Hello, This is Michele from Sports Illustrated...

...my first thought after answering this call on my cell phone was, "Oh no, a solicitation for me to subscribe to SI." But that thought was quickly purged from my brain as Michele finished her opening statement..."I am an assistant photo editor and I was wondering if you might have any photos of Kevin Love."

Imagine the thoughts that were now rushing through my head. In a cool, composed tone, I simply answered, "Sure I do. What type of shots are you looking for?"

Long story short...I had my first submission to Sports Illustrated make the cut and was published in the March 10, 2007 "March Madness" issue and on the SI.com web site. It is quite a thrill to achieve this milestone. The photo is of Oregon prep basketball star Kevin Love and is used in the SI Players section in the leading feature sections of the magazine. I was shooting the Les Schwab Invitational High School Basketball Tournament in December when I captured a nice shot of Love about to hammer a fast-break dunk (my LSI blog post featuring the SI photo of Love). The SI editor asked me to upload a handful of shots to their database. I submitted some good images of Love, but I figured the one selected was a front-runner for potential publication. The SI editor found me through my SportsShooter page and Googling Love's name....it pays to capture photos!

A special thanks to Craig Mitchelldyer who sponsored my application to SportsShooter and whose work has been an inspiration as I have developed my skills and knowledge that provided the opportunity to make it in SI. It was also nice to hear from him that my shot made SI when he opened up his copy, saw the photo and called to congratulate me....I hadn't known it made the cut until then. Thanks Craig!!!

Photo Published in 03/10/07 Sports Illustrated


Photo Published on SI.com (link)