Inside Ohio Sports Photography, How Browns, Bucks and Blue Jackets are all in Ric Kruszynski’s Playbook

On this episode of the ZoomPod, Cleveland-based Sports Photographer Ric Kruszynski stops by to talk about covering Ohio State Football and Hockey, The Blue Jackets, the crazy Browns season this year, and his favorite sport, Rugby!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

When you get a younger photographer, what's the formula of photography? You know what? One, you got to be really good. It helps if you're consistent. It helps if you're friendly and accessible and reasonable to work with. It helps if you're confident and you're able to assert yourself, to reach out to people. There's one common thread throughout most of the really high-profile kinds of gigs that I've gotten. There's a point in there which I reached over a line to connect with somebody and asserted myself to take a chance. Hey, took these pictures, you might be interested in them, thought I'd show them to you. And they went, hey, you're on to something there.

TMac 0:54

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom with our feet podcast, the pod about learning photography. With me, your host, T Mack. I am a professional photographer, videographer, and teacher. On this episode of the Zoom Pod, Cleveland-based Rick Krasinski joins me to talk about his journey from shooting his kids with a stranger's borrowed camera to his lifelong love of trading cards and shooting sports at the highest professional levels. Our guest speaker is in the photo lab. Let's talk to a pro. Rick Krasinski, welcome to the Zoom with our feet podcast. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:53

I am great. Thanks for having me.

TMac 1:55

All right, so I always throw this softball as the first question. What was the first camera you remember using?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Oh my goodness. I know our family had a film camera when I was young. Um, but it was, I don't know, the equivalent of what we might think of as a point and shoot now. Um I couldn't tell you anything about the model or anything like that. I got a uh Canon PowerShot point and shoot. In the early 2000s when digital first hit. I joke with people that most phones have twice the megapixels that that thing had at the time. Um, but monkey around with that, mostly just for pictures of events and things like that, standard family stuff. Um didn't try to do any real photography with it. But uh I'm gonna go with the Canon Power Shot from modern age.

TMac 2:52

Tell me, so so then that leads to what I call the photo journey. Where did that where did where did it get serious? And and how did that and where did that journey take you?

SPEAKER_02 3:09

So I'm gonna offer a really old bit of context that informs the journey and then speed it up a little bit. I was about five years old. My mom took me to a garage sale and bought me a shoebox of baseball cards that I was absolutely enamored with, and thus began what is now a 52-year card collecting uh habit, whatever you want to call it, uh hobby. Um, and have been wrapped up in photo images of sports really since I was a little kid. Um, and uh used to get like the old sports illustrated magazines, hockey digests, things like that, cut out pictures and save them uh when I was, you know, eight, nine years old, what have you. Was very, very into sports photography as a little dude. And uh flash forward uh a number of years, and uh kids of my own at this point, my 10-year-old uh son starts playing travel baseball. And uh I was one of those parents at high risk to be a difficult little league parent. Uh, you know the type that are too emotionally invested in the outcome of 10-year-old sporting events. Um, so um I was that guy, but there was another gentleman um whose son played on the team who every week he would bring a camera, uh DSLR to the game and uh never take it out of the camera bag, but he always had it there with him. And finally, I got up the nerve after a number of weeks and said, Hey, are you gonna take any pictures? Would you mind if I tried it? Um, and he showed me a way around the camera a little bit and said, No, go ahead. I bring it thinking I'm gonna do something with it, and I just decide when I get here I'm not gonna, but I figured I'd have it just in case. So uh he let me start monkeying around with it, and the rest of that season, every game, I would come up to him and go, Are you gonna shoot today? No, can I take pictures with your camera? Sure. So I borrowed his camera on a game-by-game basis, taking pictures of 10-year-old travel baseball players. Um, towards the end of that season, um, I had uh uh asked some of the players if I could do posed photo shoots with them, having them pose in the old 1950s style baseball card uh you know, images, right? Just a real corny, cheesy sort of poses. And um, they did a great job for me. But uh the team itself was not particularly good. And so when there was this discussion at the end of the year about, well, some of the parents were like, are they gonna get trophies? Like, no, you don't get trophies for a team that isn't any good. Why don't we make them? We want some something to remember the season by. Why don't we make them a set of baseball cards? So at the time, Topps baseball cards had a website where you could use the current Topps card design, upload your pictures. I had the coaches write up a little blurb for the back of the cards for each kid, put some statistics on them that they had kept, and then used in-game photos to create baseball cards and sort of playing out my own little baseball card thing, um, but also getting uh, you know, the opportunity to do something kind of cool for the kids that uh would commemorate that season, right? So that summer really gave me the bug, um, although I didn't own a camera still, um, and would just borrow uh my friend's camera. And uh would then I'm like, you know, I I started looking at the prices of cameras. I'm like, I can't afford to get a nice camera. So I had to ask him if I could borrow it for other stuff, and hey, could I rent it for a weekend from you, you know, whatever, and um start showing up at other little league events and other high school games and things like that, just to go out and do it. Cause it was just a I really enjoyed just taking pictures and getting some decent shots out of it. But you know that phase that we all go through where you're in auto and you don't know what the hell you're doing, and um and but every now and again you nail a shot that you think is great and makes you want to keep doing it. So that's kind of where it it started, and then it got you know continually weirder from there.

