Snapping Sports: Freshman Will Griffith purses a passion for sports photography after growing up around cameras

Sprinting down the sideline with his Nikon D810, freshman Will Griffith waved to the student section while they were calling out “Will!” before turning back to the football game just in time to snap his favorite photo to date: a clear shot of senior CJ Leonard pointing at junior and videographer Calen Domingues after a touchdown.

Will has grown up with his mom’s camera in his face — Nicki Griffith started her photography business around the same time Will was born.

“By the time he was one, I had 1,000 photos of just Will in my camera roll,” Nicki said. “He was naturally curious and fascinated with my camera – and he knew how to handle it.”

Since Will was 5 years old, he’s brought a camera to every event for his mother’s photography business and all of his cousins’ baseball games. The staged, smiling portraits taken at the shoots bored Will. They felt stiff and forced. So he took his camera and directed it to something more exciting to him: sports.

“I didn’t want to do portrait [photography] because it didn’t seem very natural to me,” Will said. “I wanted to do sports [because] it was what comes to me [naturally].”

Will began shooting local sporting events from soccer to basketball to volleyball. While his mom would remind him to increase his shutter speed and adjust his ISO when shooting fast moving objects, Will would teach her how to shoot each sport.

His main strength is capturing photos the athletes want to see: their catches, goals and celebrations. He understands why the athletes want those photos, as he’s played soccer and baseball his whole life.

Will took photos with the Indian Hills Middle School journalism program starting in seventh grade, then shifted over to independently shooting games at East. This year, Will has shot events like the soccer game against Shawnee Mission West, Varsity football games against Gardner Edgerton and Olathe East and the freshman football game against Gardner. He looks forward to shooting more events like the Lancer Day and Rockhurst games.

His main following comes from posts on his Instagram page: @willgriffithv5. He’s proud to be dapped up by upperclassmen at sporting events who have seen his photos on the page — photography has given him a sense of belonging at East.

“You don’t have to go out of your way and be cool to a young, starry-eyed freshman who’s out there goofing around with a camera,” Nicki said. “He’s connecting with a lot of people.”

He’s also had the opportunity to team up with junior videographer Calen Domingues, known as “Calen Films.” For Will, it’s always amazing to see the picture he takes compared to the video Domingues shoots, creating a bond with Domingues over the game they are both shooting.

“He’s very talented and he knows what he’s doing,” Domingues said. “Being a freshman doing all that — that’s crazy.”

Will hopes that eventually he’s able to pursue his photography as a business. He thinks that as he improves, the money will start coming in, but he doesn’t want to be the guy that charges high school students for photos. Right now, Will is in it for the fun and the connections that his photography brings.

“Later on, it would be awesome to do this as a business,” Will said. “Right now I’m just trying to make a name for myself.”