There’s one account that has more followers than the OPHS Talon—the OPHS Flicks Instagram. Founded in 2022 by Ephram Hay, Emma Lee and Derica Chiu to represent student life and athletics, OPHS Flicks has quickly become a staple at all OPHS events, from playoff games to rallies. Now, three years after the account’s creation, a new set of photographers have stepped behind the camera: junior Jackson Thayer, sophomore Drew Leehey and freshman Derek Kobayashi.
“Next year, we’re bringing on an incoming freshman named Ethan Cadner. We’ve previewed some of his work, and it looks to be up to our standards, so we’re looking forward to that,” Thayer said.
During the second half of Thayer’s sophomore year, he developed a strong passion for photography, which inspired him to take over the Flicks account. After deciding to enter the annual Veritas cover contest, Thayer learned to use his dad’s old camera—and the rest is history.
“We took the photos for the cover contest and then later that night I was part of the Pep band, so I had to go to the basketball game that was happening,” Thayer said. “I still had my camera with me, so I decided, since I’m here, why not take some photos of the basketball team and I loved it. From that point on, I started bringing my camera more and more and ever since I’ve been in love with it.”
To Thayer, photography has become an important part of his life, both on and off campus.
“Initially I was doing photography as more of a passion project by posting on my own account at the time,” Thayer said.
OPHS Flicks already had a large presence on campus. The account’s main photographer at the time, Ephram Hay, is one of Thayer’s best friends’ older brothers, so Thayer then reached out to see if they needed help.
“I reached out to the account, asking if they needed somebody for the following year to take over since they were both seniors,” Thayer said. “He responded back, looked at some of my work and we just kept in contact.”
Feb. 22, 2024 marked the official day of Thayer’s transition from casual photography to shooting for OPHS Flicks. He posted his first Instagram carousel on the account— nine beautifully composed photos of OPHS Girls Basketball cinching their CIF victory. The images capture the intensity, joy and passion that our athletes have for their sport.
OPHS is home to 28 varsity teams, which makes consistent coverage difficult with such a small team.
“We want to make sure that most, if not every team is included fairly. But other teams that are much more competitive in their sports, we try to cover those a lot more because they have a lot more games that they’re gonna be winning. It’s gonna be a better atmosphere and people like to see that,” Thayer said.
Still, at a school where there is such a wide array of sports, it’s difficult to please everyone.
“We try to get to as many as we can and try not to post the same sport multiple times in a row,” Thayer said. “We definitely get a lot of outreach people asking us to come to games, asking us to make videos, coaches, asking, that’s a big thing.”
A large part of being a successful photographer is developing the skills required to take action shots, especially during dimly-lit night games. These types of photos are notoriously difficult to capture, as they not only require technical knowledge, but also creative vision.
“Typically in sports situations, we use a higher shutter speed, except for shots where we want to be more creative,” Thayer said. “So we’ll put the camera up on a tripod, have a lower shutter speed, and kind of blur the movement so that it looks more like a painting rather than a photo.”
This type of technical expertise is what Thayer loves about photography. When asked about what it takes to create these images, he dove into the science behind camera functions and composition.
“If you have a frozen shot, but the photo is too bright or it’s too dark, it’s not going to be good,” Thayer said. “Your camera can definitely accommodate any lighting scenario. The only issue is that you can only get some of your stuff down to a certain level before it either gets to be really blurry or not very sharp. At that point, you have to digitally enhance the brightness, and what that does is it comes along with creating a lot of extra noise in the photo, so you’ll see little specks of color here and there. And as you try to brighten it, that increases. So it’s definitely nice when we have better lighting on a field. So we don’t have to go very high in that digital brightening.”
Thayer is a perfect example of the success you gain when you jump into your interest with passion and curiosity.
In addition to developing his skillset behind the camera, he devotes so much of his time to editing and uploading photos. Thayer often spends upwards of five to six hours curating images from a single game.
“Let’s say a game starts at about seven—the game won’t end ‘till about nine o’clock,” Thayer said. “I live about 20 minutes away, so then I have to drive to my house. I get there at about 9:30 and then I upload all my photos to my computer, which takes probably 20 minutes. Then I have to go through all the photos, figure out which ones I want to keep and edit, and which ones I want to delete. That probably takes close to an hour to an hour and a half. And then beyond that, the editing can take another hour.”
Although Thayer appears to shoot for OPHS Flicks full-time, he prioritizes his personal photography ambitions by carving out time to take pictures of what he is most passionate about.
“I enjoy shooting cars, because I grew up around them,” Thayer said. “So, driving them and taking photos is a huge thing for me. I never really post them, but taking photos has been a real passion project for me.”
While Thayer has photographed a plethora of people, sports and events at OPHS, he always goes back to the teams that inspired him to take over the camera.
“I hate to be biased, but I’d say the girls basketball team is my favorite to shoot. That was really the first sport that I followed almost religiously. The year prior, I was at every game of the season. I was with them the entire CIF run and the same story this year. I’m happy to see them win a third championship. I was very happy to be there.”
Over the past three years, OPHS flicks has garnered over 1,200 followers on Instagram. The team has been to dozens of games and connected students, alumni and staff. Their impact reaches beyond the picture, strengthening the Oak Park community.
“We definitely want to cover more of those niche sports, bring more audience engagement in, and grow the account,” Thayer said.
Their photos represent hours of hard work and dedication, not only from the players but from the photographers themselves.