TMac 7:40

Baseball cards for a kid's team. Well played.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I was very fortunate that the coaches were supportive of the idea because it was totally a desire on my part to um to be able to say I took pictures on a that are on a baseball card. Years later, I had the opportunity to meet the gentleman who was the photographer for Topps baseball cards um in the uh 80s and 90s, and uh he and I struck up a friendship and it was just kind of cool that he had taken thousands of card photos of cards that I owned, and I got to meet the guy and talk to him about it. It was really cool.

TMac 8:18

That's that's crazy. I I and the fact that in addition to creating a set of cards, you got the photography bug.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Sure did. Um, was absolutely uh caught up at that point, and I don't know, within a year and a half of that, I went out and bought a 7D, uh Canon 7D, um, to get started. Um kit lens, the whole deal. Um figured out, I don't know, a year into the 7D. Well, the 7D Mark II would really be a good thing. And that that's when you know you really got the bug when you start having to do the gear upgrades. Um so um, you know, you get off and running with it.

TMac 9:05

Well, the the the next question is as you got into it, bought your first camera, now you're starting to pay attention to other work. Who who influenced you?

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Oh my. Um I'd go back to what I had said before. I so much of the images of sports cards and sports magazines were the source of things that were, you know, just I was obsessed with them really as a kid, and and had them constantly in front of me. I I tell folks all the time, I'm like, imagine sorting baseball cards a couple days a week, every week, for 20 years. And and you're just you're looking at sports images. And so I didn't know till years later who was taking them. So to be able to name an influence necessarily uh wasn't there, but it was where they were coming from. And you know well that the the photographers that that whose work makes it into a sports illustrated or something like that are are you know their next level. Um, and it really is like, wow, that's you could get that photo, you could do that. That's really you know, I'm I'd I'd love to be able to shoot like that one day. Um so you got it bad. You start trying, right? You're like, okay, exactly. Well, I may only be able to get into a high school football game, but I'm gonna try to get that sports illustrated quality shot.

TMac 10:39

So those soccer game uh the soccer game period with borrowed camera, uh, you were teaching yourself the exposure triangle, yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:55

