All my life, I have been an athlete. From being four years old starting taekwondo, to being a top tennis player in my state in middle school, to being a current college basketball player, athletics has always been what has taken up a vast majority of my time. As my high school days were coming to a close, I wasn’t even sure if I was going to play a sport in college. Sports would only hold such an important position in my life for so long, and I realized that a day would come where I wouldn’t have team-mandated basketball activities to fill up my day. Feeling lost and one-dimensional, I wanted to do something different, but I didn’t know what it was — that is, until photography found its way into my life.
The first real introduction I had to photography was in high school, where I was forced to choose an elective that would likely stick for the rest of my time there. My options included various art classes, band, theater, and yearbook. Although none of these seemed interesting at the time, I assumed that working on the yearbook would be the easiest, so the decision was made. I had various tasks as part of the yearbook staff, and one of the main ones was going out and taking pictures. At first, I only had an interest in choosing this task because it meant I got to leave the room and waste time walking around the school. However, when my school’s yearbook came out, I saw some of the pictures I took in the book and was able to take some pride in that.
Once I gained some experience and knew that I was decent at taking photos, I implemented my slightly overcompetitive spirit in my role in the yearbook staff and wanted to be the best photographer there. In high school, I wanted all of my photos to be the big photo on the first page of the article for everybody to see. I eventually became one of the lead photographers in my third year on the staff; by this time, I truly enjoyed going out and taking photos. What I really liked about the type of photography that I was doing was that it wasn’t compositional; I was capturing activities that people were taking part in. There were no staged photos; when I took pictures of kindergarteners at recess and they were smiling, that was genuine emotion, and I found it meaningful that I could capture that.
At the end of my third year of high school, I transferred schools twice. The first one didn’t have a yearbook staff at all, and the second one had no need for photographers on yearbook staff. Instead, I strictly did work on Adobe Photoshop. As time went on, I forgot about photography and didn’t think I would ever pick it up again. The school that I had transferred to for my senior year I had come to with the intent of playing for their high-level basketball program to help me find a good school to play at in college. However, it turned out that certain rules regarding transferring schools that I was previously unaware of made me ineligible to compete in games. Regardless, I practiced with the team to help improve my skills and went to all of the games to support my teammates. School photographers were present at all home games and captured plenty of content that could be used by the school, but when our team started off the entire first half of the season undefeated, my boss for the yearbook staff asked if I could take a few pictures at some away games in absence of other photographers.
I agreed to take the pictures and, after shooting a few games, realized that I had forgotten the joy that I had received from taking photos in previous years. This time, it was even more fun for me because I was taking pictures of my favorite sport, which I had never had the opportunity to do before. Seeing my friends’ reactions to my pictures of significant moments from the games was a rewarding feeling like no other, and pretty soon, some of my friends started to post some of my content for everybody on social media to see. My teammates and coaches even came up with a brand name for me, and before I knew it, I had bought my own camera and started posting pictures and videos on social media and my website for every game of the season. Some local media outlets even started using my content, as our team was on an unprecedented run, which gave me even more confidence in my abilities. When the basketball season ended, athletes in the area started reaching out to me and asking me to shoot content for them. When I saw that I could make money off of doing something I already enjoyed, that’s when I realized I had improved drastically. I found it so gratifying to take photos of all of these athletes playing their sport because that is something that I barely had in high school, so I wished to provide what wasn’t available to me.
One of the reasons that I feel I am able to find success in sports photography is my understanding of the sports I am shooting, as getting the best shots requires anticipation of what is about to happen and readiness to capture the moment in a split second. The most valuable pictures to me are the ones that capture emotion, which is what I try to do every time I go out and shoot. I want someone who wasn’t there to feel the emotion that was present at the event and for the participants to be able to relive that moment forever. My ability to do that effectively is why I enjoy it so much.
In the span of a few months, I went from having no interests other than basketball to having my own photography business seemingly fall into my hands. I believe that there is something to gain from every situation life throws at you, even ones that seem negative, like being deemed ineligible for my senior season of the sport I loved. If that had never happened, I may have never had the opportunity to find this passion and learn all of the lessons that came with it. Now at Oberlin, I have taken pictures of every sport and feel like I am learning and improving every day through composing my photos and finding my own style of photography.
