When I first started photographing sports, I stank. I’m not going to lie, I stank so much that I should’ve given up right then and there, but I didn’t. I thought the goal was pretty simple: catch the action. Get the horse turning the barrel. Catch the rope in the air. Get the ball being hit. Get the runner coming home. Catch the basketball player jumping while shooting a basket. Get the cheerleader flying in the air like a bird. And yes, I still want those pictures. Somewhere along the way, I realized those aren’t always the photos I really love most.

Sometimes my favorite picture happens before the event ever starts. Sometimes it’s a little cowboy sitting on his horse while someone makes sure he’s ready. Sometimes it’s a parent crouched down at eye level with a tiny baseball player. Sometimes it’s two kids standing in the infield who may or may not know where the ball is. Sometimes it’s a cheerleader standing just before the football team runs out of the tunnel. And sometimes it’s a group of children gathered with their coaches at the beginning of a game. These are the pictures I’m looking for.

As a photographer, there are times when you see the light and immediately know you need to pay attention. The evening of the rodeo was one of those times. The sun was coming through the arena, catching every little bit of dust hanging in the air and turning an ordinary entrance into something that looked completely different through my camera.

For a few minutes, the horses waited. Riders coming and going. Cowboys standing in the dust. Kids getting ready for their turn.

And that light. I could have stood there photographing it until the sun disappeared behind the trees.

I love the action of rodeo photography, but I know I love what happens around the action just as much. When you’re photographing kids, especially, there is always a story happening somewhere. You just have to stop and notice it.

You have your serious competitors. You have the nervous ones. You have those who are just happy to be there. And then you have the little ones with a rope that’s about seventeen times longer than they are, giving it everything they’ve got.

Every once in a while, you get the photograph where everything comes together—the movement, the expression, and the horse. Sometimes the horse adds its own expression.

A few days later, I traded arena dirt and horses for grass, baseball gloves, and a field full of very small athletes. I went because my cousin-in-law asked me to take some photos of her little boy. She basically told me she would love photos of him even if he was playing in the dirt. Which, honestly, is probably one of the most realistic expectations anyone can have when photographing T-ball.

I wasn’t on the field. I was in the top row of the stands, photographing what I could see from there. Naturally, I couldn’t photograph just one kid. Once I started watching through the camera, I started noticing everyone.

The kids were trying to figure out where to stand. The coaches were helping. The conversations. The high-fives. The kids who were paying attention. The kids who absolutely were not. Basically… T-ball.

I took around 125 photographs that day, and when I went through them, something stood out. The photos I kept stopping on weren’t really the ones with anything impressive going on. They were the ones that felt like childhood.

One day, these kids will be bigger. They’ll know which base they’re supposed to run to. They’re going to stop wearing baseball caps that look slightly too big for their heads. They’re going to learn the rules. They’re going to stop getting distracted by dirt and ants. The adult standing beside them now won’t always have to crouch down to talk to them. That’s why I feel like these photographs matter.

Photography has taught me that the photograph I went somewhere intending to take isn’t always the photograph I come home happiest about. Of course, I want the sharp action shot. I want the horse leaning into the turn with dirt flying everywhere. I want the baseball leaving the bat. I want the moment that makes someone look at a photograph and immediately know what happened.

I want things that are easier to miss. A dad reaching out his hand. A little girl looking back while she swings a rope. Two teammates standing beside one another. A cowboy helping a child get ready. A group of tiny baseball players gathered around the adults teaching them the game. A rider disappearing through golden dust.

These photographs may never tell you who won. They may not tell you the score or the time. But years from now, they may tell someone something better. They will show them what it felt like to be there. I think that’s becoming one of my favorite things about photography.

I don’t want to photograph what happened. I want to photograph what happened. I want to photograph the little pieces happening around it, because sometimes the best photograph of the day isn’t the big moment. Sometimes it’s the moment no one knew was important yet.

A Few More From Behind the Lens

Sometimes the best photograph of the day isn’t the big moment.
Sometimes it’s the moment no one knew was important yet.