I was scrolling through the bloated remains of what used to be Twitter last week and something caught my eye: a short news clip from a familiar looking beach access, where the anchor thought they were off air (“You’re clear!”) and gave the microphone a quick toss + spin before leaving the frame to end the segment.

It wasn’t the spin itself that I (and many others) noticed. It was the SWAGGER with which it was done. The anchor said “Thank you!” but the mic spin said “WE CRUSHED THAT, LETS GET THE F OUT OF HERE.”

It did not look like their first mic spin.

Halfway through the second watch I turned into the Leo pointing meme.

WAIT A SEC - I KNOW HER! Well, not exactly… we do follow each other on Instagram though. So I reached out.

Her name is Teagan Brown and she does sports for WMBF here in Myrtle Beach. I sent her a message to see if she had any interest in a quick photo shoot. I described to her a couple of shots that I had in mind - a series of stylized photos inspired by, and essentially recreating the video that gradually became more complex as the set went on. The photos would be to commemorate the clip going CRAZY VIRAL (6 million views as this was written + featured on TODAY) as well as show off some of both of our talents.

She happily agreed, although stressed that the spin is nothing out of the ordinary, it just happened to be on camera that time. I told her that made it even cooler.

In fact, that’s a thread that I want to pull on. Being good at your job is cool as hell. I want to show appreciation for everyone that does their job with a little big of swag, a confidence and a COOLNESS during what would otherwise be an ordinary day at work. Now that we are well into the smartphone era, it’s easier for such instances to get caught on camera. The internet has countless examples, so this is nothing new (the guy throwing the tomato baskets immediately comes to mind.) Hell, there are times were I will flip a tool to myself or catch something falling in stride while working alone that I wish were on a security camera somewhere.

So this particular clip was close to home for me, both literally (it was shot in my neighborhood) and figuratively (I appreciated the swag at work) and I thought it could be a great set of photos. So I went for it, shooters gotta shoot.

The photos turned to be almost exactly what I had in my mind’s eye, and nothing is more satisfying than that as a photographer trying to visualize an image that doesn’t yet exist. It did take some practice, and I really appreciate Teagan’s patience. I told her I work quick but we did give it several tries, basically trying to get the background and lighting right.

The last shot of the night involved her tossing a microphone in the air while striking a pose, at the same time me dropping my phone into frame with the viral video of her frozen at the right moment, capturing it all at once, in-focus without a tripod - I had one with me, I was just in the zone lol.

I took one look at it in the viewfinder after the click.

WE CRUSHED THAT. LETS GET THE F OUTTA HERE. (You’re clear!)

Six million people can’t be wrong.

I just want to make it clear again that this was all my idea and Teagan was SUPER humble about it, it’s not like she went viral and was trying to capitalize in any way. Which is also why it’s awesome she was able to pull some attitude and swagger out for these shots, that was definitely by my request. I don’t often ask for emotions or reactions during shoots because it tends to look staged or un-authentic, but in this case she’s a theatre actress and it was light work. I think these are excellent.

We tried a few different backdrops throughout Market Common and by the time we found the magic we were losing light fast. I’d say we tried this last shot about 7 or 8 tries. The perfectionist in me wishes it was 30 minutes earlier for the light but it still turned out amazing.

Originally I planned to have the last photo of the series also include Teagan spinning a basketball on her finger (she is a sports anchor after all) on top of everything in the photo above. I am EXTREMELY confident that we could have pulled it off, but her nails were too perfect and I just couldn’t ask her to do that, so we ran another play. Omaha.

A couple of the candid/unplanned shots from the evening.

Some of the practice shots/early takes (above). Trying to get camera settings right to capture a mic toss + blowing hair but also let as much light in as possible at sunset took some trial and error. Later in the shoot I was getting a black bar across the screen of the phone because the shutter was too fast. I also decided mid-way to not do too much with the background. The subject and idea was enough, just get the light right and we’re good.

WHAT'S NEW

TEAGAN GOES VIRAL