Through The Lens: Oconee County Baseball (Second Half of the Season)
This is part 2 of my “Through The Lens” series highlighting the Oconee County High School baseball team’s 2025 season by sharing my favorite photography from each game played. In the previous piece, which you can read here, the Warriors had played sixteen games and were 12-4 at the time. Region play had just begun and OCHS had a 3-1 region record. Well, the regular season has now come to a close and the Warriors have completed their campaign towards the playoffs with a 3A Region-8 championship in hand and a No. 5 overall seed! So here is part 2 of sharing one singular image from the final fourteen games played and discussing my thoughts about the photograph I chose to represent the game.
And more good news, before I begin, Oconee County finished the season 23-7 (12-3 in region), which is the most regular season wins since 2010 for the program. The first round of the playoffs begin this week vs the Cairo Syrupmakers from south Georgia and you can bet I’ll be there at Arrowhead Park - camera in hand, ready to capture all of the action.
And before I begin, if you or your team would like photos and videos to use for recruiting or just for the kids and families, please reach out to me via DM on Instagram or visit my contact page.
Cole Johnson (Class of 2025) | Oconee County at Jefferson (DH) | Mar. 21, 2025
Game 17: After dropping the first of three games versus region opponent, Jefferson at home, the Warriors had a daunting task with a double header at Jefferson later that week. Oconee was down 4-1 in the top of the 5th and needing a rally, quick. Hagan McCormick led off the inning with a walk. Later that inning Carson Fuchs singled to right field setting up a pivotal Cole Johnson at bat. After fouling off four pitches and getting to a 3-2 count, Cole smashed a home run to deep right field to tie the game. Jefferson took the lead again in the bottom of the 6th, but Oconee scored another three runs in the top of the 7th to take a 7-5 lead. Cole jumped on the mound to close the game out and got the save as OC secured a very important region win in game one of the double header.
About the photo: Jefferson High School has a beautiful field, but it is not as friendly to photographers as some other fields. The visitor’s side has blocked sight lines (good luck seeing home plate if you’re sitting in the 3rd base bleachers) and you have to work pretty hard at changing your locations to get a good variety of shots. Lucky for me, I headed up to the top of the home plate bleachers and was able to get this cool perspective of Cole as he was closing out game 1. It was golden hour so I leaned into the warm tones on the edit of this photograph.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 160, f/2.8, 1/800 | 200mm focal length
Brody Christopher (Class of 2027) | Oconee County at Jefferson (DH) | Mar. 21, 2025
Game 18: Coming off the exciting finish in the first game of the double header, the Warriors were in prime position to sweep and take 2 out of 3 versus the Dragons. But Jefferson had other plans. Brody Christopher started the game on the mound and pitched well, striking out three in four innings, but a hit here…a bloop single there gave Jefferson enough of a cushion to win 6-4, which was made a lot closer with back-to-back home runs from Cole Johnson and Isaac Smith in the top of the 7th.
About the photo: With the quirkiness of Jefferson’s field, you can stand right up against the fence as there is a cutout for where the visitor’s bullpen is. I decided to shoot into the setting sun and use my wide angle lens to get the full moment of Brody’s warmup and wanted to keep with the golden hour theme that I had done in the first game. As far as the composition, I love how you can see the catcher waiting for the pitch and Coach Holloway monitoring his tosses. This full view moment can really only be achieved standing close to the subject and shooting with a wide lens, which is something that is not often afforded in photographing sports…getting physically close to the action.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 24-70mm | ISO 800, f/2.8, 1/800 | 24mm focal length
Adam Lafontaine (Class of 2025) | Oconee County vs West Hall | Mar. 25, 2025
Game 19: One of the coolest parts about following a baseball team throughout the season is you start to notice and anticipate all of the celebration nuances the team develops. My favorite and obviously the teams’ favorite is the jump greeting they have when the runner who just scores comes back to the dugout. And, the leader of that jump greeting is senior, Adam Lafontaine. Out of the many variety of photos I’ve taken of this celebration, Adam is leading the charge in 90 percent. In the 3rd inning Hagan McCormick had scored on a Nate Roberson hit to shortstop, giving the Warriors a 6-4 lead over West Hall. The game ended in an 11-5 Oconee County victory.
