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The Search For Personality In Baseball
I’m more of an editorial and documentary photographer, but this spring I headed off to West Palm Beach to help the staff photographer for the Washington Nationals in getting portraits and preseason sports photos of the team as they worked out and got ready for the new season. While the main job was to capture some quintessential images for marketing, I couldn’t help but think of it from a documentary photographer’s perspective; searching for something more relatable.
Interestingly, from the moment I arrived at training camp, the news cycle was already being dominated by the person who wasn’t there. Bryce Harper, who had worn a Nationals cap last year, was still off working out his free agency deal that ultimately landed him at Philadelphia, with the biggest contract in baseball history. And while the press and the general public considered every possible scenario, the Nationals were preparing for only one — a season without him.
This got me thinking. Where does a team find its personality when its most recognizable face is literally being pulled down from the walls. And…
