How to Teach Sports Photography in Journalism Class

A guide for English teachers suddenly teaching photography

You get handed the newspaper class in August and realize you’re supposed to teach photography. Except you’re an English teacher. Or perhaps the photos in last month’s issue are a blur of running legs and jerseys, and when a student asks why their action shot turned out blurry, you don’t have a good answer. If you’ve been there, you know the feeling—that moment of “I have no idea what I’m doing.” Most journalism teachers didn’t come up through a dark room. We came up through reading and writing.

I learned photography the long way. My father taught shop—not writing—so while other kids were at the library, I was in the basement loading film from bulk reels, shooting on an old Pentax, and printing by hand. That was the 1980s. Now I shoot digital on a Sony a6000, and the camera is faster, but the fundamentals are exactly the same. You learn when to shoot, how to frame, where to position yourself when the action peaks, and how to make the image sing in editing. Students get this fast. I’ve shot over 120,000 photos at cross-country meets, and I’ve watched our newspaper pull 100,000 visits a year, and a lot of that is because good photography stops the scroll.

I built a 24-slide PowerPoint that covers the path I’d take a student on. Preparation. Composition that actually works. Timing. Capturing emotion. Editing. Each section has real sports photos, practice assignments, and exercises where students are shooting from day one—not just watching a lecture.

I’ve put together a free AP Style Practice worksheet on dates, times, and ages so you can see how I structure hands-on learning.

If you’re teaching journalism or yearbook, the full “Introduction to Sports Photography Slideshow” is ready to use—and it comes from someone who has done this both ways: as a photographer and as a teacher.