ExtremeRavens Posted Thursday at 11:00 AM Posted Thursday at 11:00 AM Lamar Jackson prefers to work in private. During the offseason, the two-time NFL Most Valuable Player doesn’t post training montages or pictures from the gym like many of his counterparts around the league. There’s a vague smokescreen of mystery shielding Jackson’s football life from the time one season ends and the next begins. Earlier this month, Hassan Edwards, a Baltimore native and freelance photographer, got to break that veil. He was invited to South Florida — reaping two-plus-years haphazardly sneaking his camera into M&T Bank Stadium — to capture Jackson throwing passes to Zay Flowers. “I was just like, ‘Dang, that’s my favorite player in front of me,’” Edwards said. Edwards, a 23-year-old graduate of Baltimore City College then Baltimore City Community College, had a camera growing up because he admired the one his uncle had. But it was never anything he used seriously. Then a friend needed a favor: someone to shoot his brand event. After that, Edwards brought his camera to a friend’s high school football game. There was something about capturing a moment, tapping into his creativity, that clicked. That imaginative side of Edwards, an interest in multimedia storytelling, was always there, but he never had much of an outlet for it. That changed in 2018. Someone sent a Ravens hype video in their group chat. Edwards didn’t like the way it came together. So he made his own; an “Avengers” style mixtape that gained some traction on social media. Mixing NFL highlight tapes is “where my creative process came from,” he said. But it was barely a hobby, overshadowed by a life he wasn’t happy with. In 2021, Edwards felt himself spiraling. He was in school and working part-time at Home Depot, then Target. He didn’t have any discernible passions. Late 2022 was “probably the lowest I’ve ever been.” “Photography was something I could use to escape from all that,” Edwards said. “It just helped me distract my mind off everything.” He made it to a few home Ravens games in 2022. Game day photography became part of his weekly schedule by 2023, as he chronicled the No. 1 seed’s chase to an AFC North championship. Edwards’ pictures picked up steam on social media, enough so that when Rashod Bateman needed a photographer for a lifestyle shoot, someone recommended the local kid. Other players started to catch on, asking Edwards for game photos of themselves to post to their own social media accounts: Isaiah Likely, Nate Wiggins, Keaton Mitchell, Trenton Simpson and more. Lamar Jackson during a private workout in South Florida from early July. The two-time MVP quarterback doesn't post much from his offseason training. Hassan Edwards had the chance to capture some of the summer magic (Courtesy: Hassan Edwards). There are two pictures from last season that Edwards still speaks fondly of. First was from Week 2 against the Las Vegas Raiders. Edwards snapped the frame and showed it to his buddy. “I was like, ‘Ooh, I like this one.’” It was Jackson, his back to the camera, slamming on the brakes and propped up on his tippy toes like Michael Jackson, while two helpless defenders flew by. The other was a touchdown pass to Bateman against Cincinnati, more famous for Jackson turning away from the throw chucking up three fingers like it was a Steph Curry triple. “Somebody said my pictures always look like a lock screen,” Edwards said. “I do that on purpose as well. I leave space at the top. I’m not on the field. Since I’m not up close I can’t get the whole body and keep all the quality. I try to keep a certain style where you can see a story within it but you can also grab it and use it for your lock screen.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Ravens [RN] (@ravens.network) This offseason has been particularly busy for Edwards. In March, he spent a few days running around Miami with Odafe Oweh, from the gym to the Miami Open tennis tournament. Edwards rubbed shoulders with Ravens at the Preakness Stakes (“I got to meet Ray Lewis,” he said, “my favorite player of all time.”) He took pictures and videos for Likely’s charity softball game in June. And Flowers booked him for a community event in South Florida. Then the Pro Bowl receiver brought him back a few days later for the workout. Edwards spent an afternoon on the field with Jackson, Flowers and Malik Cunningham. Jackson appeared immune to the balmy Florida heat. He wore an all-black outfit: a Polo T-shirt, Nike Windrunner pants and a pair of Asics, all accented by a bright gold chain. The trio rapped about a few games from this past season and used certain plays to help contextualize the workout. Edwards said that Jackson and Flowers, both Broward County natives, shared memories from youth football too. At one point, Flowers said that he needs to get himself to the famed hill that Derrick Henry trains on under a Dallas bridge. Edwards wasn’t leaving without getting the one shot he knew the internet would gush over. There’s a trend on social media where someone puts their hand over the camera, the screen dips to black and wipes to a Jackson mixtape. Celebrities and influencers alike put their own hand over the camera preceding highlights of the quarterback’s dual-threat mastery. “You know the trend they doing on TikTok?” Edwards asked. “Yeah,” Jackson said, “when I put the hand over the camera.” The video promptly landed on Instagram with 165,000 views. Edwards has become a figure on Ravens Twitter. His pictures get posted by players. Fans can pinpoint his work by its consistent style. And it has given the Baltimore native a new outlook on life. “When I first started I was lost cause I didn’t really have no passions. I didn’t know what to do,” Edwards said. “Now it makes me grateful. I feel like since I took it more serious, all that stuff that I let weigh me down, I just let it go. I feel like it just allowed me to be more free and feel better about myself.” Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn. View this post on Instagram A post shared by San on the Shot (@sandontmiss) View the full article Quote
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