I learned that. Um I I it was both soccer, baseball, a little bit of football at the time, all high school sports mostly. Um high school little league. Um didn't even know there was an exposure triangle until somebody who had seen me getting started and talking about getting started said, you know, there are some really cool YouTube tutorials out there that you could learn a lot from, might be worth checking out. So I just did the casual surf through YouTube and you know, learning how to use my 7D, whatever. And um, a couple of the that rabbit hole uh led to some, hey, there is a thing called the exposure triangle, and when you learn it, you'll be better. Um, and lo and behold, I tell people to this day, you know, the the first thing you gotta do is get out of auto because I couldn't believe how much better my photos got when I stopped shooting auto, right? That moment of clarity we all have. Um but it's just funny every time you run into somebody who's new and they're they're pretty latched onto auto. I was that guy, so I get it. But um YouTube tutorials mostly, um, internet uh blogs where people would write about this stuff. Um spent a lot of time reading, um driven a lot by not wanting to do poorly at anything I do. So I get really wrapped up in it and like if I'm if I'm gonna bother, I want to be good at it.

TMac 12:24

Um you are all manual all the time? Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah, for I don't know, 10 plus years.

TMac 12:35

Yeah, man. Um, full disclosure on some of the soccer games. If I got sun rolling in and out, I might uh sneak it into auto ISO.

SPEAKER_02 12:46

But other than that, I'm I I don't consider auto ISO cheating, really, you know, um, especially for that. I mean, you get all kinds that the light dynamic that you're describing, um, changing light, whatever, you might have to do that. But once you get a game that's under the lights or whatever, I'll I'll lock in for sure. Auto ISO is your um your sundown go-to uh while you've got the field changing uh light tones multiple times.

TMac 13:17

Um 7D, what's in your kit now?

SPEAKER_02 13:27

My kit now is a 1DX, Canon 1DX Mark III, uh, and a Canon 1DX, the first edition is my backup. Um, and uh three lenses are my go-to for everything. Uh I've got uh a 300 2.8, um, a 7200 2.8, a 2470 2.8, and uh damn near everything I need to get, I can get with those three lenses.

TMac 13:56

Agreed.

SPEAKER_02 13:56

Are there days I wish I had a 400? Sure. Are there days I wish I had something a little wider than a 2470? Sure, but not enough to justify going out and buying the new lens. I I get about 90% of what I need to with those three.

TMac 14:11

I have the exact same set plus the wider 16 to 35. That's that's the only addition to the same stable.

SPEAKER_02 14:23

I keep a 1.4 extender um in there. Don't use it all that often, but it's not, you know, if you need it for something, um, I shoot a lot of big wide field stuff, uh, rugby, soccer, football, etc. So now and again, uh if I can't be particularly mobile and I'm not able to zoom with my feet, uh got some pretty arthritic knees. Yeah, I know.

TMac 14:50

Um I may pop on the extender to limit my having to run up and down the sidelines some, but uh I would rather sit on my little photo expandable and shoot away.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Right.

TMac 15:10

So you've got the extender uh 300. Oh my gosh, I have the Mark II version, and it's just it's like a classic car.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

That's the same one I'm using. Uh the Mark II. It's um it's rock solid. If I'm taking bad pictures with it, it's about me. It's not about the lens, that's for sure.

TMac 15:33

Do you have a favorite sport to shoot?

SPEAKER_02 15:37

I um I have a 1A and a 1B. Um I love rugby, which I got introduced to through my son when he was in junior high. He tried out rugby, um, fell in love with it, told me I'm not playing any other sport the rest of my life. All I want to do is rugby, and wound up playing on two state championship teams. Um, and uh now is an assistant coach at the high school he played at, and he introduced me to the the rugby community, and I love to shoot rugby. You get um, it's a very um vicious game, um, and a highly skilled game, and you get all that together, but no helmets obstructing faces, no equipment blocking anything. You get people, and you get people in very visceral emotional states, and so I find rugby photos in particular to just be the best kind of sports photography because it's just so the game itself is in your face, and it allows the photos to be very in your face, and so I I I love rugby photography. My favorite sport is hockey, and so I love to shoot hockey um for a bunch of other reasons, but those are my top two. If I were only shooting one or two things, it would be rugby and hockey, and I'd be good.

