By T. Scott Boatright
It’s all in the talent and the timing, even if a little luck helps, too.
That can be said about sports on any level.
But the same can also be said about sports photography.
And local photographer Andy Cross slammed a home run recently with a picture of a dunk he took last week as the Simsboro Tigers played host to Downsville Charter inside the SHS Gym.
That photograph shows Tiger Jalen Outley scoring on a dunk against the Demons on Tuesday as teammate Itavius Brown celebrates a few feet behind with almost identical body language as if he was making an invisible slam dunk of his own.
And that picture has gone somewhat viral, at least in Lincoln Parish, after Cross posted it on Facebook.
“I think that picture got extra traction because of a fluky thing,” Cross said. “Facebook doesn’t like you to upload a lot of photos at once, so I had to go and create an album. I uploaded that album in chunks (433 pictures worth). And then I made that picture the thumbnail for my album. But once I did that, that was the only photo in the album that people could get to. So that one picture got a whole extra day’s traction before I fixed the album.
“Now don’t get me wrong, I knew it was a cool shot, that’s why I made it the original thumbnail.”
Cross knew the second he snapped the photo he could have captured greatness, but admitted he had to wait until he got home and look at it on a computer screen to know for sure.
“Now that I’m getting older and my eyes are starting to go, it’s hard to know from the small screen on the camera what you’ve really got and how good the focus is,” Cross said. “But when I saw it on the bigger screen I knew I had timed it right and captured something pretty cool with Itavius behind Jalen looking like he was dunking, too.”
That’s where Lady Luck came into play. Cross admitted that part with Brown trailing the play wasn’t something he realized he had until seeing it on a computer screen.
“That was a two-pass, full-court play,” Cross said. “When I see those plays begin, I immediately turn toward the backboard where the play is heading. So I knew I had Jalen making the dunk, but it all happened so fast that I didn’t realize Brown was even in the shot, let alone making those actions mimicking Outley. It was a split-second kind of thing and I just got lucky with the timing.”
Cross said he takes around 400 or more pictures when he’s shooting games, meaning he’s shot at least tens and tens of thousands of game shots over the years.
“You take all of those just trying to find a special one,” Cross said. “You’re lucky if you get one of those ‘really special shots’ a game. Now that’ll also give you a lot of good, usable pics, but you end up with some unusable ones, too.”
Cross, who has photographed for Portrait Plus, has taken yearbook headshots for most schools in Lincoln Parish for years.
“I know a lot of the kids who play high school athletics because I’ve taken their pictures since they were in grade school,” Cross said. “This year’s seniors — I’ve taken their pictures since they were at LPEC (Lincoln Parish Early Childhood Education Center). The only school we don’t take the yearbook headshots for is Choudrant High School.”
The Simsboro native has also shot the pictures and created the senior banners teams across north Louisiana have hanging in stadiums and inside their schools.
His passion for Tigers basketball began as a fan and then as a player before he shifted gears into photography.
“I was a shorter kid, especially early on,” Cross said. “My freshman and sophomore year wasn’t the only time they weren’t making cuts on (the Simsboro) basketball team. So after they started making cuts, that moved me off the courts and into the stands where I found my passion for taking photographs of games for the yearbook.”
Cross had passion for that recent picture of Outley and Brown as soon as he got a good view of it.
“On my original post I said that everybody needs an Itavius Brown, who will follow you and try to dunk for you,” Cross said. “It was a right place, right time kind of deal, but I’m proud I was able to take that photograph. I knew right away when I could see it real good that it was one I’ll remember for a long time.”