About the photo: As I mentioned, I have a lot of celebration photos, but this is a favorite because I was zoomed in a bit more and you can see Adam’s determination in completing his jump greeting. I love how even the player blocked behind him in the photo is pointing up to Hagan. I went black and white on the edit for a couple of reasons: 1) it was a bit underexposed, so to brighten the photo would have introduced more grain than I wanted to see, and 2) black and white photography looks awesome, especially in sports and I hadn’t edited many that way for this game, so it was definitely a good choice.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 640, f/3.5, 1/2000 | 200mm focal length
Nate Roberson, Brody Christopher, William Resutek (Class of 2027) Oconee County at West Hall (DH) | Mar. 28, 2025
Game 20: Interesting, I don’t do many posed photos for the baseball team. Why? I like to observe and photograph or video what I see without feeling like I’m in the way of the players. Typically when I get to the game, the guys are warming up, the coaches are getting ready to hit infield or posting the lineup, and I don’t want to be a distraction. Baseball is hard enough without having to deal with an overzealous photographer. Obviously, I wasn’t a distraction for game 1 of the double header versus West Hall because the Warriors collected 15 hits and won by mercy rule, 15-1 in 5 innings. There were a ton of great game highlights, which you can see posted here.
About the photo: For every game - on Instagram, I create a “poster edit”. That’s where I take an older photo and put some graphics, location, and start time information on the photo in Photoshop. The West Hall gameday poster had Nate, William, and Brody on it from a previous game when they were standing for the National Anthem. Before the game they walked up to the netting close to where I was and no real words were exchanged between us, they sort of just posed - looked at me, and I gave them a nod. I really like the symmetry in this image and the sunglasses on all three just add to it…not too posed, but posed.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 160, f/4, 1/600 | 70mm focal length
William Resutek (Class of 2027) Oconee County at West Hall (DH) | Mar. 28, 2025
Game 21: I’m never in the same place for very long when covering a baseball game. Even when I have photographed the Atlanta Braves or Georgia baseball games, I try my best to move around and if I can’t move around that much, I’m changing up the composition of my shots. During game one of the double header versus West Hall I was around home plate pretty much the entire game. But during the break between game 1 and game 2, I was walking around and West Hall has a raised area in right field where you can see the game from an elevated perspective - and they had a bench right there too! Of course I went out there and spent the better part of two innings taking photos and videos of the game. This was the best photograph I got from that viewpoint. William Resutek ended up flying out to the left fielder on this play, but there’s a whole lot of action filling the frame with the ball in flight. The Warriors ended up winning a close one 7-5 and swept the 3-game series against West Hall. You can relive all the highlights in this Instagram Reel set to “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour.
About the photo: You never know unless you try. When I saw the perch up in right field I thought the photos and videos I was about to get would be awesome. Well, they would have been if I had had a longer lens. Truth be told, 200mm is just not enough to get a lot of quality, up close action shots from the outfield. A 300mm or 100mm to 500mm would have been perfect. I ended up regretting being out there because all of the action in this game was happening in the infield. There was a fantastic safety squeeze, which I got a video of my son, Walker sliding into home, but it would have been so much better if captured from right around home plate. One other note, it was getting dark, so grainy, far off images is what I see rather than crisp photos. If the same photo was taken mid afternoon, you could crop in and get so much more detail in the image.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 2000, f/3.2, 1/1000 | 200mm focal length
Carson Fuchs (Class of 2025) | Oconee County at Cherokee Bluff | Apr. 1, 2025
Game 22: The most critical region series began for the Warriors on April Fools Day. Oconee County had to travel up to Flowery Branch, Georgia to face off versus the Cherokee Bluff Bears. In 2024 the Bears (2024 GHSA 4A state runners-up) dropped from a GHSA 4A classification to 3A and stood right in front of Oconee’s path to win Region-8. A very good baseball team with a few D-1 commits gave OCHS all it could handle. Despite Nate Roberson pitching six full innings and striking out five, the Bears beat the Warriors 4-2 up in Hall County.
