Cool story, re: Curtis in Playboy

[Yoda]

Curtis Granderson Playboy Spread on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

This image appears as a two page spread in the May 2009 issue of Playboy Magazine, which hit stands this week.

Back in February I was comissioned by Playboy Magazine to create an image to accompany their Baseball Spring picks article. They wanted to feature an image of a "homegrown" player who was rooted in his rural origins. They had a specific player in mind for the image: Curtis Granderson.

The way this all happened was very cool. One day I opened my flickr mail and saw a message with the subject "We want to hire you!". I'm always glad when someone contacts me to do work because it is always fun, but I never expected the email to be from a senior art director of Playboy magazine. At first I was skeptical. I wouldn't allow myself to become too excited until I knew for sure it wasn't a hoax. It just seemed too good to be true. But 20 minutes later I was on the phone with Scott Anderson, Senior Art Director for Playboy Magazine, and soon after I was on the phone with Jim Larson, the Managing Photography Editor, so at that point I was pretty much convinced this was the real deal.

Several days later they sent me a couple hundred photos taken that day of Curtis at spring training in Florida. During a subsequent conference call, they described to me their vision, which essentially entailed Curtis having roots for legs. The rest they kind of left up to me. I wanted more, but they more or less told me that they hired me because they like my work and they don't want to influence it too much- in other words they wanted a Josh Sommers piece. That was really flattereing for me to hear, but it was also a little unnerving and stressful.

So immediately I set out to put the pieces together. My first task was to find a good backgroud to start with. I knew that i needed something with grass in the foreground, and I knew that I wanted a very interesting and dynamic sky. As I searched through my massive library of shots I remembered one amazing sunrise I had taken in the middle of an overgrown grassy field a few years back, and when I found it, I felt pretty strongly that this was the starting point.

The next task was to give Curtis root legs. Those of you that know my work know that I have done such things before, but there were some questions that needed to be answered before I could start in on these root legs. The first problem I had was with regards to the fact that Curtis was wearing a uniform, and I knew that I needed to keep it entact. So where do the roots come into play? The second problem was what kind of roots to use? Were they old roots, young roots, spraggly white roots, wavy smooth roots?

It took me three rounds of revisions to get the right placement and type of roots. The first two versions were essentially rejected for various reasons. As they rejected, it became clearer what kind of roots they wanted and how they wanted them to blend into the uniform. Once I had a clear picture of what they wanted, it was a lot easier to get it right.

Once they approved the roots, I set out to complete the rest of the image. I needed some rural little-league baseball indicators, like the red dirt, chalk, lights, sign, etc, so I went around my town and took shots of these elements and added them in so that Curtis would be set in what most people would recognize as a baseball field, and not just some big open field.

The final piece of the puzzle was the track behind Curtis, which was to suggest some motion. This was the fun part. My father and I went out into a different field in late afternoon and dug these trenches and photographed them for this purpose.

All in all I had 5 days to complete this project. It was difficult and stressful, but incredibly fun and extremely rewarding.

If you click the top link, you can see a HUGE hi-rez version.

[FloridaTigers]

Indians v. Cubs in the WS? Playboy should stick to nudes.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

I find the picture creepy, actually.

Also seems strange to have a player 'rooted' who is required to cover a lot of ground defensively.

[JOliver]

I think it's pretty sweet! I'd like to order a fullsize imge.

[Oblong]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bigglesworth

Also seems strange to have a player 'rooted' who is required to cover a lot of ground defensively.

I was thinking the same thing. They should do that for someone like Magglio or Ryan Garko

[JOliver]

Originally Posted by FloridaTigers

Indians v. Cubs in the WS? Playboy should stick to nudes.

Really - who reads the articles anyway?

[Tyrus]

That picture is technically great, but I agree it's unsettling. It misses the mark entirely. Maybe if the artist had depicted Curtis in the batter's box, the "rooted" analogy wouldn't be so difficult to swallow.

But having Granderson poised to make a defensive play while his feet are rooted in the ground gives the opposite effect than what I think the artist intended.

[tiger337]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bigglesworth

Also seems strange to have a player 'rooted' who is required to cover a lot of ground defensively.

That was my first thought as well.

[Oblong]

What they should have done was have him standing in a community setting and then the whole "putting my roots down" would make sense. I thought that's where they were going with it initially, with him being so strong and active in the community.

[monkeytargets37]

So the long debate is settled.


They're real.....and they're SPECTACULAR

[JohnFuller]

The roots were simply to demonstrate the new crop of young talent growing in baseball, with Curtis being one of those.

[nd1377]

Originally Posted by JOliver

Really - who reads the articles anyway?

I ordered a special subscription without pictures so that I get the articles only.

[JohnFuller]

Yoda, who wrote that about the photoshoot?

[tigerfanfromchicago]

Originally Posted by Yoda

If you click the top link, you can see a HUGE hi-rez version.

I imagine they have some other images that would be better with the huge hi-rez.

[Yoda]

Originally Posted by JohnFuller

Yoda, who wrote that about the photoshoot?

Curtis Granderson Playboy Spread on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Apparently the photoshop artist.

[MelissaG915]

Originally Posted by Mr. Bigglesworth

I find the picture creepy, actually.

Also seems strange to have a player 'rooted' who is required to cover a lot of ground defensively.

Execution of the concept is well done, but the concept isn't that great to begin with.

If you wanted to show the "roots" of Curtis with the Tigers, you could have gone with the "franchise" concept, a family tree concept, etc. To show a centerfielder rooted in place isn't good baseball.

[Yoda]

I thought the concept sucked too, but he was getting instructions from Playboy. I don't really expect some amazing baseball concept from them. I really liked the execution from the artist though, and it's cool how he set all of that up.

[stevie-y]

Not to mention the fact that you're taught to never catch a fly ball like that, but now we're just getting nit-picky!

[Sports_Freak]

I think it's an awesome picture. I would love to order one to frame, an 8 X 10 or so.....

[shauntacular]

yeah I might look into the playboy subscription without the models because I don't really care about naked ladies that much. Playboy does have some of the best articles of any magazine though.

[wingnut736]

Why is Curtis playing first base?

[Sports_Freak]

Originally Posted by wingnut736

Why is Curtis playing first base?

It looks more like it would be right field.

[tiger337]

[wingnut736]

Originally Posted by Sports_Freak

It looks more like it would be right field.

A right fielder would never come in that far. Well...maybe in softball.

[lordstanley]

It says something about the decline of Playboy as a pop culture force that this issue came out 3 months ago and none of us noticed until now.

[Corky]

Originally Posted by tiger337

Brother-in-law?