Sophie Ebrard Gets Explosive with adidas

The last time shots caught up with photographer and former advertising account girl, Sophie Ebrard, was in 2011 to flick through her personal portfolio of photography (which you can read more about here) as she told of her journey to pursue her passion just a year before. Two years on and three years since she started shooting professionally she’s back, this time having just completed an exciting global job for client adidas with Sid Lee Amsterdam, for a new electronic coaching device, MiCoach.

In the poster ads, athletes from different sporting disciplines are seen bursting away from green coloured explosions, representing rip-roaring action to promote the new product, which captures real-time performance metrics in order to provide elite, professional-level training and coaching tips to help athletes improve their game.

Here, Ebrard takes us through the production process and her experience on the job, including collaboration and casting, maintaining authenticity and how the job compared to that of her personal photography projects of the past.

Tell us about the brief for the adidas job and how you got involved?

adidas was launching a new product called MiCoach X_Cell and they wanted to showcase the devise’s ‘explosive’ impact on athletic performance in a visually arresting way. Sid Lee had a picture in their mind of what they wanted and asked me to bring it to life. It was a pretty open brief, which is what made it so exciting.

adidas handed full creative license to the agency, which was really refreshing.  And although Sid Lee knew what they wanted in terms of composition, they were very open to suggestions in terms of how to make it happen and what the final images would look like. I was definitely given creative freedom, but it was more of a collaborative process.

I worked really closely with Simon Schmitt, the then creative director at Sid Lee. It wasn’t a case of “this is what we want, now shoot it”, nothing was that set in stone. We worked together to define the perfect move on set, and then the best shape for the powder explosion. We discussed thoughts and ideas and I feel that the end result is a great amalgamation of all the best ideas we put forward.

Where did you shoot the images and tell us about the look you chose?

We shot all the images in LA. The first part of the shoot was on location in the various training grounds of the athletes and then we had one day to blow up powder in a studio, which was great fun! We decided to shoot most of the images at night as we wanted the shots to be as simple visually as possible and we wanted the powder explosion to be clearly visible.

Are the people in the images real athletes?

The producer and I handled the casting and the athletes are all professional athletes who are all seriously talented. The casting was such a crucial element as we didn’t want famous people but we wanted real athletes who could transfer their skills from the court and training to the camera.

We knew the campaign would only be successful if great athletes would look at the shots and be amazed by what players could do, so the guys had to be good! It was about finding the right balance of people with character and the right skills.

How did you go about getting genuine emotion out of them? Was it easy?

I guess there was a lot of shouting involved from my part on set. But it isn’t all about shouting… I like to think I was able to put them at ease and make them feel comfortable so that they could really do their best.

I’m a keen sportswoman myself with experience of high level competitions and I think it really helped me to get the most out of them.

Each athlete was different and needed a slightly different approach. One was a bit overwhelmed by having a whole crew surrounding him, while another was a touch over-confident! The key is to quickly figure out what each individual needs in this kind of situation.

I pushed them hard, but they gave us more than we expected and to be honest, that’s when the emotion comes through and you get a great shot.

Tell us a bit more about the technique you used with the powder to capture the explosions…

We shot all the powder in a studio and then integrated it into the images in post. We did it this way because it gave us the flexibility. It was just impossible to get the best athletic shot at the same time as the perfect powder explosion.

Creating powder explosions that had the look I wanted was always going to require a careful combination of the correct lighting, camera settings and the perfect amount of explosive charge. And it ended up being a hugely technical part of the shoot - we pushed all the tech to its absolute limits.

We dedicated the whole of the last day of the shoot to creating attractive explosions for each sport so we would have enough material to create shapes that looked real and beautiful.

I then worked with an amazing retoucher from London who created special tools for the project to be able to integrate the powder perfectly. Most people who’ve seen the shots don’t realise that the powder explosions were added in post, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve.

Which of the images was your favourite to work on and why?

All the images were fun to capture, but I have to say that the American football guy (above) was a rocket. You would blink and miss the awesome lateral moves he was making.

Also, when we shot the basketball image, we had these magical minutes of an amazing sunset behind the player. That was really something. LA light is always the best. When you start shooting there, you understand why Hollywood is in Hollywood!

How does something like this differ from your personal photography work and do you still enjoy doing both?

Quite often agencies hire you for something you already have in your portfolio. But this was not the case here. When you look at it, this campaign is actually very different from my personal work. Also, it was also quite technically complicated, whereas most of my personal work is kept simple from a tech point of view.

This probably raises the question – why did they choose me?  It comes down to authenticity.  If you look at action focused sports campaigns, the images are all so comped, made up of lots of different elements and quite often look, or indeed are, computer generated. But for this campaign SID LEE wanted it to feel as real and authentic as possible.

I genuinely feel that whatever I do, even if I have a brief that takes me towards a less ‘real life’ image, I will always bring that element of authenticity to the look and feel of the shot.  That is what my instinct told me to do here and even though there is green powder exploding out of athlete’s bodies, I feel the sense of authenticity comes through.

Also, sport is a personal passion of mine as I grew up in the Alps, where it is a part of your everyday life. I always knew that I would enjoy a sports-focused campaign, but my experience with adidas and the athletes for this one has really proved to me that this is an area of photography that I really want to pursue.

To see the four posters from the campaign click on the gallery below. You can right click and view image for a closer look at the detail.