Blog #3: The story behind #CityPride

Read Blog #2 about the San Diego Bucs
victory in Cooperstown, NY

Hey! Thanks for stepping back into the CPM Sports Zone! If you're making your debut in the Sports Zone, here's what you've missed in the Zone. The opening blog discussed the growing interest being shown in Women's professional basketball, and how watching a couple of players locked me into their product. Last week, we relieved one of the greatest accomplishments I've achieved as an athlete when my 12 and under baseball team traveled to Cooperstown, New York and achieved baseball immortality by winning the 2006 Cooperstown All-Star Village Tournament of Champions Tournament.

In this weeks blog, I'll discuss the inspiration, concept and reason behind a series of athlete photos you've probably seen posted by myself on Instagram (@goseecal3) and on my personal Facebook and Twitter pages.

Candace Parker, 2013 WNBA MVP in the
 #CityPrideLA album

It was a normal night like my nights normally are, FaceTime a friend, watch some TV, host my sport shows among other things. But there was a night where I actually didn't do anything listed above (I had an off night from my shows). So I was on my iPod one night and an idea hit me, to use the PaintFX app and bust out some art (If you want to call it art). The first ever piece I did was a photo of San Diego Sockers player and PASL MVP Kraig Chiles who was placed against the Sockers team crest as the background, sketched and filtered in blue. I ended up posting the photo to my Instagram account (@goseecal3) and little did I know that the next morning when I woke up and check Facebook that Kraig had made the piece I made his Facebook profile picture. It was from there my ideas began swirling to take athletes and place them in the shadow of the city that they play in, it was that day that #CityPride was born.

Stepehn Curry & Klay Thompson of the
Golden State Warriors.

The first #CityPride album featured all the members of the San Diego Sockers, with a distinct San Diego landmark in their background. At first, it was a struggle to make this photo edits whether the backgrounds where too light or too dark, or the player wouldn't show up well with his assigned background. The first album was more of a dry run to see what worked, and what didn't work as far as my photo edits. Eventually, I began to expand my horizons and start doing art and albums for other cities around the country. Those albums fall under the category of being called #CityPride followed by the cities initals (LA, OC, SF, etc.) And the edits have ranged from Mike Trout, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, Candace Parker, Lindsey Harding, Jenna O'Hea, Angel McCoughtry and more. As time goes on, you will see more athletes from other pro leagues (I promise) but it's been mainly WNBA players due to a huge following of WNBA fans that are following me on Instagram and they have requested there favorite players for the albums.

Kristi Toliver winning entry into a
Toliver edit contest.

If you want to see more of my #CityPride edits, be sure to follow me on Instagram (@goseecal3) to see all the edits that have been made.

Thanks for stepping into the CPM Sports Zone,
Callan McClurg