TMac 17:06

The really quality rugby photos for me is you're right, they're not wearing equipment, so the emotion on their face and their eyes during play is is second to none to me.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

The emotion and very often, I mean, the higher up ranks you go, I've had the opportunity to shoot New Zealand and the All Blacks uh against uh the United States national team. And um to see the game played by the folks at the absolute highest level and to see a combination of the emotion and the absolute physical specimens that these folks are. Um it's it's incredible, really, their commitment to what they do and putting their bodies on the line that way. And it's not to say that people aren't putting their bodies on the line in other sports, but man, doing it with no pads, doing it with it's just it's a different, it's a different gig, and the people who play it are wired different.

TMac 18:19

So tick off some of the sports that that you shoot.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

I would say the vast majority of what I shoot these days, I've been um on the Browns, the Cleveland Browns game day photo team now for I think uh six years. Um so I uh a bit of a cutback schedule this year, asked to do a few less games for the wear and tear and whatnot. But so I did football that way and um and still do uh some when I get the chance. I do a fair amount of soccer, both college and pro, as we have a a common colleague, and uh I shoot for him and his publication um uh with International Soccer Network. I'll go ahead and plug it because I'm a big fan of that. Uh so we'll do professional college, whatever, high school, because I've built a relationship with some high school teams uh that allow me to come out and shoot with them, and so uh that's in there too. I do um a ton of hockey in the winter, just an absolute ton. I I was um basically the team photographer for Ohio State's hockey team for six years, um, and then uh was also shooting for Columbus Wired um and covering the Columbus Blue Jackets NHL uh club. That gave way to reaching out to Upper Deck trading cards and offering to shoot for them, and uh a very fun backstory there if you ever want to hear about it. But uh nonetheless, I uh struck up uh a few conversations with folks at Upper Deck, got myself a tryout shooting for them, and I've now shot, I don't know, 30 or 40 games for them, and they keep me busy all winter long uh taking hockey trading card pictures. So um hockey probably gets more of my time than the other sports, but um rugby, football, soccer, um, hockey would probably be the majority of what I might do.

TMac 20:33

How was this Browns season for you?

SPEAKER_02 20:37

Well, I'm an old Browns fan from the time I was young, and uh anytime we're better than not, I consider it a great season. Um I enjoyed the chemistry on this team, I enjoyed the personalities on this team. I think anytime you can advance to the playoffs, doing it with four quarterbacks and with all those injuries, it's a testimony to the people on that club. So it was uh an enjoyable year. Sucks the way it ended, but you know what? I I can't say I was really disappointed because they exceeded expectations. Uh at least for me anyway, I'm sure they have higher expectations, but um enjoyable to shoot for sure.

TMac 21:18

Walk me through. I'm I'm interested. I've been in both stadiums for several dozen games on the TV side. I did that for many years. And so I I've never had a chance to ask one of the photographers about their day and their work. For what time do the photographers get to the stadium?

SPEAKER_02 21:48

We are there. Well, it depends. There are a number of folks, our game day team. There are six or seven of us who are there on game day. The actual team photographer is there at the crack of dawn. Um, and then each of us. Trickles in based on what our assignments are for that day. So, for example, if there's somebody who's assigned to shoot the player arrivals, they're there particularly early. Sometimes they'll want to get a sunrise over the stadium shot, so you gotta be there when the sun comes up. It really kind of depends on the nature of what your assignments for that game are. None of us are there any later than 10 a.m., usually 9-ish or so. Players come out, take the field for warmups at 11. Got to get some candid pregame kinds of stuff to submit. Come back out in uniform for warmups at noon. Gotta get all that stuff. And then about 20 minutes before showtime, then you're positioning for all the rest of introductions and national anthems and all the rest of the hoopla, right?

