Photography

After a point, senior Karsen Chapman celebrates with her teammates. The Free State volleyball team played against Shawnee Mission Northwest High School Cougars on Sept. 10 and won 3-1. “My teammates are my best friends and I’ve had the privilege of playing the last four years with some of the most amazing people in my life, the team culture and environment is so special, it’s a family,” Chapman said.

Volleyball is such an action packed sport filled with so many emotions. Throughout this game, I noticed that Karsen Chapman was expressing the biggest emotions after every point, so I decided that I would focus on getting a reaction shot of her. Using a high shutter speed, I captured her braids in motion which adds so much to this photo, filling the frame and adding an aspect of motion.

During the chemical spectrometry lab, junior Katherine Stancil looks through the lens and tells junior Mady Whitney the colors she sees. “I enjoy chemistry because I have friends in that class and the labs are super fun,” Stancil said.

Chemistry photos are some of my favorites. The fact that this photo is only two colors makes it stand out and make an impact. I had to make sure my settings were on point for this photo because it was so dark in the room, and the red was really bright.

Reaching for the basket, junior Ethan Prescott goes in for a layup against Lafayette High School's defense. The Free State basketball team won 56-43 on Jan 29.

I have always wanted to get a wide under the basket shot in basketball and this is the one. I was standing up so I could have both the basket and the players in the photo.

Leaping through the air, Sarah Song makes a final move in her solo calligraphy dance performance at Ovation on Feb 2. Song, a sixth grader from West Middle School, started dancing when she was five years old and found Chinese dance choreography to be her creative outlet.

This talent show had the perfect black background for this shot. The dancers clothes and pose in the air capture so much emotion. I had a high shutter speed to make sure there was no blur at all in her high speed dancing.

Giving his point of view, senior Maakin Ibrahim Shaheeq explains a math problem to senior Ami Bhattachan and his group in Alyssa Barratt’s AP Calculus BC class. “I took Calculus BC because it was a subject that interested me and felt like it could challenge me. I enjoy a lot of the topics that we do in class and love sharing the class with my friends,” Ibrahim Shaheeq said. 

This shot was taken as part of my KSPA state contest submission for academics photography. The prompt was to get a photo of an activity in a math, english, or social studies class. During my math class, the teacher had us play a competitive review game for an upcoming test and I thought it would be interesting to get it from a students perspective, so I shot this from over a students right shoulder.