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Photography Culture

This Photo Was Turned Into This to Become an ESPN Magazine Cover

Chris Gampat
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08/10/2013
2 Mins read

Thomas-Campbell-ESPN-Magazine-Cover-shot

Image by Thomas Campbell. Used with permission

Sometimes we don’t realize just how much editing goes into an image for it to become a cover. There is a wonderful theory in photojournalism that cropping an image can totally change the way that a story flows and is presented. And in the case of the image above shot by former Phoblographer Technical Editor Thomas Campbell (who did an excellent job helping us on the 5D Mk III review) the image made the cover of ESPN Magazine, but is a totally different image from the original. There is a heavy crop, stylized colors and a silhouette to make it appeal more to the magazine’s readers and current art trends.

Campbell posted the photo set on his Facebook page, and after posting it on Reddit got loads of praise from the community.

We asked Thomas about the image, and he said that ESPN did the editing and he didn’t even know that he made the cover until his friend texted him about it. He continued to state,

“The player is Johnny Manziel, who is the quarterback at Texas A&M. Last year, he was the first freshman to ever win the Heisman Trophy, given to the best college football player in the nation.

I composed it following the rule of thirds and so that no other player would be in the shot. Non-action shots usually sell better when there is only one player in the shot.

Having him backlit by the sun helps have him stand out on the background of fans wearing the same color as he is wearing.

I think the expression on his face was a great choice for the cover. Close up, it looks like he is staring directly at the viewer. 400 2.8, 5D3, 1/2000th, 2.8 ISO 400.”

It goes to show that lots of work can occur before we see the final product–and in all honesty, who cares how much editing goes into it as long as the final product is awesome.

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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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