Impact Study

There is something interesting about an object that has done exactly what it was made to do—and carries the evidence with it.

Impact Study is an ongoing fine art golf photography series that began with damaged golf balls. Balls that had been struck thousands of times, cut open, cracked, scuffed, compressed and occasionally destroyed altogether. Objects that would normally be picked up, looked at for a second and thrown away.

I started photographing them instead.

Seen on the course, a damaged golf ball is essentially useless. Isolated against a clean background and photographed closely, it becomes something completely different. The scratches, exposed layers, torn covers and compressed cores begin to feel less like damage and more like a record.

A history written through impact.

The Same Object, A Different Perspective

One of the ideas I keep returning to with Impact Study is how dramatically an object can change depending on where you stand.

Several photographs within the series show the same golf ball from different angles. Turn it slightly and an ordinary scuff becomes a deep fracture. Rotate it again and a recognizable logo disappears behind an exposed core. What initially looked destroyed can suddenly feel sculptural.

That repetition is intentional.

These golf photographs aren't simply documenting different golf balls. They're studies of individual objects—looking at the same marks, materials and imperfections from multiple perspectives.

It's a small reminder that there is rarely only one way to see something.

Designed for Impact

Golf balls are unusually engineered objects.

Beneath the familiar white surface are layers of material designed to react to enormous force while still maintaining consistency, distance and control. Most of that construction is never meant to be seen.

Until the ball fails.

The most damaged examples expose what normally remains hidden: color, rubber, urethane, pattern and structure. In some photographs, the familiar exterior is barely recognizable. What remains feels almost geological, as though erosion rather than a golf club created it.

That contrast became one of the things that interested me most about the series—the precision of something manufactured colliding with the unpredictability of use.

Finding Beauty After the Useful Life

Photography has always made me pay closer attention to things that might otherwise be overlooked.

A shadow across a building. The geometry of a skatepark. Light moving through a landscape. An object sitting somewhere it doesn't quite belong.

Impact Study comes from that same instinct.

These golf balls have reached the end of their intended usefulness. They are imperfect, damaged and disposable. Yet those imperfections are precisely what make each one unique.

No two fail in exactly the same way.

The damage becomes the subject.

Rather than trying to hide it, the photographs isolate it. The simple compositions remove the golf course, the grass and everything else associated with the game. What remains is shape, texture, color and evidence of force.

Something familiar becomes unfamiliar again.

Golf Photography as Still Life

Golf photography is usually associated with sweeping courses, iconic holes, players and landscapes.

Impact Study looks in the opposite direction.

The scale becomes smaller. The golf ball becomes the landscape.

Photographed against a minimal background, each object starts to function more like a still life or abstract study than traditional sports photography. Familiar logos, dimples and materials provide a connection to the game, while the damage creates something entirely individual.

That tension is a large part of what keeps me interested in the series.

The object is recognizable.

The photograph makes you look at it differently.

An Ongoing Study

Golf photography was the starting point, but the larger idea behind Impact Study extends beyond one sport or one object.

Sports equipment is designed around repetition, friction, speed and collision. Over time, those forces leave behind marks.

A basketball worn smooth.

A baseball with raised seams and torn leather.

A tennis ball stripped of its felt.

Every object develops its own visual history.

Impact Study is about looking closely at those histories—the moments after performance, when the object itself becomes the record of what happened.

Selected works from the series are available as fine art photography prints, allowing these small, damaged objects to take on a completely different scale when viewed on a wall.

These photographs aren't about perfect equipment.

They're about what remains after impact.

Explore the complete Impact Study Collection