Brixton Top Cats and Nike
I was lucky enough to be asked by Nike to create a set of portraits for the World Basketball Festival 2012, of The Brixton Top Cats, basketball team.
The event put on in Brixton, London by Nike, is a showcase of local and international basketball talent and they wanted to show off the Local Team.
The Top Cats are Arguably the most famous basketball club in England, with a Trophy cabinet and Alumni to rival any club in the country. The Clubs mission is to provide high quality opportunities for young people in South London, both on the court and in the wider areas of life.
I decided to treat the portraits of each player in an equal way, with no reference to there current status in the team and to shoot them all on the streets of Brixton.
The set of portraits were displayed 'life sized' in Windrush square in the centre of Brixton during the festival weekend. The locations that the portraits were shot in were aimed to look strangely familiar, edges of place that some might recognise, but are not too obvious. Nike also lightly styled the shoot adding there clothes or using the subjects existing Nike kit.
Left - Jimmy Rogers founder of the club, Brixton legend, and father figure to may or the players including Alumni Luel Deng (NBA, Chicago Bulls star).
The show attracted lots of attention and ended up being on display for 6 weeks instead of the 1 week that it was originally allocated.
Check out the full set of portraits on my