Photography, the art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, has always been used to capture a moment whether that be a moment with friends, families, or nature. Capturing the moment in a photo, presented through various photographers, has always been evident in the community through the various fall, winter and spring sport-held games.
In main game events like Varsity Football and Basketball, various student specialized sport photographers can be seen coming with their cameras and lens, whether it be on the field or on the court. Nonetheless, one of the rising photographers hopping onto the sports photography train is sophomore Anibal Escobar-Chanez.
Only recently photographing sports, he found an opportunity in sports photography due to the frequent games taking place. It allowed him to have more practice as well as building his portfolio.
“It’s easier to get on the field rather than attending concerts or weddings, which only happen so many times a year,” Escobar-Chanez said.
Throughout the spring season of AHS sports, Escobar-Chanez has been able to become more familiar with the field, calling it a ‘practice year’, in order to get comfortable taking sports pictures. Since he recently started pursuing this, he is taking a casual approach. However, in the future he plans on doing this professionally.
However, Escobar-Chanez’s journey didn’t automatically start in sports. Back in 2021, Escobar-Chanez was first introduced to photography in Camp Foundation, a camp held by his local church, Iglesia Capital. He recalls looking at Joaquin, otherwise known as Guac, the head of the media team 2022, taking photos of the event. Curious about the camera, he walked over to ask about it and eventually asked if he could ‘mess’ around with the camera. Joaquin reluctantly agreed,
“After like 5 minutes of using it, I knew that it was something [photography] that I wanted to do,” Escobar-Chanez said.
Later on Joaquin would give him that exact camera, a Nikon D3200 and was gifted two lenses- a 50mm and a 35-135mm. Ever since then, Escobar-Chanez has joined the Camp Foundation media team, always attending each year to take in-the-moment photos of the children. Due to this motivation, Escobar-Chanez enrolled into Photography class, to attempt to become more knowledgeable about different types of photography and etcetera. Later on he also purchased materials such as Gimbal, a pivoted support that allows rotation of a camera on an axis, cleaning equipment and hard drives.
Through Escobar-Chanez’s photography journey he has seen visible improvement in his work habits. Specifically his working habits , he noticed his productivity increasing as he began to work for longer periods at home and at school. This improvement also comes across his editing process using Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, as he describes his editing process as long but not difficult.
“It’s really just getting home, putting my photos in my hard drive, picking the best ones out, editing those and then sending them to whoever,” Escobar-Chanez said.
As Escobar-Chanez grows throughout his journey, he hopes to continue to work with his friends involved in photography and continue working as part of the media team for Camp Foundation. In the future, he hopes to take the next step and charge for his photography whether it be sports or weddings, taking his passionate hobby onto a professional level.
“ My end goal is, I want to make hella money through my photography,” Escobar-Chanez said.

To view more of Escobar-Chanez photography work, feel free to check him out on Instagram @anibal.esco.