TMac 22:55

So when they come back out in uniform, uh I've always been curious, and now I get to ask someone, um, is that your chance um as uh as a photographer to get some of the tight uh images of them, you know, quarterback throwing but tight uh image that you just may not get an opportunity during a game. Is that the time that you can work some of those type of images in?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, there's there's restrictions about where you can be during the game relative to where the players are on the bench. So it's much, much harder to get close shots like that with uh, you know, in-game that way. Um I was doing on Instagram for a while each year, three or four times a year, I do a little set, a little mini gallery called Faces of the Game, where I would only post super tight up close shots of player eyes, player faces, um, to just sort of showcase the closeness that that there is there. And um to make it extreme, and you'll appreciate this, we talked about that 300 before. Imagine shooting close-ups from uh behind the end zone with a player in the end zone with a 300. Um, and you know, you can't even get their their whole head in the in the thing. It's it's that close. But boy, if you want to zero in on somebody's eyes, um, especially if you pick up the intensity of their preparation and these kinds of things, you can get some really cool moments that way.

TMac 24:47

You mentioned in-game um is this a team for the team of photographers for the team?

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah, so the Browns have um Matt Starkey is their team photographer, amazing photographer. Um, and he handles all of the duties for the team. Um, you know, daily practice, travels with them, the whole deal. He's their main guy. He has a squad of us who are available to him to cover, you know, if he needs an extra body or two on the road. Uh, game days at home usually require six or so people because of the the variety of activations and events that have to be covered. We need this advertisement, we need this promotional thing, we need this celebrity, we need, you know, whatever. A lot of non-football that the team helps cover. So we all get a pretty equal distribution list of assignments and whatnot in game. And um, you know, you you find out a couple days before you get a shot sheet that lays out, you know, here's what your tasks are in-game. And second quarter you can shoot football, we don't have anything else. But halftime need you to do this. Yeah, exactly. You just you go through your checklist and make sure you're getting everything that that's that's given to you. And um, I think a lot of people would be interested to know that the you know, the game day photo team, while all of us get some really cool football photos, it's not really the primary reason we're there. The primary reason we're there is to capture all of the marketing and promotional stuff uh for the team, and the football stuff is an extension of that. Um, it's you know, Matt's job is the primary you know, game action photographer.

TMac 26:35

So so from that shot list, usually by the second quarter, you're free to move about the sidelines?

SPEAKER_02 26:46

Oh, it changes every every game. Um there may be uh so-and-so's marching band is performing at halftime. Can you get them? Uh there's a corgi race at halftime, and we need you to get pictures of the corgis in action. Uh the uh the weather kid is gonna come out and do such and such in the third quarter. I don't know if you've been down to the stadium this year, but in the third quarter, uh going into the fourth quarter, they have a young man that plays guitar solo uh from the dog pound, and so that's just all these little events and little moments that are game day ambiance. So, you know, one game you might be free in the second quarter, another game you might be free in the fourth quarter. Um, we're all covering different parts of the field, different events in those things, uh military flyovers, you know. I mean, you name it. Everything that that happens on game day, he's gotta there's gotta be a record of it.

TMac 27:44

When you are covering action, does does he divide that? So your your targets of opportunity, or are you covering a running back? Is it Nijoku? Is it um is it a player assignment or uh cover cover whatever?

SPEAKER_02 28:08

We've done it a couple of different ways, and it sort of varies between what Matt thinks is going to be the best way to cover the game. There have been times where he has said, you know, there are a couple of you guys that I want shooting from the back of the end zone and stay generally grounded there. There are a couple of you I need floating up and down this sideline or that sideline. And so when the play comes into your part of the field, whatever it is, whoever it is, that you get your target. There have been other times where each of us were assigned a position group. Um, some of my favorite stuff was when he was giving me like the O the O-line and the D-line, uh, and and get in there and get the wide bodies and getting after it. And I'm, you know, it's not something that maybe your photo instincts tell you to do. You're starting to point at the ball most of the time. Uh but focusing in on O-line, D-line is you know, it's cool. And we've had that as assignments, you know, pick a position group that you know it's out there and he'll tell us to cover it.

