Sunday’s Colts-Texans recreation a surreal second for native sports activities photographer

When Heather Williams handed Kylie Schepers a digital camera in 2018 and instructed her she felt she could be good at sports activities pictures, sitting in Lucas Oil Stadium taking pictures of her favourite NFL group wasn’t even a glimmer of an concept for the then-17-year-old Southridge senior.

Williams, who coached the Southridge Middle School Volleyball group on the time, needed her to take pictures of the eighth-grade recreation.

Kylie simply needed to go dwelling; she was drained from cross nation follow.

But she caught round and photographed the match.

“In that moment, I knew I wanted to do this,” she mentioned.

Ever since then, anytime she may, she’s been on the sidelines of sporting occasions documenting the gamers, the performs and the crowds.

After deciding to dedicate herself to the career in 2021, she’s continued to hone her craft. Her work highlighting Southern Indiana highschool sports activities and even faculties has deepened her experience and supplied extra alternatives, together with, lastly, the chance to work for the NFL.

Sunday, she was a number of ft away from Alec Pierce’s first landing for the Colts as they confronted off towards the Texans at Lucas Oil Stadium. She was so shut that she thought her first NFL recreation would additionally embrace getting run over by an NFL participant.

It’s her favourite picture from the greater than 700 she took of the sport, and it was featured on the NFL Focus Instagram web page.

The second is the fruits of a dream that started the day she determined to stay round and take some pictures of eighth-grade volleyball.

Getting there has taken not solely Kylie’s continued drive to enhance her pictures expertise but in addition some boldness and networking to create alternatives and be taught from different professionals.

“Being in the sports photography industry, it’s all about networking and connecting and who you know, and not being afraid to send out that email saying, ‘Hey, I want to photograph, and I want to learn,’” Kylie mentioned.

This second happened by means of her connections with Todd Rosenberg, a Chicago-based NFL photographer who reviewed her portfolio through the league’s annual portfolio overview program in August. She was certainly one of 25 photographers chosen for the portfolio overview.

During the overview, these skilled sports activities photographers walked by means of her portfolio, grading her work, providing recommendations on the way to enhance it, and giving her an opportunity to ask them questions.

“At the end of the interview, they said, ‘We’re going to be watching you because there’s a reason why we picked you and 24 other photographers,’” she recalled. “They said, ‘Don’t be surprised if we ever reach out to you in the future.’”

And then Rosenberg contacted her every week earlier than the Nov. 30 recreation, asking if she needed to {photograph} for NFL Focus on the Colts-Texans recreation.

Working alongside different skilled photographers on the sphere on Sunday was a surreal second for Kylie. A second she’s been working towards for seven years.

“I’ve been wanting to photograph in the professional league since I picked up a camera,” she mentioned, including that anytime she’s watching video games on TV, she’s watching the photographers as an alternative of the performs.

The NFL project proved emotionally overwhelming–she was stunned by the quantity of neighborhood assist that she obtained after asserting she could be on the recreation. Her household attended the sport and watched her work from the stands, whereas quite a few neighborhood members reached out with congratulations and shared display grabs of her from tv broadcasts of the sport.

Those messages actually confirmed the assist she had from her dwelling and the athletes she had been photographing for therefore a few years.

And as she was sitting there with these different photographers on the sideline, the truth of it hit her.

“I’ve always told myself I want to be on that sideline one day. And so the moment the game started, sitting on the sidelines with these 10 to 15 other photographers like that was just a moment where I was, like, ‘I did it,’” Kylie mentioned.

She tried to carry again the tears.

“I was trying to keep composed, you know, because I didn’t want to be crying on the sidelines,” she defined.

But it was laborious in that joyous second of realizing she had, actually, performed it.

In the embedded Instagram put up, Kylie’s work is featured within the fifth and eleventh photographs

The recreation was fast-paced, a faster tempo than the highschool and faculty matchups she had photographed through the years, however her expertise allowed her to adapt and create some nice photographs. Rosenberg supplied stay suggestions all through the sport, and NFL Focus supervisor of pictures Ryan Kang and director of pictures Ben Libenberg reviewed her work from Los Angeles because it was live-fed to them.

She obtained numerous constructive assist from all of them. After the sport, Rosenberg delivered encouraging information about her efficiency, telling her he would suggest she apply for an internship with NFL Focus sooner or later. But he additionally added that he had little doubt she could be making a dwelling as knowledgeable sports activities photographer, and he hoped to work together with her once more.

Kylie plans to proceed her work on the sidelines with the excessive faculties and faculty connections she’s made, able to return to any potential future assignments from NFL Focus.

Today, although, she’s sitting at dwelling basking within the emotional excessive of achieving certainly one of her skilled targets. A glow that highlights the continued grind of collating and enhancing her pictures whereas catching up on the brand new season of Stranger Things.