Javante Williams, #33 on the Denver Broncos, partnered with Smashburger to promote the introduction of wings to their menu. I was happy to get the call to fly up to Denver to shoot Javonte for an hour in a Smashburger location. Javonte was all smiles, jokes, and just having fun the whole time! He has the energy that I’ve experienced before with other sports players. They really love what they do and they perceive life similarly to playing a game. Games are challenging, but in the end, you want to make sure you had some fun. I love looking at life this way, and it gives me so much joy to meet people with a similar vibe.
This shoot was a month after tearing my ACL, and was my first job back from injury. So there were a lot of obstacles and pain to get past to make sure I get everything we needed in the short time frame. I’m beyond happy to see how great these images turned out because by the end I could hardly walk! Two months after this shoot Javonte tore his ACL as well, benching him for the season. Coming into the 2023 season, he is no longer on the “physically unable-to-perform” list and is starting training camp without any restrictions. It should be interesting to see how Javonte and the Broncos do this next year, hopefully, he recovered well and starts the season with a win that’s even better than the win he gave me!