TMac 29:11

Non-Browns games, football. How do you cover a game? Do you have a set flow of how you cover a game? I I cover this first, this second, this third.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

Um you mostly have a sense of, and it depends, I think, too, what um who you're shooting for, who you're there for. Like if I'm shooting an Ohio State game, I'm there for Columbus Wired. And they're gonna want all of the game day ambiance that says this is a Buckeye event. So you're gonna get Brutus, you're gonna get um Script Ohio, you're gonna get um, you know, pictures of the marching band as much as anything else, and fan shots, and uh player arrivals, and the coaching staff. So you almost kind of know what you have to get because it's it's it's part of that the flavor of the event that way, right? Basically, you're left more to your own devices. Do I want to get the merching band? Am I gonna get cheerleaders? Am I gonna get fans? Am I gonna get the bench? What you know, it's just sort of what you're more struck by.

TMac 30:27

So in the in the Brown situation, what is your post-game uh edit workflow? Or or are you editing? Are you delivering cards or are you also responsible to edit after the game?

SPEAKER_02 30:49

All six or seven of us come back to the media room and uh unload our cards onto a shared drive. So Matt ends up with 20,000 photos or something from the game from among us. We're all clock synced so that the photos are flowing um you know by timestamp and and whatnot. Um, he can select them by photographer, an assignment, he can select them by what have you. So what we are tasked with doing immediately after the game is organizing and culling the photos into folders that are your assignments. Very often I get um the color guard, the national anthem singer, the player intros, whatever. So I've got a folder set up for each one of those events. Put the photos from those different assignments into labeled file folders, and then upload the file folders into the master uh drive where everybody's putting their stuff. Um, so it's usually, I don't know, an hour and a half or so after the game of work. But in terms of actual editing, for standardizing purposes, our team has somebody who does all the editing for all of us. And they're stationed in the media room, editing both real-time in-game from the from the photographers who are transmitting directly back to the media room uh in-game. And I had a chance to do that for a couple seasons to those of us who aren't turning in photos till after the game, but they're all being edited by uh a single person so that they they maintain a consistency uh in the editing that way. What you find is if you ask six different photographers you know, um they all see the the image a little differently, or they do a little color intonation a little differently, or what have you. And um that's fine when you're shooting for you. Um when you're shooting for a three billion dollar company um that's using those photos to market its product, you better be consistent. So um consistency in editing is is usually one person's job.

TMac 33:07

Wow, one person. I would have never I mean I get the re I I get the reason, but you know, twenty thousand images later, um uh uh that person's definitely got some got some tricks in their workflow.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

There are some sharp cookies in that group, some really talented folks, and and you do over time develop a streamlined process. Um it becomes easier to sort the all right, this might be garbage, this might be something.

TMac 33:39

What do for Rick's pictures? Um what do you use? What is your go-to?

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Oh, um, I edit in in camera raw and Photoshop. Um and uh I don't use most of the features in Photoshop. I I think it, you know, the iceberg analogy that you only see 7% of it, right? Um I probably use 7% of the tools that are in the photo editing capability that's otherwise available to me. Um it's a boring old adage. I try to get it as right as I can in camera and then try to really limit. When I one of the things I noticed from the really, really good photographers who I admired um is that they often spoke of editors that really discouraged heavy editing. They really, you know, don't be saturating things, don't be sharpening everything, don't be, you know, whatever, just keep it pretty low-key. Um, and so a minimalist sort of approach to editing has been one that I've adopted. Um it helps a little bit with workflow, but I I just feel like it it keeps it a little bit more genuine, too.

TMac 34:57

Yeah, agreed. And and also we're both old enough to understand the notion of getting it right in the camera.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

Yeah, which, you know, is sometimes easier said than done. And it I I like having the ability to go back and correct it when maybe the image was great, but I misread the the lighting or you know, the camera setting changed on me and I didn't plan on it, right? Every once in a while you have that. You're like, wait a minute, how did I end up in that? Um, so if you can go in and correct some things, that's great. I like having the ability to do it. I just don't want to depend on it.

