Los Angeles Times Videographer and perennial SSA Faculty member, Myung Chun, came home from SSA VIII this past weekend to the exciting news that a documentary piece he worked on the LA Times had won an Emmy Award.

Caught in the Crossfire: Victims of Gang Violence, a story founded by LA Times staff photographer, Barbara Davidson, that won the Pulitzer earlier in the year won in the category: NEW APPROACHES TO NEWS & DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMMING: DOCUMENTARIES.  Myung shot all the interview footage for the project. Barbara and former intern, Carlo Rinaldi, shot the on-location b-roll on the intern’s 8mm film camera.  Many, many people (around 20 including web programmers and designers) worked on the project but, they’re not all named. According to Myung, this wouldn’t have been possible without everyone’s effort.

From the official Emmy website the award reads as follows:

NEW APPROACHES TO NEWS & DOCUMENTARY PROGRAMMING: 
DOCUMENTARIES

Los Angeles Times                                                                                             Latimes.com
Caught in the Crossfire: Victims of Gang Violence
Photojournalist
Barbara Davidson
Videojournalist
Myung Chun
Producer
Albert Lee
Executive Producers
Mary Cooney, Alan Hagman
Story Consultant
Chad A. Stephens

 

Emmy Award winner and SSA Faculty Member, Myung Chun

As a participating supporter of this year’s workshop, Matt surprised students with a drawing for a Website Design from Livebooks for One Year for two participants. This year’s winners were Ethan Klosterman and Steve Limentani.  Their current website links appear below along with their favorite shot made during SSA VIII.  We  look forward to seeing the “before” and “after” websites in the coming months and watching their online presence grow into a representative brand with the expertise of the designers and the products at liveBooks!

Thank you liveBooks and Matt Bailey for your contribution to the success of SSA VIII!

ETHAN KLOSTERMAN – Photography Student – Univeristy of Dayton.
www.flickr.com/photos/ethanklosterman/

“I’d like to thank liveBooks for their support of the Sports Shooter Academy. Their support of photographers helps ensure there is continued development of our craft in the future. The information and advice co-founder Matt Bailey shared was insightful and valuable to many of the photographers that attended the Academy. I’m very excited to work with liveBooks to take my online presence to a new level! I’m looking forward to a new, refined website to display my photography.” – Ethan Klosterman

STEVE LIMENTANI – Owner – Sports Action Digital Photography – Charlotte, NC
www.sportsactiondigital.com

“I was listening to Matt Bailey talking about Livebooks’ and was starting to grasp the tremendous potential.  When designing my current site, I had worked to make it user friendly with good SEO.  Now I was hearing about a product that would not only be user friendly but have great SEO and a better initial presentation to visitors.  What a great way to decrease my bounce rate while improving my visibility!  At the end of the day, even if you have good pics you are dead without good marketing.  What a shock when I won the free year of livebooks, can’t wait!” – Steven Limentani

THE HUSTLE AWARD – SPONSORED BY NIKON 

MAT BOYLE – NPS BACKPACK (Photo by Mat Boyle)

This award is named after Chris Detrick, who attended the first Sports Shooter Academy while a student at the University of Missouri. Chris so impressed the the workshop’s faculty and staff with his hard work, initiative, creativity and good humor that he was recognized for his efforts with the “Hustle Award”. From then on it became known as the Chris Detrick Award.

Chris is now a staff photographer at the Salt Lake Tribune.

THE TRAVELLER AWARD – SPONSORED BY THINK TANK PHOTO

Thank you perennial workshop supporter, Think Tank Photo, for providing product to share as our prizes for some of most important student awards!  Think Tank has been there from the beginning and from the look of every students matching Think Tank bags at every on location site, they will continue to be the go to bag for every workshop need.  Think Tank Photo Travel Pouches were awarded to:

FROM THE WEST: JOHN HENG (SINGAPORE)

FROM THE EAST: FELIX HEYDER (GERMANY) & DANIEL MULLAN (U.K.)