About the photo: Sports photographers want ball on bat photos when shooting baseball. I can guarantee that every game I photograph, there’s one point in time that I think to myself am I going get a frame of the ball actually being hit by the bat? It’s harder than you think to accomplish that - for one, you have to be shooting at around 1/5000 shutter speed and time it just right. It’s easier than it used to be with the technology in today’s cameras. Mine, for example will shoot up to 30 frames per second, which is insanely fast. But the action happens so quickly you’d be surprised how many times I’ll have one frame of the ball traveling towards the bat and the next one is of the ball an inch away from the bat as it has been hit. This image is great, but would have been better had I been angled a little farther down the third base line. But I’m very happy with it and it’s a cool one for Carson to have.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 800, f/3.2, 1/5000 | 85mm focal length
Cole Johnson (Class of 2025) | Oconee County vs Cherokee Bluff (DH) | April 4, 2025
Game 23: These next few games is where my own, self-imposed rules on sharing just one photo from each game really comes back to bite me. But, rules are rules and this image of University of Georgia baseball commit, Cole Johnson catching a routine fly ball in center field was the one I chose for game 23 vs Cherokee Bluff. It was game one of the double header versus the Bears. The Warriors had to have a sweep to keep pace at having a shot at the region championship. The Bears were sitting on a 10 game region win streak…I told you in the previous game post that they were a good team. It was the debut of the new, sweet looking home pinstripe uniforms and a beautiful early spring day in Watkinsville. Bluff got out to a quick 6-0 lead and it didn’t look good for the Warriors, but the bats woke up in the 4th and 5th inning and OCHS scored 8 runs to climb in front. The Bears tied it up in the top of the 7th thanks to a home run (from one of those D-1 commits) that rattled the scoreboard in left field. But in the bottom of the 7th, senior Carson Fuchs hit a backside single and scored Hagan McCormick as the Warriors walked it off for the 9-8 win.
About the photo: It was hard to pick one image. I shot a ton of great ones during this game. The late day sun was perfect and the new uniforms looked awesome. But this one of Cole stopped me in my tracks when I got done editing it. You have the ball in frame as he’s catching the fly ball. And behind you have some of the dads who watch from the outfield tracking it just as he is. The cool thing is that you can see Cole’s dad, Michael sitting down (far right wearing sunglasses) and as a dad who’s son also plays on the team - I would love to have a photo of me watching him make a play. I was impressed that I could get such a clear shot as I was positioned slightly to the left behind home plate. But note, this image is cropped in a lot. But again, just like getting a ball on bat photo, the new technology in these cameras take images at such large megapixels all you need is good lighting and the right setting dialed in and you can make it feel like you were a lot closer than you were.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 800, f/4, 1/4000 | 200mm focal length
Nate Roberson (Class of 2027) | Oconee County vs Cherokee Bluff (DH) | April 4, 2025
Game 24: Game 2 of the double header vs Cherokee Bluff started out similar to game 1. The Bears got off to a quick start scoring 2 runs in the top of the first inning. The Warriors chipped away at that early lead, getting a single run back in the bottom of the 2nd and then two more in the 4th inning. It was an exhausting 4+ hours between both games. In the end, the Warriors and Bears were tied again heading into the bottom of the 7th inning. Cole Johnson came through with a game winning RBI as Hagan McCormick once again scored the winning run. The Warriors ended up taking two out of three games vs Cherokee Bluff and securely put them in at least second place in the region.
About the photo: The games were indeed exhausting, draining, and very competitive. I thought this photo represented the way we as fans and the team felt at this moment. Even I was obviously tired because you can see the motion blur in his hand. I didn’t have my shutter speed high enough. You can see third baseman, Nate Roberson tossing the ball back to the catcher. Look at him. Look at the Cherokee Bluff player next to him. This photograph represents what leaving it all on the field means. They’re dirty, focused and you can’t even tell which team is up - because it was always so close throughout the contest. I remember after I took this photo, I downloaded it to my phone to use as a score update for social media and I also texted this picture to Nate’s dad during the game saying, “Would you look at him?” His dad commented how that uniform was going to need to be pressure washed outside and not in the washing machine.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 800, f/3.2, 1/400 | 110mm focal length
Chris Kirk and family at The Masters Par 3 Course | Apr. 9, 20205
Game 25: You did not suddenly click on the wrong article. This photo was taken about the same time the Oconee baseball team were loading their buses to head to Monroe Area High School for an away game. I obviously did not make the game between the Warriors and the Purple Hurricanes from Monroe. But I’ll assure you that I was very happy taking photos at The Masters Par 3 Tournament. I made two carousel posts on Instagram from my day at The Masters. You can see the photoset of Chris Kirk here and the photos of Rory McIlroy here. Also, I think if I was going to miss a game during the season, game 25 at Monroe was the one to miss. OCHS won and scored 11 in their victory on 4 hits and 10 walks.
