Yesterday, from about eleven in the morning until about 5 in the evening, I had the opportunity to shoot alongside professional photographers for Getty Images at the Bears @ Giants game in Rutherford, NJ.
Elsa Garrison, a sports photographer whose been shooting athletics since I was born, was kind enough to allow me to serve as a runner for the day. Through that, I got to learn from some of the best in the field.
Al Bello, another photographer who’d been shooting since 1993, was also present and I got the chance to hear about some of his assignments in Puerto Rico and abroad. He even taught me a bit about photography.
For years prior, I recall praying for examples to follow. I remember lusting after images of Idris Elba and Brad Pitt (please don’t judge me, I was young) hoping to walk with similar stature. But it wasn’t until I realized that image is great, but substance is even better. After that, some of the examples I’d been praying for began coming to me in fleets.
A few months ago, one of my professors and head of the journalism department at Rutgers University, Robin Gaby Fisher, referred me to be a Teaching Assistant for a program hosted by National Geographic and Newest Americans. Through that, I got to shadow professionals like Ed Kashi and Matt Moyer and teach high schoolers about the philosophy and methodology of photography.
My mother always says that nothing solidifies anything in the mind like talking about it and you don’t really know something until you can teach it. The opportunity to work with professionals from National Geographic, Newest Americans and Getty Images has provided me with all of those things as well as individuals rich with experience in the fields of journalism and photography.
I always wondered if there was really a God but recently, the thing’s that I’d prayed for in my past are being granted right now. But it’s possibly that those same things have been right in front of me all along. Just in different forms.