The international contingent of SSA VIII Photographers!  (L to R) Jack Megaw, Felix Heyder, Matt Redstone, John Heng, Daniel Mullan (photo by Matt Brown)

For the first time in workshop history, the entire student body and faculty were present on the sidelines learning, gasping, and shooting the heck out of the action unfolding on the field.   And, with a final score of 52-45, there was plenty of action to shoot!  Santa Ana College (black) hosting Palomar College (red/white) played smash mouth football and the results for the photographers on the field were a slideshow of high quality sports shooting images any editor would be proud to have run.

Saturday’s Daily Best Image was voted by faculty as the Overall Best Image of the Workshop. Photographer, Lisa Neal, who’s winning image appears above, won an Urban Disguise 60 bag courtesy of SSA VIII supporter’s, THINK TANK PHOTO.

2011 SSA VIII Daily Winners:

	SSA VIII Best Image of Day 01: Photographer, Joe Lorenzini. Orange Coast College men’s water polo team vs Golden West.
	SSA VIII Best Image of Day 02: Photographer, Pieter Sientara. Cal State Fullerton Women’s Soccer Team celebrates a goal on their way to a 2-0 win vs. San Diego.
	SSA VIII Best Image of Day 03: Photographer, David Bernal. CSF Fullerton midfielder Ritchie Gonzalez (11) during a non-conference men’s soccer game between the University of Denver Pioneers and Cal State Fullerton Titans at Titan Stadium in Fullerton, California.
	SSA VIII Best Image of Day 04: Photographer, Lisa Neal. Palomar WR, Nigel Westbrooks, is upended on his way to the endzone by Santa Ana DB, Avery Lynch in a 2OT 52-45 win for the Dons at Santa Ana Bowl.

Robert Hanashiro is the co-founder of the COOLEST sports photography event in the country, the Sports Shooter Academy. A California native, Robert got his start in the central valley as a journalism student Cal State University-Fresno. After starting his career as a staff photojournalist and Director of Photography for the Visalia Times-Delta, he became the USA TODAY Los Angeles based staff photographer on 1988. Bert or “The Kahuna”, as he is known to friends, is also the founder and publisher of the Sports Shooter Newsletter which has published over 140 issues since 1996 to over 7,500 subscribers. Robert’s vision and dedication to education and helping young photographers is evident in the countless hours and late nights he devotes to make the Academy a reality.

ROBERT HANASHIRO The Visalia Times-Delta, Chief Photographer, 1979-1989 USA TODAY, West Coast Staff Photographer, 1989-present 1998 – Began publishing the Sports Shooter Newsletter 2001 – Held first Sports Shooter Workshop & Luau 2003 – Started SportsShooter.com 2005 – Held first Sports Shooter Academy

Why do you love photography?

I love telling stories, whether it’s through words or images. But I believe that the power of images is strongest. To be able to convey a thought, show a personality, give a viewer the news … to inform, enlighten, entertain and educate in a single glance is very powerful.

Who was your mentor or the most influential person in your professional career?

Growing up and spending the first 22 years in Fresno, CA. there were really no mentors for us photographically. My father was also a “newspaper man” — working for a small community newspaper outside of Fresno — he is my earliest memory of what journalism is. He and my mom are also the ones that instilled in me that hard work is something you challenge yourself with, no matter what that work is. And most of all they showed me that it’s “family first”. Photographically during my high school and college years my idol was W. Eugene Smith. I collected every book and article I could about him and spent hours studying his work. Another early influence was a book my cousin Gordon showed me when we were juniors in high school, “Self-Portrait USA” by David Duncan Douglas. It’s a photo essay on the 1968 political conventions and I still look at when I need a boost. As far as sports photography, Neil Leifer was every photographer’s influence in the 70′s and he still is. I came to USA TODAY from a 22,000 circulation newspaper to a national publication that at the time had a circulation of over 2 million. Was I scared? Hell yeah. The person that has been my mentor/rabbi through the early days all the way to today has been my colleague Bob Deutsch. He is the a great friend and the best photographer I know.

What’s your most important reason for being involved in the Sports Shooter Academy?

