The symposium title, “Beyond the Game: Athletes, Image and Privacy in the Age of A.I.,” presented a complex and topical academic talking point that required a simple and compelling visual presentation. The model, a student at the law school, had recently been honored with a regional award for her defensive prowess on the soccer field, and it seemed especially fitting to include one of the school’s own–and a lauded athlete to boot–in a symposium dedicated to these emergent issues in sports law.

We tried a few posed compositions in the short session (the model’s first in front of the camera), mostly variations on holding the soccer ball, and then we tried a shot with the model holding her fingers to her lips as you see her here, resulting in two or three high contrast frames so that the background could be easily removed in post. Adding the university’s brand icon, the divided window frame, really gave the image some clout by adding the white lines leading into the frame made it easy to use the image across the various media forms I wanted to use it in.

The resultant image was so strong that we would later select it again, this time for the cover of the first issue of the school’s new annual report and marketing vehicle, AMICUS #1, first published two months after this annual sport law symposium.