About the photo: I’ve described it many times to people, but the par 3 course at Augusta National looks and feels like you’re walking inside of a painting. The sightlines wherever you look is colorful, compact, and impeccable. It’s like there’s no stray brushstrokes on the painting. I think this photo of Chris Kirk walking with his family on number 9 shows what I mean. The grass is perfectly manicured, the patrons in their multi-colored attire - reflect in the water, and the family with nameplates on the back of their patented Masters caddie jumpsuits make this and every image taken that day so unique and special. Also, I truly appreciate that the tournament allows cameras on all practice rounds. You can’t take in your phone, but you can take in a big 70-200mm lens.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 320, f/5, 1/2000 | 85mm focal length
Hagan McCormick (Class of 2026) | Oconee County vs Monroe Area (DH) | April 11, 2025
Game 26: The last day of region play meant a lot for postseason seeding. If I remember correctly, lose both games of the double header to Monroe - drop to 3rd in the region. Sweep both games vs Monroe - lock up 2nd place in the region. Sweep both games and get some help from other teams - potentially win region. Getting the game 1 win would take some time. It ended up being scoreless going into the bottom of the 5th. That’s when the Warriors scored five. Quite frankly all they needed was one because senior, Carson Fuchs twirled a gem by pitching a complete game shutout over the Hurricanes.
About the photo: It’s ironic a good friend of mine who is also a sports photographer sent me a DM of a similarly framed shot as this one that she had found as inspiration on Instagram. She sent it right after I had gone through the photos of the game with a message that read, “Look how cool this pic is.” I took a photo of my Lightroom catalog from this game, including this photo and flippantly replied back to her, “So cool. I need to try that style 😎”. Her reply, “I should’ve known”. It’s not bragging, it is how photographers communicate with each other. If one sees a cool style or something to emulate, oftentimes we share ideas. I sit behind home plate a lot during games so with a long lens all I do is find an opening. The out of focus elements in the foreground act as a frame of the player or players being photographed. It’s a very cool looking shot, and the good news is that it’s not a hard photo to take. You just have to be patient and wait for the player to move into the frame such as Hagan here when he was taking his lead at second base.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 400, f/3.2, 1/4000 | 200mm focal length
Oconee County High School | GHSA 3A Region-8 Champions | April 11, 2025
Game 27: The second game of the double header versus Monroe Area was buzzing with excitement. Not only was the game between the Warriors and Purple Hurricanes close throughout most of the contest, but West Hall had a big lead on Cherokee Bluff in game 2 of their double header. All of the parents in the crowd were monitoring both games at the same time - watching the Warriors put up six runs in the bottom of the 6th inning to pretty much seal their 12th region win, but also watching the GameChanger feed of West Hall beating Cherokee Bluff in a surprising upset. The OC win coupled with the CB loss gave the 3A Region-8 title to the Warriors. It was cool to see the boys run onto the field throwing water and celebrating the first baseball region championship for Oconee County since 2015!
About the photo: I switched from my 70-200mm lens to the 24-70mm lens to get a better photograph of all the guys lined up in right field celebrating the region championship. Wide angle was the call for this photo. But I made a mistake. I neglected to lower my ISO, which is the sensitivity to light. A higher ISO lets more light in and is great for night photography, but it adds noise to the photo. I was at a 5000 ISO while taking photos during the game, which is needed to help capture fast moving sports photos at night, however a 5000 ISO is not necessary at night when taking subjects who are not moving. I would have gotten a better image had I dropped it down to about 1500 or 2000 ISO, but I forgot. It’s most likely the type of error only a photographer (or eagle-eyed viewers of the photo) would notice. Still it’s a great moment for Oconee County and I’m happy that the boys have this picture of their on field celebration.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 24-70mm | ISO 5000, f/5, 1/320 | 55mm focal length
Blake Thomas (Class of 2027) | Oconee County at Mountain View | April 15, 2025
Game 28: The last week of the regular season featured a few games against non-region opponents. It was a way to get geared up for the upcoming playoffs instead of taking a week off from playing. The Warriors hit the road and took on a 6A playoff school in Gwinnett County. One would think that a 3A school might be overmatched, but the Warriors scored early and often and beat Mountain View, 11-3. There was a home run by Adam Lafontaine, his first in his career and a lot of guys played and played well. Blake Thomas debuted on the mound for OC and pitched the 7th inning giving up no runs and striking out one.
