Picture perfect

With the eyes of the sports world centered on Iowa City this women’s basketball season, PCM grad Ayrton Breckenridge had a front row seat for the action as a photo editor for The Daily Iowan, the student led newspaper serving the University of Iowa community since 1868.

In his senior year, Breckenridge is double majoring in journalism and cinema with a minor in history. He is also in his fourth year at the DI, making him a senior member of the team and a trusted person to cover such an important topic.

“For sports that are doing really well or just a profit sports, we try to put more experienced people on them,” Breckenridge said.

Since the Big Ten Tournament, he has been on the road with the team. From Minneapolis to Albany and now in Cleveland, Breckenridge is capturing moments from the historic year.

“The few games I got to cover as an underclassman there wasn’t a lot of people around. People knew Caitlin Clark was a good player but it didn’t have quite the attention and draw that it does now,” Breckenridge said. “We saw it towards the end of last year but especially this year. All eyes were on Iowa basketball because they were returning from competing in the national championship. And obviously Caitlin Clark with all of the records.”

Breckenridge got his start behind the lens during a semester in journalism class at PCM. While he didn’t continue in the class because he wanted to try out as many extracurriculars as possible, the pull towards the camera continued.

“I had a visual interest in high school, even middle school, making short films with the MacBooks they gave us. The semester I was in journalism I worked on Thunder TV. That is where I started,” Breckenridge said. “My editor at PCM went to Iowa and told me about The Daily Iowan. I went there and saw it, thought it was pretty cool and kept it in the back of my head.”

He hadn’t even stepped into his first classroom at Iowa before grabbing an application for the DI.

“I wanted to do more film making because of the cinema background, but the way it works at The Daily Iowan, since it is a print organization, they need pictures in print. So visuals are split between photo and video,” Breckenridge said. “I kind of got pushed a lot heavier into photo than I intended and it stuck. I enjoyed it that way.”

His first assignment saw him finding a subject within the campus and photographing it. He traveled to the Pentacrest, the center of the university around the Old Capitol, and found students practicing outside for a dance class. A little out of his comfort zone, Breckenridge had his first chance to ask strangers permission to photograph them and what their names were.

“At PCM you know everyone but in Iowa City you don’t know anybody,” Breckenridge said “During the middle of that assignment, they announced they were cutting men’s and women’s swimming at the University of Iowa. The men’s coach was speaking somewhere on campus and no one else was taking the assignment. I was like I’m already on campus just a couple blocks away. So within five minutes of completing my first assignment, I was on my second. That was kind of funny.”

That spring he covered his first sporting event with the competitions just starting to open up to non-essential people. Since then, along with women’s basketball, he has covered football, wrestling, gymnastics, men’s tennis and track.

“I’ve never photographed track in Iowa City, only at the Drake Relays,” Breckenridge said. “That was the first time ever photographing track professionally. They just sent me to the Drake Relays.”

Breckenridge has covered the Hawkeyes at the most recent Citrus Bowl game, his first experience following the football team to a bowl game. He also spent time putting together a project on the men’s wresting team. Currently, along with following the women’s basketball team, he is working on a photobook to memorialize the season.

“It is cool to see the action part of both of those sports, and to see the athletes behind the scenes is something that not many people get to see or do, especially as a sophomore with wrestling and as a senior with the women’s basketball,” Breckenridge said.

Following the women’s basketball team, which has only grown in prominence in his time at the university, has been a learning experience. From finding the right shots to working with national media, he has gained valuable knowledge on what having a full-time job in the industry entails.

“In terms of the media, I guess a good way to describe it is kind of crazy. You’re used to a calm, cool, collected environment just shooting a regular game, but you can tell when it is going to be record breaking because all of a sudden the amount of photojournalists, print writers or broadcast reporters increases into masses,” Breckenridge said. “Everyone is trying to compete for that same shot, like when Caitlin Clark is signing autographs or the team is high-fiving. You’re kind of elbow to elbow and it’s really fun to see the attention surrounding a sport, especially women’s basketball, that didn’t have that attention.

“It is also simultaneously kind of frustrating because you’re running all over the place to get the shots you need for your organization. That is also part of the fun, too. You’re competing with all of the national outlets and it is fun to see when I got a better photo than them. All in all it is a really fun experience to see history unfold in front of your eyes in a really unique spot, as well.”

The fast pace culminated in the national championship game April 7. Breckenridge and his counterpart were there for the whole wild ride all while trying to continue to be students preparing for graduation in a couple of months.

“Big Ten (tournament) was kind of calm because it took place closer to a weekend. Once NCAA Tournament got in a full swing, especially once they got out of Carver, it has been a little hectic,” Breckenridge said. “I really haven’t been to class in a while. Ever since Albany I have been to one day of classes. That isn’t necessary the best, but it is a lot of travel. Packing, re-packing and then getting on the road again and then photographing. It is repeat of photograph, sleep, eat, photograph, eat, sleep — like that.”

The work won’t stop as the team works to finalize the photobook about the historic basketball season for the Hawkeye women. Breckenridge is looking ahead a bit with plans finalized for after he crosses the stage and receives his diploma.

“The current plan is an internship set up with the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. It will be a photo and video internship,” he said.

From there, he hopes to continue in the field he is passionate about.

“I’d like to stay in the nonfiction visual storytelling realm,” Breckenridge said. “Whether it is film or stills it doesn’t’ bother me either way.”

He will use all that he has learned, both in the classroom and out in the field, as he embarks on his future assignments.

“One thing that I am learning from it is taking advantage of the opportunities that are in front of you. Also, learning how to build relationships. I had done it before but with this it was a little bit quicker. I had to adjust how I did certain things but it taught me how to build trust with people,” Breckenridge said. “There are times I’ve been with them (the women’s basketball team) and they have lost a couple of games and they didn’t tell me to put my camera away. They let me do my job because they knew I was a professional journalist just by the way I operated in practices or at other events. They have faith that I am going to tell the story.”

And he just needs one thing to keep doing the work he loves.

“If I can hold a camera and tell a story, I’ll do it just about anywhere,” he said.