Clay's Court: Picking my favorite pictures from my first year as Sports Editor

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When I started to take an interest in sports writing, photography was far from my mind.

To me, the story was the most important part and the photos were complimentary.

In my opinion that still rings true, and that goes for any story even those outside of sports.

The reason I got in to photography in 2022 wasn’t even because I wanted to really take photos. Sure it was cool, but it also would raise my freelance rate by almost 50-percent. As a broke (that hasn’t changed) college student that extra 15 whole dollars went a long way considering how many stories I did.

I did enjoy learning the ins and outs of cameras and whatnot, but honestly as soon as I got a few shots to submit to the Valdosta Daily Times I put the camera away and worried only about my notes and the story.

Even when I first started at the Houston Home Journal (a year ago today!) I usually just got four or five shots to put in the paper, and I never took more because I didn’t have anywhere to put them.

Our website then only allowed for one picture, and I never had enough space in the print edition to put more than one or two. So why take more? I have so many unseen photos just sitting on my laptop that will probably never see the light of day.

But, as I upgraded my equipment (still paying that off) the results of each photo I took had me motivated to take more.

I’ve taken thousands of pictures in my first year at the HHJ, and below I’ll share some of my favorites.

This picture was my first favorite, and compared to context of the others this one might seem inconsequential. But, what happened because of this picture is why it holds a special place in my heart.

The girl wearing six is Abbie Havard, she’s a senior who’ll graduate from HoCo this year. Pictured is her completing her trot around the bases after her first ever high school home run in a scrimmage against Perry, with her teammates surrounding the plate and cheering them on.

The first home run is special, but it’s pretty common for teams to do this after a home run. I’ve got several pictures like it.

However, Abbie’s father reached out to me on Facebook after I posted it, and attempted to buy the picture from me.

He wanted to frame it for Abbie, and that’s why it’s one of my favorites.

I’d feel weird gatekeeping moments like this behind a paywall, so I sent him the picture and he thanked me a couple of times afterwards when he saw me at games.

To me, that’s the most gratifying part of this job. To think that in 30 years Abbie might look through her attic, find that picture and think back to all the memories she made with her teammates warms my heart.

Had I not been in that exact position at that exact game, her and her family wouldn’t have that picture to look back on. It’s probably the moment that I started to love photography.

This next one is in chronological order, and another story of me being in the right place at the right time.

Before I learned the places you should stand during football depending on where the players are on the field, I missed quite a few celebration shots in the end zone.

Usually I stand on the sidelines on either side of the box (which is really the only place I can stand anyway), but the game pictured was Northside’s game against Jones County in Mercer’s Five Star stadium.

Saying the sidelines were crowded would be an understatement, and so for this drive in particular I decided to head behind the end zone where there weren’t any people.

Not long after I got there senior Jarris Coney, wearing 32, ran the ball into the end zone for a touchdown and looked directly at the camera wearing a huge grin before doing the airplane celebration in the end zone.

From the moment he ran in I figured he was looking my way, but had no clue he was staring directly into the camera. Upon reviewing my photos after the play, I couldn’t help but smile and chuckle as I secured one of my favorite photos of the year.

If it looks familiar, it’s because it was one of the huge pictures I put in Northside’s section of Game Day 2023.

Going back to softball, we have probably my favorite picture of the year. If I wasn’t so sentimental about the first, this one would probably be it as far as celebration shots go.

This picture came at the end of HoCo’s first extra innings game of the season, and it was against a Tift County team residing at the bottom of the standings.

It was the bottom of the eighth (high school games only go seven innings), and senior Ariana Pham was up to bat with two outs.

Pham had a runner on third, and hit a fly ball to short right field that was assumed to be the final out, but the fielder missed the catch and the Lady Bears walked it off.

When it happened I couldn’t believe it, and I was lucky enough to get my camera up in time and somehow avoid the mass of people flooding the field to catch this magnificent picture.

The crown jewel of sports photography is capturing peak emotions. There will always be a poster, or a home run, or an interception or something like that. It’s not every day you manage to capture pure unbridled emotion like this.

This is the first picture of the bunch that doesn’t have any type of special meaning to it, and that isn’t a celebration.

Pictured is junior Rasean Dinkins rising up to snatch a ball out of the air for an interception in Warner Robins’ playoff game against Creekside.

The Demons ended up losing this one, but when I got back home and edited these photos this one had my jaw dropped.

The way the lighting is so crisp, the perfect framing of the intended receiver reaching up behind Dinkins, and Dinkins sitting in the air perfectly with the ball in his hands. This is really one of the only action shots I took this year that I’m just super proud of, so I had to include it in the list.

Last, but certainly not least, is this one.

Overall I was pretty disappointed by the shots I got from baseball this year (at least to my absurdly high standards set for myself), because even though I got a lot of roars from guys getting on base and nicely framed shots of pop-ups, I just didn’t have that ‘this is the one’ shot.

Cue senior Carson Shaw, who walked the series off for Perry on a two-strike two-out RBI ball against Whitewater.

This picture did numbers going around the HHJ Facebook, and it’s definitely up there as far as my favorites go.

My favorite thing about this one is that to me it displays the definition of triumph. If you look up that word, this picture should be sat next to it.

The roar he’s letting out as he runs into the outfield, his helmet held up as he leads the charge, it’s just awesome.

With the year for sports officially wrapped up, I’ve got a lot of time to reflect on everything I did in the last year and figure out how to do it better for the next.

This first year of pictures certainly raises the bar and will make it very difficult for me to be satisfied with ones that I take next year, but as always I’ll try my very best.

This feels like the perfect way to celebrate my first year with the paper, and I want to say thank you to everyone who’s played a part in my first year at the HHJ. Here’s to hopefully many more.