About the photo: This is my go-to position to photograph or film a pitcher - standing right behind home plate with my 70-200mm lens and zoomed in tight so as to blur out the batter, catcher, umpire and compress the scene so it shows the pitcher’s facial expressions and the ball in the same frame. After checking the settings the shutter speed was a bit lower than usual, but after the pitcher releases the ball and before the batter swings there’s a fraction of a second where everything is pretty still as the ball is traveling so having a slower shutter at 1/1000 works out pretty good. Since it was the first time he pitched in a varsity game, I was probably as excited to edit this photo and send it out to Blake as he was receiving the photo.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 1600, f/3.2, 1/1000 | 200mm focal length
William Resutek (Class of 2027) | Oconee County at Morgan County | April 16, 2025
Game 29: Morgan County borders Oconee County to the south. It’s a 2A school, but they are loaded with baseball talent. One of their players is committed to the University of Georgia and Morgan will probably be the favorite to win the 2A state title. So heading down there to play a rival in the middle of the week was a big ask as the Bulldogs have had the Warriors number the past few years. Oconee was leading 3-1 in the top of the 5th when William Resutek absolutely destroyed a ball to right field. He has a beautiful left-handed swing and had been flirting with hitting a home run all season. As for me, I’m pretty good about filming at bats and then grabbing photos in between. I had captured a great video of Adam’s home run the game before, but I was talking to a friend during William’s at bat. Next thing I knew, I heard the sound of him making contact, looked up and immediately knew I had missed it - like I said, it was a no doubter. The next best thing is to get reactions of a player rounding the bases. This photo is the final one as I was firing off a burst. Truth be told, I would have liked to capture him at the height of his jump, but I love seeing how pumped all of his teammates are. Noticing his expression, it’s almost as if Cole, who has eleven home runs on the season is the most excited for him. The Warriors beat Morgan County 5-2.
About the photo: Would you rathe have a video of your first varsity home run or a lasting image? Videos are great because you can share it to social media and keep it on your phone to show off. But photos capture the raw emotion. It’s something you can study, zoom into, share, and even print out and hang in your home. Like I said, it would have been great for William’s expression to be fully visible, but you can tell how excited he is here. Being a hybrid shooter of video and photos comes with a cost. Sometimes you get a photo of a play you’d love to see the video of and vice versa. The great news is that cameras can now shoot video in high quality 4k or even 8k (mine does 8k but it kills the battery and the file sizes are monstrous to work with) and sometimes you can take the video and get a photo quality screenshot from the video file. Decisions, decisions.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 640, f/3.5, 1/2500 | 85mm focal length
Isaac Smith (Class of 2025) | Oconee County vs Morgan County | April 17, 2025
Game 30: The final game of the 2025 regular season for the Warriors. It was a rematch with Morgan County. Wednesday’s game at Morgan County was low scoring and this one was the opposite. Oconee was behind the entire game and after clawing back and making the score 8-7 in the bottom of the fifth, the Bulldogs scored five in the 6th and one more in the top of the 7th to beat Oconee 14-7. It was a great season as the Warriors finished with a 23-7 record, which is the highest regular season win total since 2010. Hopefully there will be a long playoff run and if you’ve gotten this far in this post, please consider coming out on Friday, April 25th as the Warriors host Cairo in the first round of the 3A state playoffs at 4:30pm with a second game to follow shortly afterwards. The first team to win two games advances. Should there be a split on Friday, a deciding game 3 would be played on Saturday at noon.
About the photo: When you spend an entire season photographing a team your camera starts to naturally gravitate towards certain players. One of those players at the top of my list is senior shortstop, Isaac Smith. He’s always in the mix. He’s always making plays. And he’s one of the most passionate players on the team. Isaac will be playing at East Georgia State next season. This photo was a burst as he was fielding a ground ball at short and about to fire it to second base to start a 6-4-3 double play. I actually stacked three photos in an Instagram post that you can see here. I love the framing of this image because he’s perfectly centered with the outfield fence where it reads OCONEE. This is not planned, it’s just that sometimes you get lucky…I was lucky to get the photo, Isaac - he’s just flat out good.
Camera: Canon EOS R5 Mark II | RF 70-200mm | ISO 320, f/4, 1/3200 | 200mm focal length
**Note: The lead photo in this post was actually a mistake that worked out for the best. I was trying to change focus on the celebration going on behind the batter, but in that instant, my autofocus did not switch. This is one of my favorite photos. It just goes to show that sometime what you’re planning isn’t always the best shot. And sometimes the camera is better than the human 😀
The Oconee County Warriors finished 23-7 and host round one of the state playoffs on Friday, April 25th at 4:30pm vs Cairo High School. Follow the team on Instagram. I’ll be posting updates, photos, and more video edits as the playoffs start. Also, follow me on Instagram if you aren’t already. I specialize in sports photography, sports highlight reels, and also work with clients on retainer.