Sports Portrait Photographer: Panini’s NFL Rookie Premier

Chicago Sports Photographer portrait of Oakland Raiders Quarterback Connor Cook poses for a portrait by Chicago photographer John Gress

For the second year in a row, Panini America hired me to photograph the NFLPA Rookie Premiere in Los Angeles. Each spring, following the draft, the league’s 40 top prospects converge on the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum for a day of photoshoots with a few select photographers.

Positively Aware Magazine photoshoot in Chicago: Latinos and HIV issue

Chicago magazine photographer portrait of Gilberto Soberanis

Positively Aware magazine and Art director Rick Guasco asked me to create a series of portraits for their September+October 2016 issue focusing on Latinos with HIV. Rick’s instinct was to photograph our subjects in front of Colorful murals in Chicago’s Pilsen Neighborhood. So after an hour or so of online research, we headed out to the neighborhood to see if what we found in cyberspace would work as backgrounds for our real people.