A Fair Game | A brief overview about my photography story

Clements HS Football v Katy Taylor (Sep 2014)

I grew up in Sugar Land, Texas and as many of you know, football is big in Texas. I started taking photos seriously during my freshman year of high school, of (you guessed it): football. My first game I was extremely nervous. Not because of how the photos might turn out, but because I would go somewhere I wasn't supposed to, get hit by a ball or player, or take a photo of something I wasn't supposed to (what can I say I was only 15). I didn't have to photograph anything or anyone in particular, mainly because I wasn't photographing the game for the newspaper or someone else. I was there for me, but more importantly I was there for my friends & their families.

You see, I started taking photos of high school sports & sports in general because I wanted people to have memories of the things that were most important to them. My parents wanted photos of my brother playing lacrosse & football, so my dad gave me an old Panasonic Lumix camera. I was frustrated with the lack of quality & the inability for the camera to capture the photos like the pros do (crazy to think now I could be considered one).

Year after year, upgrade after upgrade, photo after photo, I was finally starting to get the photos I wanted. I began to seriously enjoy the photos I was making, but more importantly I was enjoying the many rewards of photography: the smiles on peoples faces, the joy of seeing people interact with my pictures and most importantly, knowing that what I was doing would help people remember the important memories of their lives.




—Michael Tollestrup

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