Photographer Darren Carroll has been working with Dick’s Sporting Goods for a dozen years now, shooting mostly golf but also a few other things as well. A few months back he headed to Florida to shoot the library of new Spring 2024 apparel & equipment releases that the company will use for out-of-home, point-of-sale and in-store imagery across its DSG and Golf Galaxy retail brands.

“I remember the first time they contacted me about shooting this, they stressed that the most important thing to them were pictures that looked accurate—in other words, that didn’t look staged,” he says. “They told me, ‘We want you to shoot this the same way you shoot the U.S. Open for Sports Illustrated.’”

Striving for that accuracy means not only using the same equipment and techniques—long prime lenses, fast cameras and very shallow depth-of-field—but also casting talent who knew how to swing a golf club. Potential models must have single-digit handicaps, and have a swing that doesn’t look amateurish. “Golf customers are savvy folks,” Darren adds. “When you’re spending upwards of $500 on a driver, seeing a picture of a guy swinging a club who obviously doesn’t know what he’s doing is going to be a turn-off. Why would you want to insult your audience’s intelligence? It's my job as the photographer to ensure that everything from the angle of the shot to the position of the clubhead to the posture of the model convey an accurate depiction of a competent golf swing.”

Making accurate images is as much a reflection of the talent’s ability as it is the photographer’s approach, and Darren draws on his over twenty years of experience in the golf space (having gotten his start shooting for Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest) to inform a great deal about what a good swing—and therefore picture—should look like.

Over the years the shoot has evolved from an action-only shot list to a combined action and lifestyle shoot, which Darren has embraced. “It’s a whole new set of challenges, and a completely different approach but I love it."

“I appreciate the fact that the Dick’s creative team has the confidence in me to let me work in a different head space and not pigeon-hole me as just an action guy.” 

Looking at this set of images from this year’s shoot, we think you’ll agree.