The shotlist
Freshman Ethan Kadner’s interest in photography began when he took new media art as an elective in seventh grade. He joined OPHS flicks after taking pictures at a girls’ basketball game, where he was asked to join the team.
One of Kadner’s favorite photos that he has taken is of varsity football player Luke Zapko. Photography, especially in sports, often relies on trial and error in adjusting camera settings and angles to get the perfect shot.
“It was mostly [taking photos] and then adjusting the different settings and then doing it again. I got an idea to lower my shutter speed a little bit, and try to get a full motion glow effect,” Kadner said. “I edited it black and white to make it look cool. I was just kind of messing around with it. I had some failed attempts before, but then this came out perfect.”
Kadner usually takes anywhere from 200 to 300 photos, before choosing around 20 to edit.
“Usually when I come back from a shoot, I’ll edit for about an hour to an hour and a half.” Kadner said. “I usually take a lot of photos, so most of the time it’s not just editing, it’s going through and deleting the photos that I don’t want.”
Another of Kadner’s favorite photos is of sophomore Sven Sjoquist during a varsity boys’ soccer game. The photo is only slightly edited to look clearer, and Kadner appreciates the composition of the photo.
“This one is just natural,” Kadner said. “I like the motion blur from the ball. [Sjoquist] is in the center, and then him settling the ball adds the motion blur. It makes it look kind of cool, and I like this idea of a photo.”
A third standout photo is of sophomore Ava Rogerson during a girls’ varsity basketball game.
“This is one of my favorites because I love how she’s framed in the shot; it looks like she’s driving towards the basket,” Kadner said. “Her pose reminded me of Jerry West in the NBA logo.”
A difficulty in sports photography is determining when to take the shot, especially in sports such as basketball, which can be very fast-paced and unpredictable. Photographers have less time to adjust their camera and position.
“I usually don’t get these kinds of basketball shots – they’re kind of rare to come by. They’re hard to capture because they’re moving very fast when they’re driving to the basket, and without the proper scale it’s hard to know when you need to take it.”
Sophomore Derek Kobayashi got his start with OPHS Flicks early. While attending his brother’s graduation, he was asked to join the team.
One of his favorite photos that he’s taken was at an OPHS boys basketball game.
“I figured that photo would have a great background with the flag and everything,” Kobayashi said. “I had kind of planned out that photo ahead of time.”
Kobayashi usually prepares in advance for pregame, midgame and postgame photos. However, his repertoire extends far beyond those guidelines. Kobayashi has experimented with a wide range of shots, including both action and motion.
“I have to make a few decisions when choosing what photos to edit,” Kobayashi said. “Usually it comes down to, in the action shots, which ones are less blurry and more clear.”
When editing photos like the basketball one, Kobayashi and other photographers have to pick and choose what colors to highlight and whether to dim or not, as well as account for a plethora of other factors. These details are part of what makes photography so versatile; it goes beyond just being there and taking photos. It requires real time to edit and finalize photos for the public to see.
Kobayashi also highlighted a photo he took at a girls volleyball game. The photo froze number 11, sophomore Avyn McGugan, in midair as she went up for the ball.
“I like how she’s centered in the photo and overall it’s one of my favorite shots.” Kobayashi said. “The photo also got featured in VCPreps, so that was pretty awesome.”
Junior Drew Leehey has been an avid photographer for the past two years. After getting a camera for his birthday, he jumped into his photography journey by taking photos at his brother’s baseball games.
“Honestly I just went out to shoot as much as I could,” Leehey said. “I think that’s good advice for people new to photography. Go to whatever games you can and just shoot as much as possible.”
If he were to choose his favorite photos, Leehey would start by highlighting his photo at the boys basketball game.
“This is one of the first home basketball games, and this is as they’re doing the national anthem,” Leehey said. “And I saw all the players lined up with the flag in the back, so I thought it would be a good shot to take.”
When taking photos such as these, Leehey has always been meticulous about his planning. Getting a shot like this wasn’t purely by chance.
