By Mikayla van Loon
Turning one’s life around is never easy but 17 year old Dylan Schafter has done just that and didn’t make it look all that hard.
The Mount Evelyn Cire Community School student has been an aspiring sports photographer since he picked up the camera at age 13 and started taking photos of his brother doing BMX tricks.
“Going down to the BMX track with my brother and just bringing the camera with me and taking some photos, I kind of saw the niche and I started liking taking photos but at that time, I wasn’t really good at it so I stopped taking photos of BMX and focused on landscapes,” Dylan said.
Dylan has won several awards for his work and one of his photographs was eleventh in the Australian Photography Magazine’s Top 20 Junior Category.
He’s also entered a nature photo in the Upper Yarra Community Bank’s 2022 Calendar Competition. His main motivation for entering was to highlight and share the natural beauty of the Upper Yarra.
But sports photography is where Dylan’s real passion lies and it’s been his dedication to becoming an AFL photographer which has seen him go on to have some incredible experiences.
As someone who considered dropping out of school at Year 9 and having been told he’d never make it as a photographer, Dylan is proving everyone wrong.
Persisting with his goal, Dylan scored himself an internship with the Gold Coast Suns media team earlier this year.
“It was definitely a dream come true. From a lot of people saying that they didn’t believe me, that I was never going to be good enough to be doing that kind of stuff, as well as having a disability.
“It was hard to learn to write emails back and forth and whatnot but yet it’s kind of going through that boundary and landing in the Gold Coast with the media team was an unreal experience.”
Dylan said his experience on the Gold Coast showed him what it takes to be an AFL photographer and said the media team told him he had a great eye for capturing the action.
“After seeing that I can do that, it has made me want to chase it more but then with lockdown, it’s been a bit hard to do much, so that’s the only drawback at the moment.
“I’ve been looking at a lot of AFL photographers and been like, this is going to be me one day no matter what and the driver is there, I just want to keep pushing.”
Dylan said the most rewarding part of photography is holding down the shutter button and realising “you’ve captured the perfect photo.”
“Through sports photography, I’ve seen things through the lens that not many people get to see,” he said.
“Sitting on the boundary, taking photos, not being near people but just focusing on it and watching the play, go and if there’s exciting moments, you just smile, if you have captured the photo. It’s a great feeling when you look at the photo, and you’re like ‘yes, this is perfect’. It’s a nice moment just to sit back and enjoy.
“I love football, taking photos of football, especially the older lot, the better players. They’re really fun and actually exciting to watch, as well as photograph. You wake up in the morning and you’re like ‘I’m so excited to actually watch this and take photos’.
“It’s definitely a hard job to do but I love pushing myself on stuff and wanting to get the best photos.”
Next year Dylan hopes to get back to volunteering with local sports photography agency Field of View Sports Photography and to complete his certificate four in photography at the Cire Community School.
“Cire just really pushed me and got me to where I’m at today just by believing really, that was the main thing.
“I’ve never really had that, people who believed in me before, so for them to believe in me and help me out has been an absolute dream of mine.
“Being on the disability spectrum people would think that it’s very hard to reach your goals because it’s a really hard thing to have but I’ve shown people nothing is impossible and you can reach your goals you just have to keep pushing and keep that drive going.”
