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Football, Cheerleading and Hometown Glory

In Texas, where football is an unofficial religion, a photography project documenting the sideline drama and athleticism of football and cheerleading would not be unwelcome.

But the photographer Brian Finke was a reluctant convert to this pastime, even though he was raised in suburban Houston.

“It was something very familiar growing up in Texas,” he said. “My two sisters were cheerleaders, so it was too close and overly familiar. I almost didn’t find the interest in it.”

Yet after high school — when he lived in New York as a student at the School of Visual Arts — Mr. Finke saw the film “Bring It On,” a sassy teen comedy about competitive cheerleading.

The movie would be the motivation in part for a project on these two historically related, but increasingly independent, competitive sports.

Although the high-camp of the film was an element of cheerleading culture he had witnessed firsthand, he immediately began to devote personal time to capturing the athleticism, nuance of experience and culture of the sport.

“2-4-6-8: American Cheerleaders and Football Players,” Mr. Finke’s first published monograph, was the result.

The images, made between 2001 and 2003, used strobes to produce what Mr. Finke calls “stylized documentary.” They burst with color and capture a seemingly limitless amount of teenage energy.

Originally focused only on cheerleaders, he later broadened the work to include football players. He wanted to highlight a type of social symbiosis, and the shared themes of strength and agility, discipline and camaraderie, and the ubiquitous desire to achieve hometown glory.

The personal project coincided with Mr. Finke’s professional career. When sent on assignment for magazines in different cities, he photographed teams and squads from outside the Lone Star State, capturing the culture of high school sport in suburban America.

“What I love about high school sports is the enthusiasm,” Mr. Finke said. Of one football player (slide 6), he added: “This guy played offense and defense, played the entire game, and gave it his all, and I love that commitment to it.”

Mr. Finke also learned what many cheerleaders have known for decades: The physical toll of stunts, the term used to describe the body pyramids and tosses of a routine, was taxing. This aspect of cheerleading solidifies as something all its own. “It’s pretty brutal on people’s bodies,” Mr. Finke recalled, “and you can’t really do it for a long time.”

Along with sentimental moments, the photographs also play on a sense of the absurd. Intense faces, heavy makeup and heavily teased hair play on the particularly gendered stereotypes often held about young girls and women who cheer. There is also humor and a touch of irony in his capture of runt-sized receivers and the hypermasculinity of male cheer squad members.

Mr. Finke sought out empowering moments from the sidelines and the competition floor.

“I think they represent both in a lot of different light and that’s what makes it interesting,” he said. “I wanted to take the viewer in different directions and on different paths.”

Mr. Finke continues to document peripheral sports like body building, and much of his personal work seeks to comment on American suburban and working-class culture.

When asked what this body of work means to him personally, he seemed uncertain. “I just want to make it about the people,” he said. In the end he hoped to touch on different emotions, cast a wide net and represent his projects in an authentic way.

By Philip Richardson