{"id":245664,"date":"2025-10-23T08:54:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/245664\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T08:54:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T08:54:23","slug":"whether-as-a-player-or-photographer-naz-hillmon-wants-to-take-the-perfect-shot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/245664\/","title":{"rendered":"Whether as a player, or photographer, Naz Hillmon wants to take the perfect shot"},"content":{"rendered":"

When she\u2019s not on the court starring as a forward for the Atlanta Dream, you can find Naz Hillmon<\/a> shooting another type of shot.<\/p>\n

This year, Hillmon has cultivated an overdue passion for photography, an interest that first peaked when she was in high school. <\/p>\n

On every Dream road trip, Hillmon embarks on a mission to photograph her surroundings. She\u2019s well-equipped for the task, with a Sony a7 III camera\u2014a Christmas gift from her mom\u2014and her boyfriend, Andrew Wells, who graciously carries her camera bag.<\/p>\n

Hillmon, who has emerged as a frontrunner for the WNBA Sixth Player of the Year award, believes professional athletes should have a hobby outside of their sport. Though she spends the majority of her time during the season around Dream teammates and basketball, Hillmon prefers not to take photos of her day-to-day life as an athlete, instead keeping her passion and her job separate.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love my job. I love basketball, but I think everybody needs a moment to step away,\u201d said Hillmon, who averages 8.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists. \u201c[Photography] gives me that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with Andscape, Hillmon shares the stories behind some of her favorite shots from this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"SEATTLE: \u201cSince I was little, I\u2019ve always loved going to different cities and seeing their skyline. I always thought, when I was younger anyway, this is my favorite city, just based on the skyline. Just the different buildings, the shapes, the sizes, the contrast of like the sky in the background, depending on whether it\u2019s sunny that day or cloudy. I think that always brings a lot of character into the city or the buildings. How the sun reflects off of them if they have a lot of windows in that building? That\u2019s a big thing that I\u2019m always drawn to is the architecture. Whether it has a lot of high rises, if there\u2019s a mix, if there\u2019s any kind of weird-shaped buildings. I find that very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Brooklyn, N.Y.: \u201cFor this image, I really liked all of the lines, or the wires for the bridge. I think it popped more in black and white, giving it a moody feel. It brings more attention to those lines. If it were in color, maybe you would just be focusing more on the bridge, but I really like the symmetry of how there\u2019s a little bit more of a shadow. There\u2019s more focus and emphasis on that. I think the black and white also kind of blurs out the people a little bit. I feel like that\u2019s the last thing that you look at, which I kind of wanted. I really like the shadows and I want you to see the symmetry of the lines compared to the other one (above) where I thought I liked the sky and liked how bright it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Ohio: \u201cThis is like my pride and joy, my niece, Shyla. This was during the All-Star break when I went home. I hadn\u2019t seen my mom in a while, who got me the camera. [My mom] usually comes to all the games, but she hadn\u2019t been able to prior to the All-Star break. My niece and I were actually making friendship bracelets. She\u2019s really big on that right now. This was like the first [photo] I was able to snap because she wouldn\u2019t let me continue to take a picture. She wouldn\u2019t look at the camera anymore. So this is the one I ended up getting. I actually have one of her friendship bracelets on right now. She\u2019s photogenic, so I just wanted to make sure I got a picture of her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Chicago: \u201cThis is my teammate, Rhyne Howard. The hat she\u2019s wearing, we actually went to a store to make the hat. It says Chicago on the front. The red lining already came with it, but we were able to pick out our patches, and they ironed them on for us. That was a trip that we had planned prior to going to Chicago. We saw it on TikTok or something. I wanted to take this picture, kind of like being in Chicago. I didn\u2019t wanna take it straight on. I kind of liked how it was just the side view of her head. I think we were walking, and I saw this angle, and I wanted to take it this way to get in her side profile, but also [get] a little bit of the buildings in the back and the street sign as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cWhen I was younger and I was just taking pictures on my phone, I used to take like close-ups of the grass to see the dew. Getting outside more is something that I want to do in general, being closer to nature. I really like the detail [of this flower]. I think that\u2019s the biggest thing when I\u2019m taking pictures of trees or flowers or grass \u2013 being able to see the detail. From far away, if you were to see these flowers, you would just see the pink and not how the edges are white or how they have the little white pieces in the middle. I really wanted to get a close-up of that and [show its] vibrancy. This actually wasn\u2019t even outside. It was in a flower pot at a market that I was in [during] All-Star [Weekend]. You would\u2019ve thought I was outside, and that was kind of what I was going for. Just the detail and the simplicity. These are the same flowers but they all look a little different to me, and you\u2019re able to see that in the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Minnesota: \u201cI definitely think [being an athlete] gives you a different perspective [as a photographer]. I think I\u2019m able to kind of filter what an athlete would really like to see after a game, and being able to have a little bit of variety as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI am awful at golfing. I enjoy being with my teammates Rhyne (right) and Lish (Allisha Gray). So that\u2019s how I incorporate myself into their daily plans of going. I\u2019ll just say, I\u2019ll caddie, and I\u2019ll bring my camera, and I\u2019ll just take pictures. You guys golf. I\u2019ll tell you whether or not you guys are good or bad that day. I\u2019m just the photographer. I do not swing the club,\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI actually think it\u2019s really hard to photograph sports. Obviously with things in motion and being able to catch it at the right angle or speed, your apertures. I feel like you have to be perfect when it comes to sports photography. I\u2019m really just dabbling into that. I\u2019ve done a little bit more golfing than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz HILLMAN<\/p>\n

