I'll spare you the journal entry I could write about my time with pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones. But, I will say this, Jeremy Jones is an A+ guy. Humble, confident, gracious...and awesome. My writer, assistant and I were so impressed with how down-to-earth he was.
I'll share a couple things from my 45 minute session with Jeremy. I would love to share more, but there were a lot of "You had to be there" kinda moments.
We set up in Jeremy's garage. Both of his kids hung around to watch dad. Jeremy's son was so memorized by the lights that Jeremy picked him up to give him a better look. Jeremy's wife was behind me trying to get her son to look at the camera. I kept my mouth shut and fired away.
The first thing Jeremy told me was to not ask him to smile. He said that he hated his "photo smile." So these are 100% natural Jeremy Jone smiles.
"Here you go. I'm giving it to you Matt."
When I think about capturing a genuine emotion, I hope to always remember this image. Jeremy's daughter was just to the right of me, on her tricycle, watching. Jeremy had just asked her what her favorite Disney Princess was. It was Cinderella.
Jeremy has had his picture taken a number of times for magazines and ad campaigns, so he had challenged me to come up with a pose that he hadn't done before (no pressure right?). This had been a running joke during the shoot, so towards the end of our time I had asked him to run his hands through his hair.
"Ah, The Push," he responded.
"Oh no, [you] even [have] a name for it." I said.
We laughed.
To read Jeremy's article in the latest issue of Square Magazine visit here.