Photographer Recreates Iconic Sun Dunking Shot With Rising Basketball Star AJ Dybantsa

Over 10 years in the past, photographer Dustin Snipes revealed how he captured an iconic shot of NBA star Anthony Davis dunking the Sun. But fast-forward 11 years, and Red Bull as soon as once more commissioned Snipes to do a near-identical shoot. Only this time with AJ Dybantsa, who’s projected to be the primary choose at in the present day’s NBA Draft.

“Pulling off a shot like this feels like I’m putting on a lab coat and tacking images connected with strings to equations all over my wall,” Snipes tells PetaPixel.

“You have to unleash your inner mad scientist a bit — blending camera and lighting knowledge with orbital mechanics, hard lighting physics, and precise geometric timing to solve the ultimate basketball photoshoot equation: how to dunk the Sun.”

Snipes even went again to the very same basketball courtroom in San Pedro, California, the place he shot Davis in 2015, and the place he knew he would get an unobstructed view of the horizon.

“The Sun is constantly moving across the sky roughly the width of its own diameter every two minutes. Because of this, the entire shoot must be choreographed minute-by-minute,” Snipes explains. “Once the alignment hits, there is zero room for hesitation — things have to flow perfectly, and if not, move on, or the Sun will move on without you!”

Snipes says that for the shoot to work, the photographs need to be dramatically underexposed relative to the ambient gentle. For this, Snipes wanted the assistance of a 6-9 cease variable ND filter, which not solely enabled him to set his digicam on the right settings but in addition protected his eyes and tools from the Sun’s energy.

“If you tried to shoot directly into the Sun at a normal native sync speed without that filter, you would be forced to choose between two literal impossibilities to get that exact same dark ambient look,” Snipes says.

“If you wanted an f/4 aperture, you would need a shutter speed of 1/128,000. Or if you kept your shutter speed at a sync speed of 1/250 or 1/400, you would require an aperture all the way down to f/64 or f/90!”

Mechanical shutters are likely to peak at 1/8000 and normal lenses solely cease all the way down to f/22. So with out the ND filter, it’s an impossibility.

“Slapping on a variable nine-stop glass did the heavy lifting, so I could shoot at a crisp, highly functional 1/250s at f/4 on the Canon R5 Mark II, and 1/400s on the R1.”

The variable filter additionally solved one other drawback for Snipes. When utilizing a 9-stop filter, it’s too darkish for the digicam’s autofocus sensors to see by and lock on to the topic. To bypass this, Snipes rolls the variable ND all the way down to its lowest density, knocks the main focus into guide, then rolls the glass again as much as the utmost density to deliver the Sun again to basketball dimension.

Exposing for the Sun implies that the remainder of the body might be underexposed and darkish. So to gentle up Dybantsa as he leaps, it required a strong lighting rig.

“To throw light across a 15-to-20-foot gap and beat the Inverse Square Law, I used 4x Profoto Pro-11 packs (9,600Ws total capacity) with one head per pack,” Snipes says.

“I then used two Telezoom reflectors and two Magnum reflectors on the lights. These modifiers created a highly concentrated, narrow beam. This maximized our power output but left a razor-thin ‘hit zone’ for the athlete, making precise sync and timing between my shutter and their jump absolutely paramount. The athlete and I must create a rhythm and work as a team to get the best results.”

Leaving Nothing to Chance

“I did a full site run-through 24 hours prior. I mapped out the Sun’s trajectory minute-by-minute, planning the exact timing for each of our seven to 10 positions (dunking, shooting, standing, and holding the Sun, etc.),” Snipes says. “I recorded my precise distance from the player, the required focal length, and the Sun’s position for every single frame.”

Snipes additionally had to consider defending his eyes and his digicam tools, since he was pointing immediately into the Sun.

“Pointing your camera straight at the Sun turns your lens into a magnifying glass, focusing intense heat into a single point,” he says. “If you zoom in without a heavy ND filter, you can physically melt your shutter blades or burn out your digital sensor in a fraction of a second… I’ve done this before.”

“The danger is even worse if you are using an older camera with an optical viewfinder,” he continues. “Looking through that glass means focusing blinding solar radiation directly onto your retina, which can cause permanent eye damage instantly. That heavy variable ND filter isn’t just an exposure tool — it is a mandatory shield for your eyes and gear.”

More of Snipes’ work could be discovered on his website and Instagram.

Image credit: All photographs by Dustin Snipes/Red Bull until in any other case acknowledged.