Ryan Smith, a former defensive back for James Madison University, found his post-collegiate athletic calling through the game of cornhole. The object, to toss a bean bag 45 feet away into a hole six inches in diameter, is as challenging as it sounds.

I was able to photograph Ryan at a brewery, Twinpanzee, in Sterling, Virginia. The cavernous space offered lots of room to work in. Movable walls made of plywood the brewery uses to separate brewing equipment from the cornhole court created interesting, clean backgrounds and good visual separation between Ryan and what would otherwise have been a very cluttered background of tanks and hoses. The best part is Ryan had no problem at all with my strobe blasting away for the whole shoot. He continually dropped bags into the hole like he was standing right over it - it really was amazing to witness.

It’s a good thing we both showed up early, because I used up a half-hour attempting some stroboscopic images of Ryan tossing the bag, but there was just too much ambient light I couldn’t control, so I bagged the idea and moved the strobe behind and to Ryan’s right, really just to see what it would look like and to get some kind of visual starting point. As soon as I saw the potential in the first frame of creating Ryan’s silhouette on the wall and getting his beanbag in there, nicely separated inside the shadow, I knew I’d have a keeper.

My favorite photo is the first one below. I brought along a Q-Flash T5D-R, a small, powerful strobe that is easy to move around in active environments like the cornhole court.

The image also set a style for the remainder of the shoot. Luckily, Ryan was playing in front of a large stainless steel wall, inside which kegs of delicious beer are kept. The Q-Flash loves shiny surfaces, and with Ryan’s bright red jersey, blue beanbags, and outgoing personality, I was able to create images that, for me at least, made something visible from the invisible.

Check out The Wall Street Journal’s story to learn about his workout routine and how he keeps in shape physically and mentally for his upcoming busy tournament season. And see some outtakes and the tearsheet below.