As a kid, I always favored art classes over sports practice. In gym, I would just wait to get hit by the ball in dodgeball so I could go sit on the fence the rest of the time.
And I’ve never been much of a sports photographer — I typically cover politics, breaking news and features. My most notable sports assignments have been covering Preakness 143 and Preakness 147, the women’s lacrosse world championships and the occasional Ravens game back when I was an intern.
One of my goals for 2023 is to get better at photographing sports.
The U.S. Naval Academy hosted its 82nd Brigade Boxing Championships last week. I thought this would be a great way for me to challenge myself by not only taking on a sports assignment, but by taking on a sports assignment that I knew would be especially difficult. Admittedly, I know nothing about boxing. I used to watch it with my dad when I was younger, rooting for whatever color trunks the boxer was wearing that my dad wanted to win.
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As luck would have it, this boxing match turned out to be a historic one.
Two midshipmen, Aidan McNally and Adrain Johnson, went up for the Tony Rubino Four-Time Brigade Champion Award. To qualify for this match, each contestant has to have won their weight class at the Brigade Boxing Championships in their first three years at the academy. So in order to face each other, McNally and Johnson had to reach the same weight class ahead of their bout. This was the first time ever in the history of the Brigade Boxing Championships that two people who were both up for the four-time champion title would be boxing against each other.
McNally took home the title, beating Johnson, his best friend and roommate. To top it off, McNally’s father, Jim McNally, was the boxing coach, and this championship was his last night ringside before retirement.
Photographing boxing came with a lot of challenges. You can only stand in one of two corners, and one is occupied by a large TV camera and operator. The tables with judges are up against the ring, so that leaves a very tiny space on one corner for whoever is photographing. I was able to shoot upward with my camera from underneath the middle rope. Boxing moves fast, so my autofocus kept catching the ropes that were also moving, which was my main struggle. I got pretty cozy with the other photographers; there were about six of us taking turns shooting from the best position.
The Sony A1 has a wonderful tracking feature and that came in handy, but the lighting wasn’t ideal so I had to compensate in my settings. For most of these images I purposefully underexposed in order to ensure the action was crisp. I knew I wanted a mixture of wide, tight and medium shots to give my visual story some flow. To accomplish this, I photographed with a super wide lens and a long lens, both suited for low light. The fold out screen on the Sony A1 came in handy for the awkward positioning I was in. I was able to lower the camera and point upward into the ring and below the ropes. Normally, I wouldn’t take vertical shots, but I felt that the positioning of the ring called for it in some cases, like the frame below.
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Photographing sports isn’t just the action, it’s also about the win. Celebration photos taken at sporting events are some of my favorites because you get the action, reaction and all of the emotion that led up to that specific moment.
This specific match was a lot more intense than the previous matches on the card that I watched leading up to this one. This one was fast and hard-hitting, a constant back and forth of contact. No one was holding back. Both boxers knew a historic title was on the line. When McNally was declared the winner, he immediately grabbed Johnson and hugged him in a tight embrace while his father, Jim, smiled and clapped. After all, they are best friends.
I learned boxing takes a lot of anticipation, patience and a steady hand to document it correctly. Next time I’d like to get more crowd shots and reactions.
As for champion Aidan McNally, he said he’s wanted this title since he was a kid. He’s going to become a pilot after graduating from the academy.
“I thought about going pro, but getting punched in the head is a hard way to make a living, so I’ll probably stick to flying,” he said.
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