By Max Braunig
Photos by Max Braunig
Imagine this–the feeling of getting into a high school football game, free, with your camera and media pass, slipping past the barricades with special field access, and capturing the players in motion. It’s a feeling like no other that I have personally experienced more times than I can count. Or, if you’re a player at your game, imagine knowing there will be a person on the sidelines specifically capturing the best moments of your game.
Getting to document the best parts of a sports game is a feeling every sports photographer experiences time and time again. Players usually have a positive experience, too.
“They catch me in my best moments while I’m doing something I love,” said Darryl Franklin, a junior at the Willow School. “I think they’re very important to have while playing sports, and I think photos are the best way to save memories.”
Lots of high school student athletes these days are all about posting themselves on social media, showing their talents to college scouts and higher levels of sports. If that’s the case, you’d think they’d welcome the presence of a student photographer capturing their highlights.
“The pictures that our media team takes get posted all over social media, and anyone can see them,” said Tyrell Johnson, a senior and the football team captain at Willow. “They get thousands of views, and it really exposes the talents of players to coaches at a higher level.”
Through the lens of a sports photographer is a way to express your artwork through others. “It’s a different form of art and expression,” junior Ciara Smith, a sports photographer at Willow, said. “It kind of merges art and sports and lets you do two things while watching and documenting important moments in the game.”
As a teen sports photographer myself, I believe that because in 2025, college sports scholarships are becoming more and more competitive, players want to show to scouts why they stand out amongst other players. I also believe that sports photography is a way for players to express their emotions and love for the sport that they play, as well as a way for the photographers to develop skills and do what they love.
Some players are fortunate enough to experience both of these things.
“I always thought it was something interesting. Especially when being a player, it’s a great feeling getting a good picture that speaks more than just what it looks like,” Kaiden Thomas, a football player and a sports photographer at Willow, said. “Sports photography is just a lot more interesting than other things like portrait photography. It’s also a lot more fun to get action shots and players doing their thing, and it’s more accessible,” said Smith.
To me, sports photography is all about making connections with the players and getting to know them better. One thing that sports photography has taught me in the past seven months since I started doing it is that photography is not about having the best gear or having the most talent– it’s about practice.
At first, I thought my photos were horrible, and I thought about dropping it, but as I kept doing it and getting better little by little, I realized that I was improving, and that this could really be a good thing for me.
To lots of people, sports photography seems like a boring hobby where all you have to do is press a button to be good at it, but to others, it’s a way to express themselves through pictures of other people.
To players as well, “Having someone on the sideline capturing you in your sport with the people you built bonds with is special. I have an album with all my football photos—pictures of me by myself and even with some of my teammates. Just being able to look back at those moments is very meaningful,” said Franklin.
Whether you’re living the moment or capturing it, photography is one of the most important ways to show talent, whether that’s in photography or athletics, and to create memories that will last a lifetime.
