how did you get your job with the Lakers?
A little bit of a loaded question honestly but the one I get the most. I’m going to break it down a ton because there’s a lot of little things I did and learned that I think could be helpful.
I started off a wedding photographer with zero sports experience although I played sports growing up and through college. When I realized I wanted to transition into sports photography, I really had to lose my ego and go back to square one. I had a really successful business at this point so going backwards and shooting anything I could for free was a bit of a scramble I didn’t know I wanted to do. But I knew building a portfolio is the most important thing I could do and I had done this before with weddings. Shoot anything people will let you for free, build a portfolio and connections, show what you can do, and then charge. I had recently moved to Oregon from Boston so I had no connections and emailed every communications department at local colleges to see if I could shoot their basketball teams. I got a lot of no’s at first, which is always hard to hear, but it would only take one yes to help me build so I kept asking. Eventually, University of Portland said yes to a media pass and suddenly I was shooting every game and sending them photos for free.
After shooting for a bit I realized that many colleges don’t send their photographer on the road with the team, so the hack I used to shoot bigger colleges was offer to shoot for the away team. I would reach out to their communications team and ask something like “When you are away at x game, I would love to photograph for you. Here are a few samples of my work and attach a few of my best galleries of games”. They were the ones that would get me hooked up with a media pass. I did this for University of Oregon a few games until creating a great relationship with their communications department. I then started photographing games for them and always made sure my images were not only the best but were also delivered the fastest. I would drive two hours each game to Oregon and then sit in my car and edit the photos after each game usually until midnight then get home around 2am. I can tell you everything I did to get this job but I can’t want it for you. This type of work ethic only comes with extreme passion. I did the same thing to photograph Gonzaga, and then later I reached out to Ignite and ended up traveling to meet them in different cities and shoot for them. I had saved some money from weddings but I used all of it to bet on myself. I made some money doing odd jobs on the side but I really fully committed to making this new career path work for me.
After I had built up quite the portfolio shooting all these games for free, or really costing me quite a bit of money, Ignite opened a position to be their social media coordinator and I applied and got it. I had already built that relationship and they knew me as ambitious and hard-working, which helped me a ton.
I worked for Ignite for only 8 months and put everything into it. I gained so much experience and wanted to learn as much as I could about everything to make me better at my job.
Eventually the Lakers position popped up and I decided I’d go for it, not thinking anything of it. I’ll never forget getting the email that I had gotten an interview. The way I approached it from here was that my resume has gotten me into the door so I already have the experience they’re looking for and now everything that happens next is in my control. No one is going to outwork me in an interview. No one is going to come more prepared. And I’m sure that really can’t be true but I came in with so much confidence and I showed them how bad I wanted it and how hard I was willing to work and I got the job. I’m sure there were people more qualified and better than me, but no one was going to want it more than I was.
So now here I am! I hope a little part of my journey helps you on yours even if you look at it and say wow this girl is crazy and I don’t want to do any of this! Find whatever you’ll wake up with excitement about and go for it.
can I shoot a Laker game?
I get this question so much and I wish I had more power to let everyone into games, but the short answer is no, at least not with anything I could help with. There’s a whole communications department (that I am not a part of!) that controls who gets a media pass to games. I had no idea what a media pass was, much less how to get one, when I was beginning my career but let me break it down for you.
A media pass is how you get into games. You can’t get in and shoot unless you have one. Some arenas will let you bring small cameras in if you want to shoot from your seat that you’ve purchased, but if you want to bring your real camera, be able to shoot baseline, etc. you’ll need a media pass. The people that give those passes out are in the PR or communications department. 99% of the time you cannot get a media pass unless you are shooting for a publication (think LA Times, USA Today, ESPN, SLAM, etc.). Obviously Laker games are packed with media and people trying to get in to cover the team so they have to be really selective about who gets in because there’s only so many spots. So your best bet for shooting a game is reaching out to the publications that you know cover the team and have them reach out to the PR department to get you a media pass (or credential).
Another way that’s become more common is shooting for specific players. Usually people will DM a player on IG if they don’t have a personal relationship with them and ask them if they can shoot the game for them. However the NBA is cracking down a bit on player photographers and in some arenas you’re only allowed to photograph warmups and then have to return to your paid seat and aren’t supposed to continue shooting I believe.
My advice if you want to shoot a Lakers game and aren’t finding success through one of those avenues: shoot a South Bay Lakers game!! It’s a lot easier to get in, you can just reach out directly to the South Bay communications team and if it’s not a busy game I believe you can get in just as a freelancer. There’s so much great talent there as well, you can be super close to the action, and there’s a lot of great players to still be excited about.
any advice you’d give to creatives?
A ton but the things that resonate with me the most and I have to relearn a lot are:
Don’t let your confidence get in the way of your growth. I know my images are great. I also know that finding new perspectives, editing in different ways, and being inspired from my peers will make them even better. I hate staying stagnant and feeling like I’m not growing, so this is huge for me.
Don’t be intimidated to put yourself out there. I wouldn’t be the Lakers team photographer if I didn’t get made fun of for posting crappy graduation photos when I was just starting out.
Don’t be the one to tell yourself no. Let other people do that for you. Which means basically don’t self eliminate, don’t think you’re not good enough for something. Let someone else tell you that but don’t ever not go for something because you never know you might just get it.
You can’t force creativity. Especially if your cup is empty. When I’m feeling a little burnt out and all my pictures are starting to look the same, I usually just need to spend the day outside.
How hard you work at something is one of the few things you can control. If you don’t find yourself that motivated to work at something, that’s okay! It just might not be the right path for you.
Know what inquiries you say no to and don’t bend on that boundary.
what gear do you use?
For Laker games I typically shoot with two cameras. A Canon R3 with a 70-200 f2.8 lens and a Canon R5 with a 24-70 f2.8 lens. We have a 300mm lens I’ll sometimes use when shooting from above as well and a 15-35mm that I’ll have some fun with during huddles/warmups. I also use a Godox V1Pro C Flash. If you want to know what any specific images were taken with, just shoot me a message.
The gear that I own myself and use is a Nikon D750 and Nikon D7500. Definitely not as nice as the gear I use for the Lakers but always worked totally fine and I made a lot of money shooting weddings with those cameras, so don’t worry about buying the top of the line equipment. It’s nice but not always necessary. I think my personal flash was about $30 on Amazon and it worked like a charm.
My favorite piece of gear I own is my Contax T2 film camera and I love shooting on Portra 400 film.
Most importantly, I always have snacks.