As I mentioned, when I was growing up and then going to college, there were no mentors in Fresno … the photographers at the local newspaper were not very involved with the high school and college photographers. I started the Sports Shooter Newsletter by accident, emailing rants about this and that, sharing information about tech stuff and passing along stories I’d read. Those emails got forwarded around, posted on bulletin boards and all of a sudden people we’re contacting me wanting to “subscribe”. Within a year or so after I had started sending out these emails fairly regularly I had several hundred “subscribers”. Now I have over 7,000. My buddy Brad Mangin helped me with a lot with a patient ear and lots of good advice…which later turned into a partnership that developed SportsShooter.com. The logical extension of Sports Shooter was some kind of meet up and the first educational programs we did, the Sports Shooter Workshop & Luau, was born. I a lot to Ronal Taniwaki for helping us get that first workshop off the ground and he’s the one that came up with the name. For several years we held the Workshop & Luau and the final program attracted about 500 people. Teaching and sharing information is what Sports Shooter is all about, so after I decided to end the Workshop & Luau, Matt Brown and I developed the Sports Shooter Academy, a smaller program that would be different in that it would be more hands-on and most importantly would involve shooting. And now we are about to hold the 10th Academy workshop. These programs give me the opportunity to have my friends, who happen to be some of the best photojournalists working today, educate, inspire and guide students and photographers from around the world. Sports Shooter has been my way of giving a little something back to a profession that has been pretty good to me.

What would you say is the most important moment/image in your career to date?

I would say I have a 12 important “moments” in my career. I’ve covered a dozen Olympic Games since I started at USA TODAY and each one of those is extremely special to me. From Seoul to Sydney to Lillehammer, Norway to Beijing to Greece to Nagano, Japan — it was been a wonderful, memorable ride. A single photo … I guess would have to be the image I made of the final play of Super Bowl XXXIV. With the clock running out, Tennessee Titan wide receiver Kevin Dyson is stopped just short of the goal line by Rams’ linebacker Mike Jones, preserving a 23-16 win. The image is of Dyson stretched out in the grasp of Jones as he reaches toward the end zone. That Super Bowl is often referred to as the best ever and is listed in everyone’s Top 10 list of greatest endings of all time. And that photograph taken in the last second sums up that game.

If you could jump into a time machine, what advice would you give a young you 20 years ago?

Listen to your mom and dad. Stay in school. Get the 24mm instead of the 35mm wide angle. Never buy a Pinto no matter how cool the paint job is. And shoot, shoot, shoot…

SSA Co-Founder and USA Today Photographer, Robert Hanashiro, helps a SSA VII student with a portrait at La Habra Boxing Club.

Matt Brown is co-founder of the Sports Shooter Academy. His tireless work and contacts in the world of college sports is the main reason the SSA is the COOLEST sports photography event in the country, giving participants an opportunity to cover sports in a real-world environment. As the team photographer for Cal State Fullerton sports and working closely with the media relations and promotion staff, Matt has a view of sports from both the inside and outside the field. His knowledge or sports and athletes is what makes his work stand out in the highly competitive business of sports photography. Matt’s work has appeared in most of the top sports publications in the country. In the past couple of years, he has begun to take his talents to video camera, producing both long and short projects for the Titans’ website. Matt’s energy, drive, good humor and keen eye makes him a popular workshop instructor during the nightly critique sessions.

MATT BROWN Matt Brown Photo Freelance from 1989-present In-House Photographer, Aerotron Airpower: 1989-2001 Contract Photographer, Orange County Register: 1994-2005 Contract Photographer, Cal State Fullerton: 1999-present Matt Brown is one of the Co-Founders of Sports Shooter Academy in 2005.   “These are the only three clients I have full time contracts with. I have over 80 clients, some are regular, some I work with once a year.”

Why do you love photography?

I get a chance everyday to share in other peoples’ lives and adventures.

Who was your mentor or the most influential person in your professional career?

Al DeVito at Fullerton College. During my junior year in high school I took a photo class during the summer at the local college. Mr. DeVito really opened up photography for me and moved my way of seeing to a new level, and with that my love affair began with photography.

What’s your most important reason for being involved in the Sports Shooter Academy?

Giving back to the photo community.