“I had actually planned to stand behind them for the anthem,” Leehey said. “I was lucky enough that they were lined up that way, but I was there for the reason of taking these photos and shooting their walkouts.”
Shots like these don’t turn out perfect on the first try. Photographers take dozens of shots in a row and pick out the best ones to edit.
“I’ll scroll through my photos and then choose some to edit,” Leehey said. “I usually spend about two to three minutes per photo.”
Leehey took another one of his favorite photos at an OPHS football game.
“I’m not sure what game this was, it was kind of unplanned,” Leehey said. “But I just saw the great sunset in the background and just grabbed a wide angle.”
Editing gives photographers an opportunity to express themselves and give a photo their own creative flair. In the case of this photo, the edits left it with a polished and striking feel.
“I kind of popped the white and dimmed the background a little bit,” Leehey said. “I really wanted to get a good contrast here.”
Junior Max Steinberg has been doing photography since her freshman year and has been a part of the OPHS Flicks team since the beginning of this school year. As the editor-in-chief of the OPHS Yearbook, the Eagle, she is constantly taking photos at sporting events.
One of her favorite shots she took at a varsity girls volleyball game in the OPHS gym.
“After I took it, I just immediately looked at my camera before I had even edited, and I was like, ‘this is such a cool shot,’” Steinberg said. “I especially [like taking photos] of the spikers. I really like getting that full body shot when they’re jumping up in the air.”
Particularly in sports photography, Steinberg aims to capture her subject in the center of the frame and takes great care to ensure they aren’t off on the side of the picture.
“It’s really important to me, at least to center my subject, which I found really important in volleyball, especially,” Steinberg said. “Also making sure that you can see the ball and the action … makes it a lot more personal and it feels like you’re watching it like you were at the game.”
Steinberg was especially happy with this photo because despite the challenging lighting in the gym, the coloring still turned out well. She usually does a few quick edits – here, she added some purple hues to contrast the yellow gym lighting – before publishing her photos.
“I also sent it to the person [in the photo] after I took it and they were unbelievably happy with it, which always makes me feel so good. That always makes me feel so much better about my photography.”
Another one of Steinberg’s favorite photos was of junior Kara Soto, at Steinberg’s first time attending a soccer game that season. She had to play around with her camera settings in order to capture good photos in the darkness.
“When I’m taking football photos or anything down on the field, I’m just spamming photos and praying when I go through them later that they’ll look good. I saw this, and I was just so happy,” Steinberg said. “I really love sports where you can kind of have a nice figure. With this, her leg is up, ready to kick the ball.”
While Steinberg typically always tries to center her subject, for her, it’s important to know when to break the rules creatively and artistically.
“I was okay with the subject not being centered. I think it kind of makes it more dynamic and you can feel the movement because of that empty space; it looks like that’s where the ball is about to move,” Steinberg said. “[The off-centering is] usually not intentional when I’m spamming the photos. I obviously try my hardest to have them centered, but with soccer, I think because I was anticipating the ball moving, I expected it to move across and take up more space.”
Steinberg’s final favorite that she has taken as an OPHS Flicks photographer was of OPHS varsity cheerleader Livana Anderson in the middle of a stunt at a football game. Steinberg typically does football photography for the whole season for the yearbook, and usually, the cheerleaders are pretty far away from her position. However, she saw an opportunity for a special moment and took it.
“Last year when I took football photos, I didn’t get a lot of [them doing stunts or gymnastics]. It was a lot more posed during the typical routine,” Steinberg said. “So when I saw that they were coming down to do more stunts, I was really excited for the opportunity to get this photo.”
That particular football game was neon-themed, so all the cheerleaders were wearing bright-colored bows. This made for the perfect opportunity for some experimental editing.
“At the start of this year, I tried to play around with colors a lot more. With this one, I blacked out the background to make the cheerleader pop out a lot more, which I think was really cool.”
Senior Harrison Macht has been on the OPHS flicks team for one year. He has always liked photography, despite only getting a camera halfway through his senior year.
