Jaz Joyce: A Rugby Journal Cover, Shot at Wales Camp
Fifty-three Wales caps, three Olympic Games, one cover
Rugby is my favourite sport to photograph. It is fast, it is fierce, and it is full of moments where raw emotion meets physical power. Rugby Journal commissioned me to photograph Jaz Joyce at a Wales women's training camp, and the portrait we made there ran on the cover of issue 17.
Jaz is a force on the field, known for her speed and her fearless energy: 53 Wales caps, and the first British woman rugby player selected for three Olympic Games. Off the pitch she is humble, warm and softly spoken, and that contrast is what the shoot was built around.
A cover is a different job from a feature. A feature can breathe across six pages. A cover has to work at thumbnail size on a shelf, with a masthead across the top and a name underneath, so it needs one frame that reads instantly and survives being cropped. I lit her against black in the red jersey, kept the crest visible, and shot for a straight look to camera rather than an action pose. Everything else from the day exists to give the feature its air: the squad huddle before the session, the bibs, the drills, the panned frames where the background dissolves and only the runner stays sharp.
These are the layered stories I like to tell, and they are what I look for whether the job is editorial, a brand campaign or a team profile. I have worked across women's and men's rugby, in training camps, stadiums and grassroots clubs.
I photographed Nolli Waterman for the same magazine the day before this one, and there is more international rugby in the Red Roses at Twickenham, with the rest in the sports portfolio. If you are commissioning a cover, a feature or a campaign, here is how commissions work.