What would you say is the most important moment/image in your career to date?

The spring of 1997 I shot a photo at a Long Beach State baseball game that I have never seen before and still haven’t seen that I call “Ump’s out”. It was my first double truck opener in Sports Illustrated.

If you could jump into a time machine, what advice would you give a young you 20 years ago?

Buy as much stock in Apple as you can!

SSA Co-Founder, Matt Brown, shares his expertise with students at SSA VI.

Sports Shooter Academy is proud to announce that Samy’s Camera will be sponsoring SSA VIII!

Samy’s Camera will be on location during this year’s workshop to provide equipment expertise, rentals and savings on any purchases during the 4-day event. They have also generously donated funds to provide additional funding for workshop scholarships for patient full-time photography students and military personnel that have been on a SSA VIII waiting list since early spring. Thanks to Samy’s Camera, more students will benefit from this year’s outstanding faculty’s time and expertise shooting a wide variety of elite athletes from the field to the beach of Southern California this September.

“One of our goals is to make the workshops as accessible as possible for students to attend,” said Sports Shooter founder Robert Hanashiro, “Samy’s Camera is helping students plus military personnel do just that.”

The Sports Shooter Academy is a four-day, hands on educational program that gives students and working photographers and opportunity to cover real sports events under the guidance of a faculty comprised of award-winning photojournalists.

Workshop participants cover a wide variety of sports to help them expand their skills in producing storytelling sports images, lighting, digital workflow and editing. Each evening the workshop participants receive one-on-one critiques from the workshop instructors that help them expand their vision and creativity.

“The Sports Shooter Academy is real world experience,” said workshop co-founder Matt Brown, “We have real sports, real athletes, shot in real time. And on deadline.”

Sports Shooter Academy VIII includes students and photographers from literally around the world, with participants from Germany, Singapore, Canada, Spain, Australia and the UK.

Sports on the workshop schedule for SSA VIII include: College soccer, volleyball, water polo and cross country. Additionally sessions involving professional tennis, beach volleyball boxing and lacrosse will be shot by participants.

“Thanks to Samy’s Camera for their commitment to photography education,” said Hanashiro, “With their help we will continue to educate and inspire students, working professionals and amateur photographers.”

Samy’s Camera joins a list of sponsors and supporters that Sports Shooter Academy is proud to be associated with for this year’s workshop.  We are very grateful to our major workshop sponsor, NIKON, for their continued funding of student scholarships as well as supporter’s Think Tank Photo, liveBooks and MAC Group/Pocket Wizard.

Take this nice SSA story that unfolded recently surrounding a Sports Illustrated shoot this past spring.

MEET NATE RYAN | SSA VII ALUMNI:

“I attended sports-shooter academy Spring 2010 as a senior in college. It was a great experience. Coming from a small liberal-arts school, I learned a ton of technical skills regarding remotes, lighting etc. The interactions with the instructors in the evening editing sessions were the most helpful part of the whole workshop. In addition to the great criticism and suggestions, it provided a opportunity to work one-on-one, and get to know some amazing photographers. Despite only being a few days long, SSA’s incredible intensity helps to build strong relationships and connections that last beyond the workshop. Having a roommate, beyond saving a little money, is a great way to create one especially strong connection with another student.

It is important to remember to take time out of the hectic shooting schedule of SSA to connect with the other students and instructors. About four months after SSA, I received a call from Shawn Cullen, a SSA instructor and assistant to Sports Illustrated’s Peter Read Miller. Shawn and Peter were planning a project in the Twin Cities and needed an assistant on a portrait
of Adrian Peterson. While I didn’t have a ton of lighting experience, Shawn knew me from the Academy and hired me to help out. Now a year later, I’m scheduled to help Peter again at the USA gymnastics championships here in St. Paul.

Sports Shooter Academy’s connections can even reach beyond the students you meet in your year of the workshop. I’ve gotten to know Getty Sports photographer and SSA alumna Hannah Foslien and received some great critical feedback on my portfolio.

The SSA workshop teaches many technical skills, but the interactions with some of the best in the industry is invaluable.”

