Photo stories week 4: Ohio Northern Football Team

I have been doing photography for over a year now, and I knew it would take a good amount of time for my name and style to reach other people. Even though I tried to be patient, it grew very frustrating when I wasn’t gaining any traction with my work. I shared a good amount of pictures on social media, but was not getting a good amount of offers to do any work for others. It was very frustrating for me, but I knew my work as good enough that others would begin to notice. 18 months later, I was recommended to help with the uniform reveal for the Ohio Northern Football Team.

The football team does a uniform reveal every year, and when I received the opportunity to take photos and do a video for their website and social media, I was super excited. However, it put a lot of pressure on myself to do a good job, but it was very difficult because I’m a perfectionist when it comes to my work. So it was tough for me to put that behind me and focus on doing my own thing. I shot in a lot of different settings. I shot in the team’s locker room, in the weight room, then outside on the field. The photo sets turned out really well for the team to post.

The setting I was the most excited to shoot at was on the football field. The backdrop was perfect for the look I was going for, and the lighting matched it perfectly as well. The picture on the far right in front of the stadium is now one of my favorite pictures I’ve taken. The player is centered perfectly in front of the stadium and the shadows and lighting are presented perfectly as well, making for almost a perfect photo.

Throughout the photo session, I messed up quite a bit, but I didn’t let it affect me and I went on with my work. Switching from photo to video during the course of the session became very frustrating at times because I was forced to change the settings repeatedly back and forth for about 2 hours. Switching back and forth between these settings really helped me realize how much time and effort you have to put in in order for the results to be the best they can be. However, at the end of the session, I was confident I had filmed and photographed the best possible content. When the content was promoted on social media from the football team, I was proud to say it was my work they were putting out to the public, which made me realize I was truly pursuing the right path.