\"\"Minnesota (left, center): \u201cI really just liked the colors of this building, but also the [stone]\u2026 I like being below or underneath the building, so it would feel more like a castle because it\u2019s so big and built up, as well as the angle of the sky.\u201d <\/p>\n

San Franciso (right): \u201cI was actually walking back from getting some lunch, and I looked down the street and saw this clock tower, which I thought was beautiful. Honestly, I didn\u2019t even initially see the statue at the bottom, but was like, \u2018I absolutely love this shot.\u2019 I could have gotten closer, but I really liked how the light was hitting the clock tower. I\u2019m literally in the middle of the street in the crosswalk to take this picture. I could have probably taken the same picture from the sidewalk, but I really thought it was important to kind of get that right down the middle so that you could see the statue as well as the stop sign of the stoplights, and just like all of the lines and the colors as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Seattle: \u201cWe were on a boat in Seattle. It was actually Jordin Canada\u2019s birthday, so a lot of the team went out on the boat, and we had jet skis. This was a really hard picture to take, actually, because we were still moving along on our boat, and [Maya Caldwell] (pictured here) was moving as well. I was just kind of snapping away, trying to get the perfect angle, the lighting, everything needed to basically be perfect for this photo. What I like about this picture so much is how it\u2019s off-center. I think it really speaks to how hard it was to take this picture and how I wasn\u2019t able to get the perfect shot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Seattle, WA: \u201c[Rhyne Howard, Atlanta Dream Guard] posed herself actually in terms of [putting] this orange in front of her face. I think I was taking some pictures of the background, and she just kind of stood like this. I had to angle my camera to get the shot I wanted, but this picture is actually her own. I really liked how the trees were kind of poking out from behind her. The sky was so clear that day. I thought the orange was a little bit of a funny little thing, with it being her smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cI do usually take pictures of things that kind of catch my eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Vancouver, BC: \u201cI was walking through a market and we saw this: It\u2019s ice cream with puff pastry on top. This was mine. It had chocolate pretzels, peanut butter, and there was like one of those puff pastries at the bottom as well. I never had one, and it was in a different city, well, a different country. I thought, \u201cBefore I eat it, it looks pretty.\u201d So I just snapped a picture. It was also yummy. So it looks good and it tastes good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\"\"Seattle, WA: \u201c[This] picture, the Loback Meat Co., I feel like that\u2019s like a nostalgia picture. Maybe because of the lighting of the sign. It just feels a little bit older to me. I really enjoyed that and the color of it as well. I actually took this picture the first time around we went to Seattle, and I went home and I edited it, and I hated it. So then I was like, when I go back, I have to take this picture and really capture what I was looking for. I think this time I was able to capture that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naz Hillmon<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tLiner Notes<\/p>\n

Production Credits<\/p>\n

Reporter: Sean Herd<\/p>\n

Camera Operators: Michael Becker, Tantus Branham <\/p>\n

Producer: Jasmine Baxter <\/p>\n

Sean Hurd is a senior writer for Andscape who primarily covers women\u2019s basketball. His athletic peak came at the age of 10 when he was named camper of the week at a Josh Childress basketball camp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When she\u2019s not on the court starring as a forward for the Atlanta Dream, you can find Naz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-245664","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}