography.

One of the challenges of baseball portraits is dealing with the shadows that are cast by the beak of the cap. Other sports photographers have asked me how I overcome this obstacle. For this portrait session, I approached the lighting like this:

• I use a large softbox (a 47" octabox) along with an Einstein strobe for my main light. This light is set to properly expose the subject for f/8 at ISO 100.
• The main light is positioned very close (within three feet) of the player. A general rule for lighting is that the light will become softer as it gets closer to the subject. I like to get the light really close--so that it spreads to cover more of the area underneath the hat.
• For fill light, I position a large piece of white foam board on the opposite side of main light. The foam board bounces some of the light from the key light back into the shadow side of the subject. To adjust the key to fill ratio of the lighting, I simply move the foam board back and forth until the shadows look reasonable to my eye.
• I position another Einstein strobe in a stripbox over the subject's head. This light is set for f/5.6 and is used to separate the subject from the background. The narrow softbox helps to direct the light in such a way that it doesn't spread light onto the black background.
• Black seamless paper is used for the background. The beauty of the black background is that it requires no lighting.