When opening the yearbook, you turn to pages full of moments from our games, players and tournaments throughout the year. The squeaks of sneakers echo off the floor, as the air fills with the cheer and roar of the spectators. All you can see as you flip through the pages is that all the sports of our school are frozen in time. Yearbook sports photographers play a major role in the yearbook because it takes a lot of commitment, time and effort to capture the hard work and dedication of the Francis Lewis student- athletes.
By spending months covering these sports events, a yearbook photographer’s job is to capture an athlete’s emotions and growth in their sport. Their job can also be quite difficult at times.
“Sports photography is, I would say, one of the hardest photographs [to capture], because you have to freeze so much action,” said senior and yearbook 2026 head of photography Matthew Sham. “…let’s just say basketball, you have to capture their emotions, you have to capture when they’re shooting, so in general photography is hard.”
The yearbook photographers spend months snapping these pictures and capturing not just what happened, but what it feels to be there.
“Sports photography is a whole different level, so capturing those moments and showing everyone, ‘oh he made that game-winning three-pointer,’ [is] really satisfying,” said Sham.
Sports Photography is not as easy as it seems to be. Just like athletes in sports, a yearbook sports photographer develops skills in real-time by going to sports games multiple times to get that perfect shot.
“It requires patience, skill, and quick reflexes, all of which take time to develop,” said junior yearbook photographer Mandy Huang.
Oftentimes a sports game such as basketball and volleyball moves so quickly, you need to be able to adapt to capturing the action at the right time.
“Timing is especially important in sports photography, as photographers must be able to capture the perfect moment just at the right second. It is these moments that make a sports photograph so engaging to viewers,” said Huang.
What students do not see is that yearbook sports photographers hustle back and forth to school and to fields week after week, trying to get that perfect shot.
“The ongoing motivation and level of commitment FLHS yearbook photographers spend to captivate and make the senior athletes proud of their achievements is admirable,” said yearbook advisor, Celeste Apale. “Traveling to multiple games for one sports team just to get that split-second moment that can tell the whole story can be exhausting, but absolutely worthwhile in the end.”
