Final Project Proposal

Title: Intensity of Competition (Tentative– maybe one of my photographs will inspire me to something better)

Format: Photo essay, 7 photographs

Concept/Theme: I want to shoot a flag football game from start to finish, showing the action and what goes into the game. From the huddle to the final drive, there are rampant examples of the intensity of competition throughout. Most of the boys who play are former athletes, allowing them to care about the game on a more visceral level than non-athletes– this is essentially the only competition a lot of them have now. I’m graduating this year, so I chose this theme as I thought it would be a good opportunity to try action photography, which I never have before, and to record something in a more tangible way that has been a pretty big part of my college years.

Purpose/Intent: I want my photo essay to show the strife of competition, even when that competition on the surface is unimportant. It is still so easy to get into the spirit of competition and let it get to you even when it’s just intramural sports. Humans by nature like to compete. It was and in many ways still is, fundamental to the survival of humanity. Obviously, I won’t be capturing a life or death situation, but the idea is still there.

Production Plan: I plan to shoot my friends’ games, or possibly more than one (although the photo essay will be comprised of photographs of only one game). I plan to take a large number of photographs; possibly up to one hundred to go through for my photo essay. I want to include a shot of the pregame huddle, a shot of the field, and then a series of action shots. If someone gets a turf burn that leads to bleeding (and I expect they will, as I always do), I want a photograph of that as I think it will exemplify the strife well. I also want to include some sort of celebratory shot, although I don’t know whether that will be post-game or post-touchdown.

Inspiration: I suppose to a certain extent I am inspired by sports journalists– but that is also what makes me nervous about the project because I think that really great sports photographs are very rare. I just want to capture raw human emotion, which I think comes through when people partake in activities like sports and connect with their most primal emotions. The project will be challenging. Action photographs often are, but I am excited to undertake the challenge.

Expected outcome: My audience will primarily be my classmates, who can relate to my work as they are also college students. Even if they don’t play sports themselves, a good number of them will be sports fans. I want them to experience the pain and triumph of these games, and to be able to interpret the emotions within the photographs. Whether they will admire or disdain the most primal human emotions I hope to capture will be left to their own interpretation.