Sunday’s Colts-Texans game a surreal moment for local sports photographer

When Heather Williams handed Kylie Schepers a camera in 2018 and told her she felt she would be good at sports photography, sitting in Lucas Oil Stadium taking photos of her favorite NFL team wasn’t even a glimmer of an idea for the then-17-year-old Southridge senior.

Williams, who coached the Southridge Middle School Volleyball team at the time, wanted her to take photos of the eighth-grade game.

Kylie just wanted to go home; she was tired from cross country practice.

But she stuck around and photographed the match.

“In that moment, I knew I wanted to do this,” she said.

Ever since then, anytime she could, she’s been on the sidelines of sporting events documenting the players, the plays and the crowds.

After deciding to dedicate herself to the profession in 2021, she’s continued to hone her craft. Her work highlighting Southern Indiana high school sports and even colleges has deepened her expertise and provided more opportunities, including, finally, the opportunity to work for the NFL.

Sunday, she was a few feet away from Alec Pierce’s first touchdown for the Colts as they faced off against the Texans at Lucas Oil Stadium. She was so close that she thought her first NFL game would also include getting run over by an NFL player.

It’s her favorite photo from the more than 700 she took of the game, and it was featured on the NFL Focus Instagram page.

The moment is the culmination of a dream that began the day she decided to stick around and take some photos of eighth-grade volleyball.

Getting there has taken not only Kylie’s continued drive to improve her photography skills but also some boldness and networking to create opportunities and learn from other professionals.

“Being in the sports photography industry, it’s all about networking and connecting and who you know, and not being afraid to send out that email saying, ‘Hey, I want to photograph, and I want to learn,'” Kylie said.

This moment came about through her connections with Todd Rosenberg, a Chicago-based NFL photographer who reviewed her portfolio during the league’s annual portfolio review program in August. She was one of 25 photographers chosen for the portfolio review.

During the review, these professional sports photographers walked through her portfolio, grading her work, offering tips on how to improve it, and giving her a chance to ask them questions.

“At the end of the interview, they said, ‘We’re going to be watching you because there’s a reason why we picked you and 24 other photographers,'” she recalled. “They said, ‘Don’t be surprised if we ever reach out to you in the future.'”

And then Rosenberg contacted her a week before the Nov. 30 game, asking if she wanted to photograph for NFL Focus at the Colts-Texans game.

Working alongside other professional photographers on the field on Sunday was a surreal moment for Kylie. A moment she’s been working toward for seven years.

“I’ve been wanting to photograph in the professional league since I picked up a camera,” she said, adding that anytime she’s watching games on TV, she’s watching the photographers instead of the plays.

The NFL assignment proved emotionally overwhelming–she was surprised by the amount of community support that she received after announcing she would be at the game. Her family attended the game and watched her work from the stands, while numerous community members reached out with congratulations and shared screen grabs of her from television broadcasts of the game.

Those messages really confirmed the support she had from her home and the athletes she had been photographing for so many years.

And as she was sitting there with these other photographers on the sideline, the reality of it hit her.

“I’ve always told myself I want to be on that sideline one day. And so the moment the game started, sitting on the sidelines with these 10 to 15 other photographers like that was just a moment where I was, like, ‘I did it,'” Kylie said.

She tried to hold back the tears.

“I was trying to keep composed, you know, because I didn’t want to be crying on the sidelines,” she explained.

But it was hard in that joyous moment of realizing she had, in fact, done it.

In the embedded Instagram post, Kylie’s work is featured in the fifth and eleventh images

The game was fast-paced, a quicker tempo than the high school and college matchups she had photographed over the years, but her skills allowed her to adapt and create some great images. Rosenberg provided live feedback throughout the game, and NFL Focus manager of photography Ryan Kang and director of photography Ben Libenberg reviewed her work from Los Angeles as it was live-fed to them.

She received a lot of positive support from them all. After the game, Rosenberg delivered encouraging news about her performance, telling her he would recommend she apply for an internship with NFL Focus in the future. But he also added that he had no doubt she would be making a living as a professional sports photographer, and he hoped to work with her again.

Kylie plans to continue her work on the sidelines with the high schools and college connections she’s made, ready to return to any potential future assignments from NFL Focus.

Today, though, she’s sitting at home basking in the emotional high of attaining one of her professional goals. A glow that highlights the continued grind of collating and editing her photos while catching up on the new season of Stranger Things.