TMac 35:34

Understood. If you had to define your style, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 35:44

Oh, it's um I'm taking pictures for trading cards. And I I've had people uh joke with me about like, all your pictures look like you're taking trading cards. I'm like, yeah, because I have like uh three-quarters of a million trading cards that I've acquired since I was five years old, and that's the kind of photography I like. And every once in a while I have to do get out of my comfort zone and take something that is different that way. But I'm not an artsy photographer, I'm not trying to be really creative. I'm looking to get a cool action shot that would look nice on the front of a magazine, or that would be a cool poster in your bedroom, or that would be neat to look at on a trading card. You know, it's um it probably sounds cheesy, but it's it's really a simple thing for me. It's um usually my criteria is is this a picture I would frame and hang in my house? Um, and if it fits for me, like I that's the kind of photo I like to look at, those are the photos I tend to take.

TMac 36:50

What um, and you've worked with some just amazing photographers, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Truly.

TMac 37:00

What have you taken from their work?

SPEAKER_02 37:05

That's a really cool question. Um I would say a couple things. One of them, and one of them flat out said to me at one point, is like, you know, at some point, we're all pretty close to equal, you know, and and whatnot. But what can set you apart is your professionalism. Um, how you conduct yourself for the people you're shooting for, how you conduct yourself on the sidelines with other uh photographers, whether or not you're dependable and reliable, and um these kinds of things, right? That are you wouldn't think that they're the photography driving traits, but at the end of the day, um if if a uh customer has an opportunity to hire one of two photographers who are equally good, but one of them is difficult to work with, and the other one is a joy to work with, um, what sets you apart is not your photography. Um, it's it's whether or not you're a reasonable person and whether or not you're enjoyable to work with, and if your work is consistent. I and I think the other thing that I've taken away from the real super high-level photographers is how important it is to be decent to new people. Um, and I had a couple of folks who I just consider completely next level out of this world photographers, who have always been gracious with their time, have always taken time to answer my questions, explain things to me, sometimes caution me about things. Um helpful hints: hey, I saw you doing this, you may want to make sure you do it this way differently, or else you're gonna regret that. The the little extra that it takes to help somebody who they could identify as still on the upswing of their learning curve, um to try and be that for other people, um, and uh, you know, not be uh a jerk. Um, there are some folks in the business and the industry are pretty full of themselves and uh have uh uh personality styles that make them challenging to work with, and um to just not be that, you know, to be welcoming um and to be kind and gracious. I you know it's funny we're you think we're talking about photography, we're talking about just being a decent human being, really. Um so that I that's that's a big takeaway for me. It's been less about the photography and more about the personhood side of it all.

TMac 39:44

Professionalism.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Yeah, that big time. Big time. I had uh two different editors had say to me when I was going in, you know, how you conduct yourself as a professional will have more to do with your longevity around this and whether or not you get other opportunities than almost anything else. Um and they're right.

TMac 40:04

Dovetailing on that, what is what is the reward for you that keeps you shooting?

SPEAKER_02 40:13

It's it's evolved and it and it continues to evolve to this very day. Um there's the joy I get out of capturing somebody's success. Um there's a concept uh that I'm very fond of. Uh in Sanskrit, the word is mudita. Uh means to take joy in the success of others. Um and being able to capture moments of performers, athletes, competitors succeeding in what they do. Um feels like a I I really enjoy that. I I get great satisfaction out of being able to. And the cool thing about it is that it applies to any athlete, any competitor at any level. It's not, I'm not just talking about, oh, this person scored a touchdown in the NFL. It's a freshman in high school who made his freshman team and got to play five minutes in a game, but he he had three touches on the ball and he looked good doing it, and I got it. I got that moment. Um I get as much joy out of that as I do out of, you know, 60,000 seat stadium and uh being able to catch moments that document the success of people and the hard work that they put into what they're doing is where I draw most of my joy from.

