Following the gameplan

Professional photographer James Clarke has imported an American style of sporting portraiture. Niall Hampton sees how it plays on home turf

Question: what do you get if you have a sports player posing for a stylised portrait photo? A 'sportrait', that's what. It's not a genre we'd come across before in Digital Camera Towers, so we were surprised and delighted to discover that a practitioner of sportraits was based within 100 miles of us - and not on the other side of the pond.

James Clarke is a big fan of American sport and sporting culture and has imported 'sportraiture', for want of a better word, to the UK. He has also given it his own twist, eschewing the studio shoot approach of the US variant and opting instead to work with the athletes on the playing field, to give his photos extra context.

One of these locations is Exeter University, where Clarke has teamed up with the Exeter Demons, BUCS [British Universities and Colleges Sport] Division 1 National Champions 2023-2024. Today, Clarke will be taking photographs that the Demons will use in their recruiting drive for the new academic year, and he has invited Digital Camera along for kick-off.

When I arrive at the appointed time, Clarke has already set up his equipment and is about to get started. Nine players from the Demons have shown up to be photographed, and Clarke will run through a variety of setups with them over the next five hours.

Key to how things will pan out today is his 'look book', something often seen at fashion shoots, where the photographer and creative director choose from a series of photos or drawings how they want the individual shots to look like. Today's options range from static shots to action shots, all of which will be captured on the pristine astroturf pitch and using the relevant props. Having put the look book together, Clarke can interpret what his models want, and suggest alternatives if he feels the requests are unachievable.