Fourth-year sports media and communication major Connor Caldon started his photography journey six years ago, a path that started with a now-defunct summer baseball team and has led Caldon to an internship with the Baltimore Orioles.
In his junior year of high school, Caldon took a photography class where he learned the basics of photography with a Canon Rebel. Caldon quickly moved onto a personal camera gifted to him from his grandfather; from there, Caldon found his first inspiration in landscape photography in his hometown of Gilford, New Hampshire.
Once the spring rolled around, Caldon began taking pictures for his high school baseball team, finding inspiration from photographers such as Cooper Neil and Ryan Kang.
“As a young photographer, your understanding of storytelling isn’t there, and these guys tell a story really well, but they’re also really good at capturing that split second of action,” Caldon said. “You look at them as where you want to be and who you want to learn from… They’re telling the story that you want to be able to tell one day.”
By the end of high school, Caldon found his inspiration and a new camera, a SONY A7 III. With these two things, Caldon went to work as an intern for a now-defunct collegiate summer baseball team, the Winnipesaukee Muskrats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League. Caldon said that he used this opportunity to build a portfolio that would change the trajectory of his photography career.
“Working for that team was really helpful; it gave me the experience of working with a team that’s not just built up of my friends playing a high school sport,” Caldon said. “It was a collection of all these different things that I now do here.”
Caldon learned how to build a rapport with the team he worked with, how to edit and submit photos to the team in a timely manner and how to work with a team made up of college students. With this experience, Caldon was able to apply for a photography role with the University of Rhode Island athletics. Caldon would be brought aboard thanks to a recommendation from Drew Adames ’23, and Nick DiStasio, the director of marketing at Rhode Island. Caldon would get his first shot to prove himself almost immediately.
“The first game I shot was three days after I moved in; it was URI men’s soccer versus Providence [College],” Caldon said. “If you scroll all the way down on my Instagram, you can still find it, straight out of the camera unedited.”
Caldon would go on to take pictures for nearly every varsity sport at Rhode Island, from volleyball to baseball. While he is adamant that his early work wasn’t great, he’s even more adamant that it’s those reps that got him his current position of lead photographer for Rhode Island athletics.
“Get as many reps as you can; it doesn’t matter what you’re shooting, people will find your work if it’s good,” Caldon said. “Building a portfolio and getting reps is the biggest thing you can do when you’re young.”
Through his four years at Rhode Island, Caldon has been a part of all sorts of Rhode Island’s recent athletic achievements, from the school’s first football playoff game in 40 years to the women’s basketball team’s lone regular season Atlantic 10 Conference co-championship in 2023. Yet, he said neither of these moments compares to his experience as a freelancer for the University of Cincinnati football team at the 2022 Fenway Bowl, a gig he landed through a cold email.
“The first Fenway Bowl was probably the biggest ‘oh wow, I can do this’ moment,” Caldon said. “Just getting in there, my happy place of Fenway Park… it was really cool, and it was a step-up thing for me.”
One of the reasons Caldon has grown so much in just six years is his three pillars of photography, none of which have to do with the equipment.
“Storytelling is the biggest pillar; learn how to tell a story, and your photos will become monumentally better,” Caldon said. “Pillar number two is editing, being able to manipulate your colors and make your photos be more dramatic… The third pillar is to have fun. I have so much fun doing this, and it makes me realize this isn’t a job.”
As Caldon wraps up his time at URI, he leaves behind a blueprint for how to be a successful photographer with limited prior experience. After graduation, Caldon will take his talents to the Mid-Atlantic, where he’ll get his first shot as a photographer for a professional sports franchise with the Baltimore Orioles.
