September 28, 2026 — Twinsburg Public Library

I want to be honest about how this evening went.

I had put a lot of time into rethinking the presentation, choosing the photographs, and organizing the lessons I’ve learned from years on the sidelines. I was looking forward to sharing it with a room of photographers and talking about how sports photography can become something more than a collection of action shots.

That conversation did not happen that night. So I’m sharing it here instead.

This is what you missed by not coming.

For the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to give a presentation on sports photography at the Twinsburg Public Library. In the past, I called it How I Shoot Sports, and much of the presentation focused on the practical side of photographing a game—equipment, camera settings, positioning, autofocus, and figuring out how to freeze fast-moving action.

Those things still matter. But when I started rebuilding the presentation for 2026, I realized that the way I think about sports photography has changed.

So the presentation needed to change with it.

This Is What You Missed

The completely reworked program I brought to the Pixel Photo Club was called:

Beyond the Action: Creating Sports Photographs That Tell the Story of the Game

That title probably does a better job of explaining how I approach sports photography today.

I still want the tackle, the goal, the diving catch, the finish at the rim, or the celebration after a big win. Peak action is a big part of sports photography, and trying to capture it is still one of the things I enjoy most.

But the action isn’t the entire story.

Photographing the Entire Event

Over the years, I’ve learned to spend more time looking beyond the ball.

I photograph the athletes preparing before the game. I watch the sidelines and benches. I look for coaches talking with players, teammates reacting to each other, parents in the stands, officials, cheerleaders, the marching band, the student section, and all of the other people who create the atmosphere around high school sports.

And I keep shooting after the play is over.

Sometimes the reaction after a play tells the story better than the play itself.

The celebration, disappointment, exhaustion, relief, laughter, and quiet moments between the action are all part of what it felt like to be there.

Every Season Eventually Becomes History

That idea has become increasingly important to me.

Every athlete eventually plays a last game. Seniors graduate. Teams change. Coaches move on or retire. Facilities change. Even traditions that seem permanent eventually evolve.

At the time, a photograph may simply be another image from Friday night’s game.

Five, ten, or twenty years later, it can mean something entirely different.

It becomes a reminder of teammates, coaches, friends, family in the stands, and what it felt like to put on that uniform.

After photographing so many Twinsburg sporting events over the years, I’ve come to think of the collection as something more than a group of game galleries. Together, the photographs are becoming a visual history of Twinsburg athletics and the community surrounding it.

What Makes a Great Sports Photograph?

That question became one of the central themes of the presentation.

A technically perfect photograph isn’t necessarily a memorable photograph.

Sharp focus matters. Exposure matters. Composition matters. Timing certainly matters.

But the photographs I remember most usually have something else.

They have a moment.

An expression. A relationship. A reaction. A little bit of chaos. Sometimes even an imperfection.

They tell you something about what was happening rather than simply showing you what happened.

Know the Sport

We also talked about one of the most useful sports-photography tools I know of—understanding the game.

The better I understand a sport, the less I have to react to what has already happened.

Instead, I can anticipate what is about to happen.

Where is the play likely to develop? Where should I position myself? Which athlete should I be watching? If the play succeeds, where will the reaction happen?

Sports photography is partly about reaction time, but I think it is much more about anticipation.

See the Light. Build the Photograph.

Another part of the presentation dealt with something that applies to virtually every kind of photography: learning to see the light and paying attention to everything inside the frame.

High school sports rarely give photographers perfect conditions.

There are dark gyms, uneven stadium lights, harsh afternoon sun, rain, snow, distracting backgrounds, fences, spectators, officials, and plenty of other things competing for space in the photograph.

You can’t control most of those things.

You can control where you stand, when you press the shutter, how you frame the scene, and what you choose to include or exclude.

Sometimes moving only a few feet can completely change a photograph.

Yes, We Talked About Camera Settings Too

Although I deliberately wanted this presentation to be about much more than camera settings, I also knew photographers in the audience would want some practical information.

So we eventually got to the exposure triangle—shutter speed, aperture, and ISO—and how I balance those three when photographing sports.

For sports, shutter speed is usually my first priority. I need enough speed to stop the action. Aperture determines both how much light reaches the sensor and how much depth of field I have to work with. ISO becomes the variable that lets me maintain the shutter speed and aperture I need as the available light changes.

We also discussed autofocus, subject tracking, burst shooting, and some of the other tools available in modern cameras.

But that section came later in the presentation for a reason.

Camera settings help me capture the photograph.

They don’t tell me which photograph to make.

The Equipment Matters—But Not as Much as We Think

Of course, we talked about cameras and lenses too.

Good equipment makes difficult situations easier. Fast autofocus, high frame rates, good high-ISO performance, and long, fast lenses all provide real advantages in sports photography.

But equipment can’t anticipate a play. It can’t recognize an emotional moment on the bench. It can’t notice a distracting background and move three feet to fix it.

Those decisions still belong to the photographer.

What Happens After the Game

The final whistle isn’t the end of the process.

I also shared some of my workflow after an event—importing photographs, culling a large number of frames, editing the keepers, organizing them, and eventually publishing the finished gallery.

The goal isn’t to publish everything I photograph.

It’s to select the photographs that collectively tell the story.

What I’ve Learned

One of the reasons I enjoy giving this presentation is that preparing it forces me to think about my own photography.

The more sports I photograph, the less interested I am in simply collecting technically good action shots.

I still want those photographs.

But now I’m also looking for the things happening around them.

I want the big play and the reaction afterward. I want the athlete and the coach. I want the competition and the people watching it. I want the moments everyone sees and the little ones most people miss.

Taken together, those photographs tell a much better story.

Why I Keep Doing It

This was probably the most personal part of the presentation.

I enjoy the challenge of sports photography. I enjoy being on the sidelines. I enjoy trying to anticipate something that might exist for only a fraction of a second.

But that isn’t really why I keep doing it.

I keep doing it because these photographs become memories.

Years from now, very few people will remember the final score. They’ll remember their teammates, their coaches, their family in the stands, and what it felt like to wear that uniform. If my photographs help bring those memories back—even for a moment—then I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

I appreciate the person who runs the Pixel Photo Club for being there and giving me the opportunity to prepare and share this work. I only wish more people had come to see it.

Since the presentation did not reach the audience I had hoped for that night, I’m putting its ideas and photographs here. If you missed the presentation, this is your chance to see what I wanted to share about sports, photography, and storytelling.

Beyond the Action—Presentation Images

Below are the photographs from the final presentation. Looking through them together probably explains the idea behind Beyond the Action better than words can.

Many of the photographs in this presentation came from collections and stories I previously shared on the blog:

• 25 Frames, One School Year on the Sidelines
• Top 25 High School Sports Photos of Winter 2025–2026
• The Power of Community in Photography: A 2025 Reflection
• 25 Frames, One Wild Year: My 2025 in Photos

You can also browse my favorite sports photographs from the 2026–2027 season. I’m adding more photographs to that collection every week as the season continues.