Paul Wilke

My "muse" or "inspiration” for this project comes from someone who goes unnoticed at every sporting event here at Lawrence. He captures moments of happiness and moments of disappointment. Paul Wilke is an amazing sports photographer who is incredibly selfless, as he doesn’t get paid for taking pictures. I think he has a way of capturing special moments within each sport, moments that only last a few seconds. For example, in volleyball there is something called a pancake. This is when you fall for the ball and just barely get your hand flat under the ball to pop it back up. This move happens so quick that it can be hard to spot, but Paul Wilke was able to capture this happening multiple times as seen below.

                 Paul Wilke 2017

If you look closely at those pictures you can see ripples in the skin from the impact of falling or because of moving so fast to get the ball. I find pictures with those kinds of details to be very interesting.
     Because he is so good at blending in and going unnoticed, even with his big camera, he is able to capture moments of raw emotion. Nobody knows that they are being photographed in the moment all they know is that something has just happened and that they need to react to it. Here are some examples of times that I thought Paul captured something great.

 

Paul Wilke 2017

     Most people that know me know that I am not the best at hiding my facial emotions. Paul has actually captured some of these split seconds that I make my "faces" and I think that they kind of capture who I am even though they happened so quick. 

Paul Wilke 2017

     The point of me talking about Paul capturing these quick snaps is that its somewhat similar to what I want to do. He captures the things that go unnoticed, which is exactly what my plan is except I want more detail. The athletic department is so lucky to have someone like Paul who is willing to spend his time photographing D3 sports simply because it's what he loves to do.