~ Nate Ryan
www.nateryan.com

Tim Mantoani

TIM MANTOANI Tim Mantoani Photography, Blog Tim Mantoani has been photographing athletes since he graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in 1991. His work has appeared in numerous publications including Sports Illustrated and ESPN The Magazine and his commercial clients include EA Sports, Coca-Cola, Coors and Pepsi. Look for Tim’s much anticipated new book soon: Behind Photographs (see the SSA sponsor’s liveBooks feature here). Right: Herman Leonard and Tim Mantoani © 2010 Tim Mantoani

Herman Leonard & Tim Mantoani

Why do you love photography?

The same reason I love chocolate, just pure goodness and satisfaction.

Who was your mentor or the most influential person in your professional career?

I was fortunate to work for Dean Collins for several years and really learn photographic lighting.

What’s your most important reason for being involved in the Sports Shooter Academy?

I need to give back a bit. Photographers like Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer have been willing to share their time with me, I need to return the favor.

What would you say is the most important moment/image in your career to date?

Building a football field in the middle of Time Square to shoot the cover of Madden 12.

If you could jump into a time machine, what advice would you give a young you 20 years ago?

Work your ass off and don’t stop!

SSA Faculty Member and Lighting Luau featured presenter, Tim Mantoani (right) at the EA Sports cover reveal with winner and Alabama and New Orleans Saints RB, Mark Ingram.

SUSANICA TAM Susanica Tam Photography, Blog “I’ve been assisting Bert Hanashiro at USA Today since 2005, and the Sports Shooter Academy since 2008. I’m an adventure photojournalist (climbing, surfing, mountaineering) and wedding photojournalist, and a former newspaper photojournalist.

© Lama Nasser

Why do you love photography?

Because on its most basic level it communicates and transcends barriers of all types, different languages, cultures, backgrounds, and ages. It’s a way creating art in a really relatable way.

Who was your mentor or the most influential person in your professional career?

My mentor is former L.A. Times photographer Rick Meyer. Rick was my first photojournalism instructor and taught me how to go for it while cleverly steering me through so many milestones: getting my first camera body, landing my first internship, dealing with a difficult boss, joking that the jerks I was dating weren’t worth it, my second internship, business practices, assignment mishaps, and life lessons. I’ve had countless critiques and influences in my shooting from so many amazing working photographers that have propelled me to where I am now, but it was Rick who believed in me first. If you’re reading this Rick, thanks for keeping me on my feet—I am so grateful.

What’s your most important reason for being involved in the Sports Shooter Academy?

There’s something amazing about the sheer lack of sleep and excitement that gets me through the crazy camp. I’m always wiped out the week afterwards but would not give up the chance to be around to give back to the future of photography—you guys! The students! Seeing how hard the students work is also rewarding and I always take away some element of inspiration from both students and instructors. Also, it is enormously rewarding for me personally to be around such talented faculty. As a freelancer I am alone on shoots 95% of the time, with no newsroom to return to, and it’s a huge privilege to be surrounded by the leaders in your field to swap stories a couple times a year.

What would you say is the most important moment/image in your career to date?

This is a difficult question to answer as my work has spanned many genres and occasions, unlike some of my colleagues I don’t have a key image from a Super Bowl or Olympics. As cheesy as it is I would say the most important moment would be the one I’m currently working on, as it is always a culmination of where I am thus far, based on what I’ve learned before. I think it’s important to evolve and as they say, “you’re only as good as your last frame.” Keep shooting!

If you could jump into a time machine, what advice would you give a young you 20 years ago?

Be human. In the business world, who you are is just as important as your skill as an artist, because if you’re a douchebag you won’t even get in the door. Your personality will get you in, your work will keep you there. Cultivate your relationships, be reliable and bring everything to the table, every time. If you must close a door, don’t burn it down and throw away the key, just be courteous about it and move on. Don’t be afraid of struggle, it gives your work meaning when you overcome it. And don’t work for free, make sure you are getting something out of it that translates directly into you bettering your position.

SSA Faculty Member, Susanica Tam, is multi-talented in front of the camera and behind it. (photo © John Evans)