Junior Nolan Cain has made a name and legacy for himself here at Oak Hills as a sports photographer. His Instagram media account, njc.media.09, has over 500 followers. The question is, how did he get to this point?
“I’ve been doing photography for six years now, what inspired me was seeing what other people did with
[photography]” Cain remarked. Utilizing Oak Hill’s many available digital art classes, Cain took the photography semester-long class his freshman year, to which he credits learning a lot about how to edit his photos. He is also currently taking Digital Media Productions One and Two this year. While Cain may have had many years of photography under his belt, he didn’t start becoming a sports photographer until last year.
“My uncle is Dave Weisker, he does all the sports announcing…he was probably the best resource I could ask for. I just wanted to see if I could do anything with the [photography].” After getting the support from his uncle and the thumbs-up from Ben Hageman, the athletic director here at Oak Hills, Cain was set up for his first gig. “I was going to go to the Sycamore game, but that got rained out. I don’t know if I was originally going to go to the homecoming game, I didn’t know if I was thinking of doing photography after the Sycamore game, but I decided to go.” Thankfully, Cain decided to follow through with the job, (photo right from that Homecoming game) and hasn’t looked back since.
Cain puts a lot of thought and time into his photos, making sure that they look professional. In order to take his media account to the next level, Cain started to add edits to his photos and create gameday graphics late last year. “I felt like I could do a lot more creative stuff with [my photos]. That was my first time ever trying it, and I feel like those were some of my best shots.” Cain remarked, discussing a photoshoot in a game against Middletown. Through trial and error, he learned how to make these professional-looking graphics. “I looked at my edits from two weeks ago, and they were terrible. But they are much better now. I think that jump in editing was because I knew that’s what you had to do for sports photography, and that’s something I wanted to do.” Cain pointed out two photos that he felt were his best shots. One of Senior Mike Branch celebrating on the sideline (top) and one of the football team celebrating with the student section (bottom).
When asked about continuing his media account after college, Cain responded by saying “I wouldn’t mind going to Ohio University for photo journalism, my dream school is UC for their architectural and communications design…they also have a very good photography program.” Whatever he decided to do, Cain will definitely be remembered and appreciated by the Oak Hills Athletic community for his hard work and contribution.
