Olympic Figure Skaters Eric Radford and Meagan Duhamel for Sportsnet Magazine

When Sportsnet Magazine called me up asking if I could go to Montreal and shoot a couple figure skaters that are Canada's top picks for the Olympics, I couldn't say yes fast enough. I've been itching to shoot some high profile athletes, and this was a perfect opportunity as it was for their Olympic Preview Package.

The photo editor(s) and I chatted about the style they were looking for and after bouncing some ideas we decided on a fairly moody, dark, dramatic looking 'portrait' of sorts. But this would be unlike anything I've shot before, in that the skaters (if willing) would pose in one of their crazy lifts.

So began the research on my subjects, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford. I knew nothing of figure skating, so I watched a bunch of videos of their performances and took screenshots during the lifts and interesting moves. I narrowed these down to a few awesome geometric jaw dropping poses, and saved them for the shoot.

After a early morning drive down to Montreal, my assistant and I got set up at the small arena they practice at. Not much to scout at this place, but it did give me a cool dark and grungy change room space that would be perfect. After setting up and waiting for their practice to finish, we chatted for a while to get acquainted, discussed clothing options, and looked at the lift screenshots. Meagan and Eric were so enthusiastic and gracious about this idea, which let me breathe a little sigh of relief as we got started.

We did a a handful of poses from different angles, but one of the first shots ended up being one of the strongest.

We also shot a few on the ice as a second option discussed, which for layout reasons ended up being chosen for publication, but the portrait style shots were our favourite and I'm stoked to share it.

Thanks to everyone at Sportsnet that made this happen, as well as Skate Canada and of course Eric and Meagan! Good luck in Sochi!

Here's my personal pick, and a BTS photo taken and tweeted by Eric :)