Last Thursday I was at West Salem’s volleyball match when they beat West Albany to finish the sweep of the Greater Valley Conference championship.
West Salem’s volleyball team poses for a photo after winning the Greater Valley Conference championship on Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016.
After the match, the team spontaneously gathered together in a perfect team photo pose, with one group of shorter girls standing in front of the taller girls.
Then Friday night I was at Cascade’s football game when they beat North Marion to clinch a share of the Oregon West Conference championship.
After the game, the players and coaches just spontaneously gathered together for a team photo.
It’s something that has started happening in the past few years.
It used to take an authoritative photographer like Ted Miller of Northwest Sports Photography to wrangle players together after a big win, like a state championship.
Now the kids, and in many cases the coaches, just gather spontaneously.
I think the phenomenon has to do with how after youth sports games, kids often are gathered together after big wins by parents who want to take team pictures with their phones.
For a long time the tweets I posted that got the most traffic were of the team pictures after wins.
Of course the teams tend not to factor in lighting and background into where they’re going to pose, but hey, beggars can’t be choosers.
As long as they keep gathering, I’ll keep taking the team photos and tweet them out.
Cascade’s football team poses for a team photo after winning a share of the Oregon West Conference championship on Friday, Oct. 21, 2016.