This interview is with Haley Spracale, Photographer.
For Pursue The Passion readers, how do you describe your role today as a photographer with a focus on sports?
I do sports photography as a side gig! I work to provide families with photos of their kids excelling and having fun in sports. I want young athletes to have action photos of themselves the same way they see photos of their favorite professional athletes.
What path led you from early theater and dance photography to the assignments you cover now?
I still cover dance and theatre! I think they are sports, too. That being said, the young athletes in competitive dance are likely to receive professional photography of themselves from the event hosting the competition. Young athletes playing in little leagues, recreational tennis, travel volleyball, etc., don’t always have the same perks.
In fast-changing daylight sports, what are your go-to mirrorless settings and habits that keep your frames sharp and your exposure consistent?
I shoot fast and try to keep my aperture low. I want to capture as much of the picture as possible.
When you need to be invisible to capture honest moments, how do you build trust with subjects and minimize your footprint on set or on the sidelines?
I do my best to blend in during the moment by wearing neutral colors, quiet shoes, and, if needed, I will sit lower to the ground so I am out of the direct line of sight of the subject.
Outside of game time, I look to introduce myself to the coaching staff, game security, families, etc. I want to make myself available to others so they can learn to trust me and my work.
What is your end-to-end workflow for turning a shoot into a clear narrative deliverable, including your approach to selects, captions, rights, and layout in tools like Adobe InDesign or LightRoom?
The minute I finish shooting an event or game, I go home, put my card reader into my computer, and open up Adobe Bridge. While the event is fresh in my mind, I want to review all of my photos and make selections of what I plan to keep and edit so the game story is still clear. Plus, I never want to worry about something happening to my SD card overnight.
After I make my selections, I save a copy to my external hard drive and import the images to Lightroom. I do minimal editing, focusing on balancing the lighting and sharpness.
Once my edits are made, I save a copy of the new edits to a different folder and then upload them to Google Drive (or, if requested by the recipient, Dropbox or other similar platforms).
Looking ahead, which emerging change in photography—such as mirrorless advances or AI-assisted culling—do you expect will impact your work most, and how are you preparing for it?
I’m excited about improvements in tools like AI-assisted culling and photo editing. Being able to take an image you have lost all hope for and bring it back to life is an exciting promise.
Humans will always be the ones taking the photos.
