Rosie: World Transplant Games GB Athlete

Rosie is an inspirational young athlete representing GB at the World Transplant Games after recovering from leukemia.

I had the pleasure of meeting and spending time with Rosie – an inspirational 9 year old girl who a few years ago was incredibly poorly with leukemia. After a successful bone marrow transplant she’s now fighting fit and training hard as she prepares to represent Great Britain at the World Transplant Games 2019 in Newcastle and Gateshead during 17-21st August 2019.

Lifestyle portrait of Rosie, a GB athlete at the World Transplant Games taken on the track — The only direction I gave Rosie was that I wanted her to look ‘badass’. I wanted to see her game face. She delivered in spades.

I’d followed her story and was delighted to be able to meet up with Rosie and her mum at the track to take some promotional shots. Athletes at the games need to pay for travel and accommodation amongst other things so I was keen to capture Rosie’s determination and commitment in the shots so they could be used to approach potential sponsors.

Lifestyle portrait of Rosie, a GB athlete at the World Transplant Games taking a break at the track

Rosie and her family are based in Harrogate so I arranged access at a local track for us to spend an hour for the shoot and we had a great time, albeit on a particularly blustery day – pretty good for getting dynamic hair, not so good for delicate satin shoot through brollies (one of which is going to need a little TLC now). In the end we had to forego attempting to use brollies at all so instead I went with defused direct flash off-camera for a slightly more aggressive lighting approach more akin to the floodlights at the track. As always, it’s important to be able to adapt to the conditions.

Close up of Rosie tying her shoelace at the track

Black and white photograph of Rosie sprinting down the straight at the track

Rosie was an absolute superstar. Aside from explaining each shot and giving her direction on where she needed to be I only really gave her one piece of direction and that was that I wanted to make her look ‘badass’. I wanted to see her game face. She delivered in spades.

Rosie poised at the start line ready to sprint

Rosie tying her shoelace in preparation for racing at the track

Rosie stretching and warming up at the track

As well as a range of lifestyle and action shots I had one specific shot I wanted to create. Initially I’d hoped we could get on the track early on a cold morning so we could communicate the commitment required but we needed to work around track availability so that wasn’t possible. For the following shot I underexposed the ambient light by around 2 stops to give a similar appearance to early morning light, I also used tungsten white balance to give the whole shot a blue tint to give a cold feel to the scene. I then lit Rosie with an orange CTO correction gel to bring the key light falling on Rosie back to something akin to early morning light. I wanted the shot to scream attitude, strength and determination.

A portrait of Rosie at the track, simulating early morning light by setting a tungsten white balance and underexposing the ambient light with a CTO correction gel on the key light — Simulating early morning light by setting a tungsten white balance and underexposing the ambient light with a CTO correction gel on the key light

It was such a pleasure to spend some time with such an inspirational, strong and fun young lady. I can’t wait to see her bringing her game face to the games. She’s an absolute superstar.