A memorable photo for Macht is of senior Jonathan Schwartz, before a boys varsity soccer game. Still shots focus on capturing the individual, instead of the action. In sports photography, these shots can help depict the mental aspect of sports, in contrast to the physical aspect. Here, Macht captured a moment of prayer before a game.
“I think it has a lot of story behind it,” Macht said. “I’d seen him pray before games in the background of some of my other pictures, so I wanted to focus on just him this time. I like how it’s just him in the shot.”
Another favorite of Macht is a still shot of sophomore Daryan Shaker from a boys’ soccer game. The photo is edited to be black and white on the left side, with Shaker walking into the color.
“I like the symmetry in this picture, since he’s going right over the goal line. I thought [the editing] was kind of cool. Goalies wear a different jersey – in JV, lime green. It’s another still shot, of just one player.”
To Macht, editing is one of the most important parts of photography, and something beginners should focus on learning to do.
“You can take raw pictures, but they won’t look as good,” Macht advises. “It doesn’t really matter what camera you have; editing is a really key part in it.”
Another one of Macht’s favorite photos is an action shot of junior Srikar Potluri from a varsity boys basketball game. For action shots, Macht will take from 300 to 400 photos.
“I try to get something that’s really good in frame, and then I cut it down to the pictures that get really good, exact moments,” Macht said. “I like this one a lot because it’s right in the action of him taking a shot over the defender. It’s really clear.”
Between action shots and still shots, Macht prefers the former.
“It’s nice to have [still] shots where it’s just one person, but it’s also nice to have action shots. I kind of like action shots more. I think it shows more story.”
Senior Jackson Thayer began photography halfway through his sophomore year and has found that it has really shaped a lot of his growth.
“I think I changed a lot as a person. I love the guys I hang out with, and a lot of that is through sports, through photography, who I’ve met from teams and stuff or just being on the field,” Thayer said.
Thayer plans to continue photography in college. After committing to Auburn University, he has already begun to reach out to their sports teams looking for media internship positions.
In his time at OPHS, Thayer’s favorite photo that he has ever taken was at the most recent Kanan Bowl.
“It was just perfect in every way. Just Bridger running down the sideline, the other team being held back by our defense,” Thayer said. “It didn’t look nearly as good before editing, but I made sure to darken the foreground so that your eyes were immediately drawn to Bridger running rather than the people in the background. He’s perfectly framed in the center third, and other people in the photo are framed on the other two-thirds with no other clutter in the photo.”
When it comes to sports photography, the athletes are moving so fast that everything becomes a blur. Photos are a product of good preparation and perfect timing.
“It kind of just always happens. That’s the way it works,” Thayer said. “In sports you just have to take it how it happens. You can’t set anything up. You can’t predict anything that’s going to happen, so you just kind of have to take it how it comes. I find reactivity to be more my strong suit.”
Another one of Thayer’s favorite photos is of senior Kamdi Umejiego at the final track meet of the 2025 season. He got the idea for the photo after seeing a TikTok of track athletes frozen in the air, midjump. After seeing that, he decided to recreate it. After Thayer found his subject, he had to keep asking Umejiego to jump again and again so he could get the shot, until finally, he did.
“Our track coach asked me for a full-size poster of this photo, which I’ve still yet to get him,” Thayer said. “I had a ton of different people do that, and I just happened to catch Kamdi in the perfect spot. I thought his pink [spikes] stood out enough to where I just decided to make them the focus of the image.”
Thayer took another one of his favorite photos at the girls varsity basketball CIF Championships, where the team won for the third time in a row.
“It’s my favorite one of that night. You can see the crowd in the background and you can see a little bit of the net coming down,” he said. “It just kind of gives you my idea for how big of the scale of the gym we were playing in was, especially compared to just our normal Oak Park gym. This was a full stadium that NBA players have played in. So it was just really cool seeing the contrast and scale.”
Thayer has found that photography has challenged him to grow as a person.
“Personally, I’ve grown to be a bit more giving and empathetic. Doing photography made me realize how much I can do for other people with such little effort, but how much it can change for them. I realized that just contributing a little bit of my time can entirely change somebody’s day.”
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