As social media continues to grow in society, a number of Prince William County students have taken advantage of it. Throughout the past two years at Patriot High School and other Prince William County Schools (PWCS), the presence of sports photography and videography has had a surge in popularity among students.
Among these students are well known photographers such as Sydneyb_shoots, Shotsby_mattb, and JJCapturedit. The three of them have a combined 5,285 followers on Instagram and are leading the new wave of sports photographers in the Prince William County area.
Sydney Bezelik (‘23), the girl behind the brand Sydneyb_shoots, was the first major factor to pioneer this trend. She started photography her freshman year at Patriot taking portraits and eventually transitioned into taking senior night, graduation, homecoming, and prom pictures. It wasn’t until her junior year that she began shooting sports. She started the spark in popularity when she did, taking pictures of football, basketball, diving, lacrosse, baseball, and soccer. As a senior, she began taking pictures for InsideNova and as a student at James Madison University, she became a photographer for their athletics. She no longer shoots for them and is now back to being a freelance photographer. She has also shot for the NBA, the NCAA Lacrosse Tournament, and the WNBA.
Through Bezelik’s pioneering, Matthew Barber (‘25) (Shotsby_mattb), Jonathan Warren (JJCapturedit), Riley Ridings (Flixbyriley), Ridwhan Rahman (Rahman_Illustrates) and multiple others began sports photography as well during last school year. “Sydney is one of the more significant people who influenced me to do this, I used to play sports myself and looking at her work I loved seeing it on Instagram” Barber said. Each major sporting event at Patriot was filled with a variety of different freelance photographers at all ages from high school to mid-age.
Because of the overwhelming amount of photographers at high school sporting events in Prince William County, the Prince William County education board made a policy so that if you were a photographer, you had to be signed with a newspaper or media organization to be able to shoot at any PWCS events.
In response to this, Barber and Warren joined the NOVA Sports Media Team (NSMT) so that they were able to shoot. On top of the ability to shoot at PWCS sports events, joining the NSMT allowed the both to earn payment for their skills outside of PWCS events and was a huge accomplishment for both of them in their young careers. Barber, as only a high school junior from Patriot and Warren, a graduate from Battlefield have both already earned major respect in the Northern Virginia area as photographers and look to continue their growth.
At Patriot high school, through Bezelik and Barber’s leadership, the Patriot Photography Club has grown exponentially since the two began. “It has grown a lot since I’ve joined it. When I joined it we had about 10-12 kids in the club and now that people are seeing more sports media or creative media coming into the county has caused it to grow tremendously. In our interest meeting we had like 50 kids at the meeting” Barber said. The photography club allows for students to share their creative media and for photographers to help each other learn different photography techniques, styles, and editing techniques.
With the continued growth of media programs at Patriot High School and the popularity of high school sports in the Prince William Country area, the growth of sports photography and videography does not foresee an end in the near future.
