Portrait of a Team

I started this project with the idea that I would collect 22 images of each member on my Mount Holyoke College field hockey team of the body part they feel most proud of. As athletes, they use their bodies to sprint across the field, sweep a ball with their stick and block a ball from hitting the backboard of the goal. I was surprised with how many people actually took this seriously and put thought into what they wanted to be photographed. This question worked for some people, but others did not think of their body in this kind of way. I instead tried to have a conversation with them asking instead, how do they want to be seen. I did not give these teammates ideas on how to stand or where to look, I would instead keep talking to them until they figured out what they wanted or they stood in a certain way that showed the personality of that player. I used a Yashica-Mat twin lens reflex camera, then scanned the negatives and edited the images digitally. This is a portrait of my team. I have realized that athletes may have pictures taken of them while they are playing, but they rarely are asked to reflect on how they want to be perceived as an athlete. I have learned while working on this project that Mount Holyoke College athletes deserve more recognition than just the stats on their bio page, or the occasional photograph taken of them while they are playing. We put work into representing our school in athletics and I believe the individuality of this group of women shows a different portrait to people who are outside of the athletics department are used to seeing. My idea was simple, and with that I composed simple photographs, but as a collection .