TMac 41:39

That's you sound like a teacher.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

It it it has some of that in there. The the the selfish side of it is that about two years ago I started shooting for upper deck uh hockey cards, and um I now have about 3,000 hockey cards with photos uh that I took on them. Um that remains the single most surreal thing is to open up a pack of trading cards and see a card that I took the photo of. Um, I started collecting hockey cards when I was about eight or nine years old. Um, so to have that experience, that's a reward that I don't have words for really. Um and I don't think it'll ever feel normal. I really don't. Two years in, 3,000 cards later, and I still, every time I see a new one, I'm like, oh my god. Um like a little kid. So it activates the eight-year-old in me, and I'm I'm perfectly fine with that.

TMac 42:45

Last question. As I'm sure you have, I get many people that ask me, uh, because I shoot a lot of high schools, high school sports. I have a lot of people asking me, I want to shoot sports. How do I do it? What do I do? If someone asks that to you, what do you tell them?

SPEAKER_02 43:10

Mostly they don't like my answer, um, which is you start at the most basic level, like anything else. You um go shoot pictures of your nephew's Little League game, go shoot your sister's dance recital, go shoot things that you could just be at that don't require credentials, that don't require anything special. Um go up to the high school gym, go up to the football field or the lacrosse field or whatever. Um ask a coach Hey, can I work on my photography here? I'll share the photos with you if there's anything good. Um, but I'm a I'm a very big believer in you earn opportunities, and and if your if your work is good enough, somebody will eventually want you to. Do more. Um, but if you know, you sort of have to crush it at the level that you're at, whatever that is. Taking 10-year-old travel baseball pictures, take really good ones, um, and see where it leads. So for me, it's usually about telling somebody do the stuff that's obvious, the low-hanging fruit. I up until maybe just a couple years ago, I I lived uh not far from Brunswick High School, where my kids went to school. Um, I would wander up there three nights a week, uh, regardless of what was going on. Girl soccer, boys' soccer, football, whatever, baseball. Um, just to go take pictures um and do that every week to to to keep my chops up, and then you start sharing photos with people, and one thing leads to another, you know the drill. Um, so but I'm a big fan of work your way up, and that means doing getting really good at high school before you're doing college stuff, and getting really good at college before you get pro opportunities, and you know, it I will say this there are, as you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of ways to get from point A to point B with one's photography, and there is no one right way, there is no perfect way, there's none of that. So um because I happen to think about it the way I do, there are certainly people who, you know, I I've met people who the very first thing that they've shot sports-wise was a professional event. Um and and I roll my eyes at first, and it maybe it was because they knew somebody or whatever. Um but okay, there they are, and if you want to stay there, you're gonna have to deliver quality. Um so you know, the path is the path.

TMac 45:56

And everybody's is different.

SPEAKER_02 45:58

Everybody's is different. Truly, it it it truly is. It's hard to when you get a younger photographer, what's the what's the formula for telling me? You know what? One, you gotta be really good. It helps if you're consistent, it helps if you're friendly and accessible uh and reasonable to work with, it helps if you're confident and you're able to assert yourself, um, to reach out to people. Uh, you know, if there's one common thread throughout most of the really high-profile kinds of gigs that I've gotten, there's a point in there which I I reached over a line to connect with somebody and asserted myself to take a chance. Hey, took these pictures, you might be interested in them, thought I'd show them to you. And they went, hey, you're on to something there. Um, but I might, you know, if you're if you're shy and reserved and whatever about it, uh, maybe that's not happening. So all of those things can contribute, right?

TMac 46:56

Indeed. Indeed. Well, Rick Krasinski, I can't thank you enough for taking part, being a part of the project. Um, your work is outstanding. Uh, I'm a sucker for good soccer photos, and um, that is my favorite um because I played and my kid plays. So um our mutual friend did well getting us together. Indeed. Thank you very much. Thanks again to the extremely talented Rick Krasinski. You can check out all of his work on Instagram. The Zoom With Our Feed podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. The Zoom Pod theme is by Novembers and their funky groove Cloud 10. Until next time, photographers, if you're not shooting, you're not learning.