Maize & Blue Nation trusted me to cover an additional game this season – a matchup that won’t occur again for 14 years.
For once, the weather forecast for Ann Arbor was accurate, and I stood on the sidelines for nearly 4 hours in the pouring rain. My camera equipment somehow survived and I came out with a few decent frames.
On October 19, I made the drive down to Happy Valley to cover Michigan Football for Maize & Blue Nation.
Even typing this 2 weeks later, it still feels surreal.
With loads of excitement to be covering Michigan sports again came waves and waves of nervousness and self-doubt. I hadn’t shot sports since my senior year at Michigan, would I be able to produce any shots worthy of publishing?
Luckily, Ronnie Bell came to my rescue.
This photo somehow gave me over 1000 Twitter followers in the matter of a few days, and had over 100,000 impressions on a single tweet. This image spread rapidly across the social media platform and I had no idea what to think of the whole situation. The days following the “blow-up” of the photo were spent thanking strangers for their kindness and compliments and also tracking down accounts that had taken my photo without credit (oh, and telling a few people it wasn’t photoshopped).
I was baffled by the amount of support for this photo and my overall work that came through across Twitter and Instagram. As a female sports photographer, I often have (and still do) experience sexism from other photographers and athletics staffers. I also often face bouts of self-doubt, but this was certainly uplifting and validated my place on the field.
Below are a few more photos from the game.
This summer, I was finally reunited with my family for a trip to Colorado. Here are a few of my favorite frames (there are probably way too many here for a blog post but the mountains were so pretty).
I’m proud of my work.
That’s something I haven’t been able to say for about a year now, since I graduated college.
I volunteered to take photos for one of my roommate’s moms who was getting remarried on August 18th. I hadn’t photographed a wedding in over a year, and coming off a week of vacation and jet lag, I had pretty low expectations for my photos for this wedding. I typically hold myself to a high standard, but I figured if I could capture a few frames that captured the mood of the day (and were in focus) I’d be satisfied.
I’m never one to brag about myself or my work, but it was nice to feel some sense of pride again. Weddings and portraits have never been my strong suit, but it’s encouraging to see my progress throughout the years.
I’ve felt a deep need to create again in the last few months, and I’m ecstatic (and frankly relieved) that I’m starting to fall back into the groove of shooting again.
Enjoy a few frames from the lovely new couple!
Back in March, I had the privilege of following the Michigan Hockey Team out to Boston (well, Worcester… which isn’t really Boston) and covering their Sweet 16 and Elite 8 games. Michigan won both these games to advance on to the Frozen Four game in Minnesota. These games in Worcester were a special challenge– I had to shoot through the glass and sprint under bleachers back to the media room in between periods. While the venue wasn’t the most ideal, I found my way into the locker room after the game to capture some of the post-game excitement.
