Believe it or not, I only started focusing on nature photography about a year-and-a-half ago. Before that, I didn’t have a car to drive to parks or other natural areas and I really wasn’t aware of all the variety of natural subjects that existed in my area. I pretty much thought my best opportunities for photographing animals were at the zoo! So while I loved animals and the wilderness, I photographed them pretty rarely and instead focused on what I had easy access to: sports.

In high school, I was a four year letter winner on my track and field team, so athletics were a big part of my life. I brought my camera to all my meets, and in between my events, I photographed my teammates running, jumping, and throwing, and then published my images in the school newspaper and yearbook (I ended up being the editor of both). In the spring, when I had a season off, I went to soccer and volleyball games after school and photographed them as well. At college, I did track my freshman year until I tore my knee apart during a November pole vaulting practice and had to have surgery. So then guess what I did? I got out my new camera (I had gotten my first digital SLR, a Nikon D70) and just took photos of all the sporting events at school for the paper and yearbook for the rest of the year. Sports were what I had easy access to so they seemed to be an obvious subject to shoot, and because there were tons of games and athletes I had plenty of opportunity to practice.

The highlight of my sports shooting career was in March 2006, when the NCAA Division III National Wrestling Championships were held at my college. The sports information director granted me floor access to the event, and I was able to photograph all of the wrestling matches while sitting right next to photographers from Sports Illustrated!

I also took my favorite non-nature photograph ever. “Pain” has been my most successful photograph to date, earning a Silver Award in the University and College Designers Association contest for photography against professional photographers, being named Semi-Finalist in the sports division of the 2006 College Photographer of the Year competition, and also being selected as one of Dido’s Deluxe Dandies on the photography website Photoblink.

I no longer shoot sports, because it’s no longer much fun for me. I don’t like planning my schedule around athletic competitions, and I’d much rather spend my free time outdoors, enjoying nature, and photographing wildlife. Photography is so much more fun when I do it for myself, not for a newspaper article or yearbook deadline. Besides, I think I’m getting better and better at nature photography all the time, and I’m sure someday soon I’ll have an image that is a lot more successful than “Pain.”