Super Bowl 50 10-year reunion portraits

Denver Broncos

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Nominee ✨

• Best Photography

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ABOUT THIS ENTRY

The Broncos celebrated the 10-year anniversary of Super Bowl 50 by hosting an Alumni Weekend reunion at Empower Field at Mile High for players, coaches and staff. To commemorate the weekend, the Broncos' photographers set up a portrait station for custom images for attendees with the Super Bowl 50 trophy. The portrait look was inspired by the Super Bowl's golden anniversary and the gold confetti that fell when the Broncos won.

How does this represent "Excellence in Engagement"?

This work set new benchmarks for us in fan engagement by extending our dedication to top-notch artwork for tentpole alumni events beyond just capturing photos from the event itself. Striking photos like these help enshrine champions in their place in franchise history as greats of the game, which hopefully inspires other teams or organizations to continue to push portraiture in the NFL beyond what we do with current athletes.

Objective

In celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Super Bowl 50, the Broncos hosted its first reunion for the franchise’s third world-championship squad. Our goal was to provide memorable imagery of these legends for our fans, coaches and players through our social media platforms and website, as well as for historic purposes.

Strategy & Execution

We designed the portrait look with a hint of golden glitz, as the NFL featured the color throughout the season for the Super Bowl’s golden anniversary. When the Broncos won, gold confetti fell around them, which played a large part in inspiring our idea. We created a layered backdrop by hand, adding reflective elements to create subtle pops of gold in the background. Then we utilized a 135 millimeter prime lens at its shallowest depth of field to help the subject stand out from the backdrop. Subjects were then offered the Lombardi Trophy to pose with, and that gave the photos a good deal of impact and also often sparked some emotion in the players as they held it. A select handful of photos were published the during the event, and a full selection were made into a gallery on the team website in February on the anniversary of the game.

Organizations

• Denver Broncos

Featured

• Peyton Manning

  Aqib Talib

  Chris Harris Jr. 

  DeMarcus Ware

  Gary Kubiak

Credits

Ben Swanson
Manager of Photography
Denver Broncos

Gabriel Christus
Team Photographer
Denver Broncos

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