The first Electric ad that ran in Alliance

Electric has been a mainstay in the action sports industry for eyewear for a long time. They recently made the official move into wakeboarding and wakeskating and put together a team of pros: Josh Palma, Steel Lafferty, Dieter Humpsch, and Stu Shinn. I was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to shoot both action and lifestyle shots of the team for their initial marketing program. The crew at Electric sent me samples of what they were doing with their other sports (surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding) so I could have an idea of the style they were going for with the imagery. This was a last-minute shoot so that afternoon I scouted a couple locations and came up with a plan. Fortunately Josh Palma lives on the same lake as me, so we’d be able to do the action photos behind his boat on our lake, then head to a couple different locations for lifestyle/candid photos.

Dieter doing what he does best: riding a wakeskate like nobody else

The team at Electric wanted a more raw look with a sort of creative twist. Some of the photos they sent me featured other athletes photographed through something (i.e. windows, a fence, bushes, etc.) — almost a sort of paparazzi/spy style. More than anything they wanted the photos not to look too posed or cheesy. Judging by the samples they had provided me with I knew I was going to have some fun.

One of the locations I scouted was an abandoned car lot with a small office and lots of fences. The office had windows on three sides and all of them were semi tinted. Shooting through the dirty glass with the riders on the other side provided a really gritty effect. As I messed around with different angles shooting through the windows I noticed that I could simultaneously capture both the rider on the other side as well as the reflection off the window showing whatever was behind me. The end result were photos that looked gritty with a very raw style, and also had a multiple exposure effect to them. Shooting this way was a lot of fun and very different for me. I made sure to get some other shots that weren’t as visually complex/trippy, but I was fairly confident the crew at Electric would be pleased.

I felt we needed more than one location for shooting though, so after the abandoned car lot we headed over to downtown Winter Park to do some shooting at the offices of Fiction Creative. Fiction is run by former pro riders and Alliance co-founders Chase Heavener, Tony Smith, and Matt Staker. Their office is a smorgasbord of visual treats. All kinds of materials have been used throughout the office, both inside and out, including different types of glass. We were able to add to the shots we’d gotten from the abandoned car lot in a way that looked different, but still fit the guidelines and style of what Electric was looking for.

Fortunately for myself and the riders, Electric were very happy with what we came away with that day and they are now beginning to use the photos in their wakeboarding/wakeskating marketing campaign. It was a ton of fun to come up with something different like this and work with the riders to make it happen. Working with companies like Electric is a blast because you can experiment like this and be confident in doing so.

Fore more from Electric check out http://www.electricvisual.com/