Through the Lens Sports Photography Stories | No 10 – The Moment Before

• A quiet pause before the action at the Weightlifting WA State Championships — captured as part of my Through the Lens sports photography stories.

This post is part of my Through the Lens sports photography stories — a series exploring the connection between sport and community. Each week, I share not just what I capture, but why I captured it.

In sport, there’s always a pause before the storm. It’s that brief moment when an athlete closes their eyes, gathers their breath, and shuts out the noise around them. It’s not yet the time for action — it’s the time for focus, for centering, for carrying the weight of everything that has led them here.

This image captures that instant: eyes closed, shoulders steadied, surrounded not by opponents, but by those who want to see you succeed. Coaches, teammates, training partners, family, and friends — all offering belief, support, and a quiet kind of strength. Sport is often remembered for the highlights — the tries, the goals, the records broken — but its essence lives in these quieter spaces where preparation meets belief.

The Weight We Don’t See

As spectators, we often focus on outcomes — the victories and defeats, the medals won or lost. We tend to think of these as individual achievements, as if athletes are entirely self-contained in their pursuit of success. And in professional sport, the business side often amplifies this view: contracts, statistics, and results take centre stage.

But the truth is that athletes carry more than their own expectations. They carry the sacrifices of others: parents who drove them to training, coaches who invested their time, teammates who pushed them, fans who believed in them. Support lifts you up — but so does the responsibility that comes with it.

So when you see an athlete in that quiet moment before competition, it’s worth asking: are they focused only on the task ahead, or are they also carrying the weight of everything that got them there? Perhaps it is not the thought of victory that drives performance most powerfully, but the memory of the sacrifices made along the way.

The Heart of It

For me, this is the kind of scene that says more than the result ever could. It’s not the winning moment, not the celebration, not the final whistle. It’s the human pause before action. The focus. The vulnerability. The reminder that sport is about more than the contest — it’s about connection, belief, and shared strength.

Why I Share These Through the Lens Sports Photography Stories

Through the Lens is my way of exploring those moments — the ones that show what sport gives us beyond the scoreboard. Each week I’ll keep searching for them, camera in hand, and sharing what I find.