BECCA TORNCELLO
Sports Photographer
My time at The Leader may have been shorter than most E-board members, but I am still so grateful for the wonderful experience I have had with this group of people.
When I came to Fredonia in the fall of 2020, I came in as an acting major. Theatre was my passion for a very long time, and was what I thought I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
After my freshman year, I decided to take a gap year. During my gap year, I did a lot of thinking about what made me happy, and if I was truly happy majoring in theatre.
I came back to school in the fall of 2022 and spent the first month back pretty unhappy as an acting major. I decided that I needed to figure out what truly made me happy and what my real passion was.
Photography was always a hobby of mine, and as I was figuring out what to change my major to, I realized that maybe I could make a career out of my photography.
In spring of 2023, I changed my major and was officially a photography major.
I joined The Leader during my first semester of junior year because my good friend Drew (our lovely Photo Editor) told me about the club and recommended it to me. I started off photographing any article I could, whether that be an art display in the Emmitt Christian Gallery, an event that a club was hosting or just the construction that was happening all around campus. I made sure to take every opportunity I could to gain more experience in the field.
Within the same semester that I joined The Leader, I became a Staff Photographer.
At the same time, I was also working with the Department of Theatre and Dance (TADA) as a Production Photographer. I was able to provide the paper with photos from every MainStage performance that season.
Photographing theatre performances was something I truly enjoyed, but it wasn’t where I wanted to put my focus in my photography journey.
I continued to work with TADA for one more semester after that, and at the same time, began my internship with the Athletic Department as a Sports Photographer.
During my internship, I photographed sporting events for track, cross country, baseball, basketball, lacrosse and hockey, as well as some athlete headshots and our yearly award ceremony, “The Freddies.” I fell in love with shooting sports again and knew that sports was what I wanted to photograph for the rest of my life.
Once my internship was over, I was lucky enough to continue to shoot for Athletics in the fall of 2024 and now get paid to photograph for them. I now shoot soccer, volleyball, hockey, lacrosse, baseball, basketball, track, cross country, tennis and media days for our sports teams.
I was also elected as The Leader’s Sports Photographer that same semester.
As I continue to shoot for Athletics in my last semester here at Fredonia, I will also be closing out my time here as a photography intern for Fredonia’s Marketing and Communications Department.
My time here at Fredonia has been nothing but special and eye-opening.
Thank you to The Leader for having me be a part of your hard-working team and believing in my skills. Shout-out to my fellow sports colleagues Matt Volz and Mitch Horucy; we truly are the coolest and best section of The Leader.
Finally, I would like to end with a special thank you to Steve Komp, Lori Deemer, Matt Palisin, Tim Frerichs, Michele Bernatz and the VANM department as a whole, for being key figures in my success here at Fredonia and allowing me to grow not only as an artist, but as a human.