Runner Portraits: Nicole Antoinette

Last spring, I ran a relay from Los Angeles to San Diego with a bunch of friends, old and new.

After that relay, one of my friends and teammates, Nicole Antoinette, asked me if I’d be willing to take some runner portraits for her.

I agreed, thinking athlete portraits would be a blast, especially since I don’t have the opportunity to take many photographs like this.

A little background: Nicole is an incredibly inspiring woman.

During the last few years, Nicole has made various changes in her life: She began running, quit drinking, took control of her diet (going vegan and quitting sugar) and has continued working at changing her story. She’s incredibly real about it — the good and the bad. And throughout this time, she kept running and fell in love with the sport.

She wanted these photographs made as a part of her Change Your Story project. And she wanted a running-themed photo shoot in her team gear to break through the barrier of not feeling like a “real” athlete, even though she’s completely dedicated to her sport. (Which she is. Obviously!)

So we made it happen.

So a few days after Ragnar SoCal, we drove down to the Los Angeles-area beach where Nicole does most of her weekday runs and made her runner portraits.

We had the best time!

And I was so happy Nicole asked me to be her portrait photographer.

Fast forward to this year: Nicole is rocking it!

She’s running across the country starting in March 2015… and she’s entered in the Runner’s World Cover Contest with one of the photos we took last spring! (Feel free to check it out, read her story and then vote for her awesomeness.)