For the past four years, I have photographed the same sports in the same gyms, fields, and pools. The games rarely change, so my challenge is never just getting a sharp photo. It is finding new light or a new composition for a subject I have already shot a hundred times.

My grandparents, parents, and brother all shoot film, so I grew up with tiny cameras and plastic Holgas. The photographer I study most is Brad Mangin, who was also a high school yearbook staff photographer who went on to shoot for Sports Illustrated. His idea of a perfect sports photo is “great light, a great face, and a clean background.”

One of my favorite photos came from a perspective that no one could see. As a swimmer, I know a turn can decide a race, but no one in the crowd sees what happens underwater. I got in the pool with an underwater housing unit and caught a swimmer pushing off the wall. With his feet and his arms locked in a streamline, the white water from his flip still sparkling above him. I converted it to black and white so nothing pulls attention away from his body’s form.

When documenting an athletic event, I have to find great light, like the pink sky behind our football team raising their helmets for the anthem. For portraits, I try to build clean compositions so all I have to find is a great face. When I frame my landscapes, I let light and background carry the photo. Such as an iceberg in Iceland, a waterfall in black and white with one person at its base for scale, or the Golden Gate Bridge glowing over still water.

I first saw what a photo could mean to someone at our school’s belly flop contest, when a student dressed as the Joker posted my underwater shot of himself on Instagram. Seeing the popularity and getting recognition the next day on campus, helped me realize social media could be used to market my photos.

In the winter of my freshman year, I decided to create a project where the funds I generated through my photography were directly donated to my school's tuition assistance fund. This project, Pictures for Purpose, has generated over $10,000 and helped peers of mine share the same experiences and community that made such a positive impact on me.

A scoreboard only shows who won. But I want my photos to show what it felt like, so someone who has never played can still recognize the nerves, the exhaustion, and the joy, because those look the same on every face. That is why I frame a dunk with the student section behind it and I keep shooting when our team piles into a celebratory huddle.