About

Photo Courtesy of Howard Taper

First, thanks for checking out my photography web site! I hope you enjoy the images you see in my photo gallery. I try to take pictures that tell the story of the game, or capture a glimpse of the personality of the athletes, coaches and fans . . . images that I’d like of my boys, framed on my desk at work and on the walls of our home office, and in the memory books Pat makes for our family.

Speaking of family, I’m the husband of Pat (formerly school nurse at Robinson Middle School and Plano Senior High), and the father of: Thaddeus Grant (PSH Grad ’01, Vancouver Film School Grad, former Video Editor and Voice Talent of Explosm.net’s “Cyanide & Happiness” animations, editor and occasional on-screen talent for the Film Joy YouTube show “Deep Dive,” and current Austin-based producer of commercials and on-line comedy content; Christopher (PSH Grad ’05, University of Colorado-Boulder Grad ’09, Notre Dame MBA Grad ’15, working for Hershey); Aaron (PSH Grad ’06, University of Arkansas Grad, December ’09, North Carolina MBA Grad ’17, Chief Growth Officer for G&G Independent Insurance); and Austin (PSH Grad ’12, Creighton University Grad ’16, now working for Northrop Grumman).  All the boys have been active in school activities and sports over the years, and Pat has a lot of scrapbooking ahead of her to catch up with all the pictures I’ve taken.

My passion for photography began with black & white film photography and Super 8 film making during my middle and high school years in rural central Illinois. My father, a photographer during his stint in the army, taught me how to develop film and prints in one of the bathrooms in our house. While in college I worked in a retail photo lab and camera store for a couple of years during breaks, and squeezed in some photo classes as electives in my pre-pharmacy curriculum at Creighton University, in Omaha (I have studied under renowned and widely published photographer Don Doll, S.J.). During this time my best friend (Marty) and I used to take a lot of nature and landscape shots and compare notes.

As I continued on in college I began to take more of a photojournalist approach to my shooting, and during my junior year in pharmacy school I was the photo editor for the 1979 Creighton University yearbook, and contributed heavily that academic year to the photos published in the university newspaper The Creightonian.

Then came graduation, marriage, law school, and raising the boys as we moved around the high plains and Midwest with job relocations. I didn’t have the money and space in any house for a dedicated photo lab, nor it seemed the time to fiddle with processing black & white photography. The Pentax SLR and bag full of lenses sat on the shelf.

In late 2001 I started to take notice of digital photography. I dipped my toe in the digital water, first with a little novelty digital camera, then a nice point & shoot digital, and then a digital SLR. With my digital SLR, computer, and inkjet printer I had more control making color prints than I ever had with images from film (without stinky chemicals).

In early 2006 I unveiled my web site to make my digital images available for viewing and purchasing via the Internet to athletes, their families and friends.

Since the summer of 2005 I had been a regular contributor of Plano school sports images to the Plano Star Courier and other American Community Newspaper publications until ACN went into bankruptcy in 2009. I’ve also contributed frequently to the Dallas Morning News Neighbors Go weekly and the Frisco Community Impact Newspaper.

Since 2015 I’ve added video as another medium to capture the action and emotion of youth sports for teams.  I have filmed and edited season highlight videos for Plano Lady Wildcats Basketball, South Garland Girls Basketball, Plano Wildcats Softball, R.L. Turner Volleyball, Richardson Pearce Volleyball, and Plano Wildcats Football.

Whether on this site or in other media, I hope you enjoy my photos and video.

–Thad