Archives for April 2020

Ameer Abdullah’s Nebraska Career in Photos

aaronbabcock · April 24, 2020 · 3 Comments

As part of my Nebraska football photo book project, it has required some digital housekeeping in my photo library. After shooting nearly every Nebraska football game (home and road) for the past 11 years, that library has grown to several terabytes worth of data. And because I didn’t know what I was doing when I started, things are not as tidy as I would like.

But there are some pretty special memories stored there, so it’s worth the effort. Especially if I need to revisit these images again in the future. Most have never been seen by anyone. So when I get the chance, I’m trying to breathe new life into old images. And one way I’ve wanted to do that was to create some collections of images by personalities within the program.

The options are pretty limitless. For whatever reason, I decided to start with former Husker running back and current Minnesota Viking Ameer Abdullah. I’m not sure why. I always enjoyed watching him run. He’s a smart guy and an entertaining follow on social media. I was able to make a couple of photos of him during his career I liked. When I went through the archive, there were about 500 total images and a much smaller number of ones worth sharing. I’ll include a larger collection on my portfolio site, but here are a few I like and provide a bit of a timeline of his career.

If you’re interested in a print or want to see more photos of Ameer Abdullah, visit his complete gallery of 72 images here.

Ameer Abdullah makes a recruiting visit to Memorial Stadium for Nebraska’s annual spring game on April 16, 2011. © Aaron Babcock

nebraska football player tackled — Ameer Abdullah makes a recruiting visit to Memorial Stadium for Nebraska’s annual spring game on April 16, 2011. © Aaron Babcock

Long Live Print

aaronbabcock · April 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment

Since late in 2019 I’ve been looking to find a way to maximize the life of my Nebraska Football images. Starting with the 2009 season, I shot every home and road game with one exception until I stopped traveling in 2018, minus a few special occasions.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. I was running Huskers Illustrated Magazine for a portion of that time until I launched Hail Varsity in 2012. It was just part of the gig. I knew it was a great opportunity at the time, but in the midst of it, you don’t have time to get too philosophical.

I’m not alone in shooting a majority of Nebraska’s games during that period. However, the other photographers likely wouldn’t own their own copyright as they were staff photographers.

I felt that afforded me an opportunity to do something unique with my archive. I wasn’t much of a photographer during the early years of that stretch. I had a camera and sideline access, but not much of a strategy. But I worked on improving over the years, thanks to a ton of work and some sage advice from a few key people.

Regardless, even the early images become more unique and interesting as time passed. While Nebraska’s efforts on the field were not remarkable during those years, I still think the images deserve to be in print. So my plan is to self-publish a book for each of those seasons. I have already completed the first two books for the 2019 and 2018 seasons. I’ll keep you posted on my progress. Here’s a link to those books, if you’re interested.

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More Noise, Please

aaronbabcock · April 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment

football cheerleading signs on the turf — Rutgers cheerleader signs lay on the sidelines during Nebraska’s 31-14 win against Rutgers at High Point Solutions Stadium, on Nov. 14, 2015. Photo by Aaron Babcock

Launch a blog? In 2020? During a pandemic? Have I thought this through? How do I avoid becoming part of the noise?

It seems everyone else is launching a podcast (or two), building incredible YouTube channels or dancing on TikTok. So what’s the point of another blog?

It’s not because I think I have something particularly insightful to say, so I guess it’s more about a project for me. I need a new creative outlet for my photography. And social media is not scratching that itch (shocking, right?).

Two years ago I sold my media company. That process of building a team, a product and an audience was the best learning experience of my life. And while I have not missed the stress of making payroll, or the late nights to meet deadlines, I have missed parts of that creative process.

One of my favorite things is to photograph sports. And even since selling my company, I’ve been fortunate enough to continue to shoot Nebraska football games. But I haven’t had a great way to share those images other than my portfolio site at aaronbabcock.com or my twitter or Instagram accounts. Those platforms also make it difficult to write anything beyond a few characters.

One way I’ve been filling this creative void is by self-publishing books through Blurb the past few months. My goal is to publish one book on each season of Husker Football since 2009. I have photos from nearly every game during that period and more importantly, I like the permanence of a printed piece. It’s proving to be a valuable learning experience to refine my editing and improve on my sequencing skills. By the way, If you happen to have an interest in checking those out, I have completed hardback versions for the 2019 and 2018 seasons.

So in the end, I hope this blog will be another learning experience for me. That it will serve as a journal over the coming years as well as an outlet to share my work. My hope is that during the process, a few people will find it worth reviewing from time to time.

Thanks for your reading,

Aaron