Paige Ozaroski is busy. Very, very, busy.
In fact, busy is an unjust, inadequate way of describing her hectic lifestyle. The 22-year-old, fifth-year JPRA senior simultaneously juggles her classes, volunteer gymnastics coaching, photography competitions and her work to date has already compiled two books.
Raised just north of Syracuse, NY, Ozaroski has always loved to capture life with her lens. “Ever since I was little…I would ask my dad if I could take his camera and take pictures,” she said.
By age 10 she had a camera of her own and in ninth grade she started taking photography classes at school.
Given a choice of subject for her photography, Ozaroski immediately gravitates toward sporting and entertainment events, breaking news, and nature. Inspired by her love of gymnastics and action-sport photography she compiled her first book “2002 ECAC Champions,” which documented Temple’s men’s gymnastic team 2001-2002 season.
In 2003, Ozaroski was assigned by the Sports Media Relations department to capture the Men’s NCAA gymnastic championship hosted by Temple in the Liacouras Center. Ozaroski’s pictures also appeared in the publications of several participating schools and landed in various newspapers throughout the country.
Her second book, “A Look at Life…Up Close,” completed this past spring, incorporated her love for nature. “I choose to do close-ups because it shows things you normally don’t see when you just look at animals and flowers,” she said. Two professional copies were made, and Ozaroski is currently working on having the book published.
She has also competed in several photography competitions. Most recently she was in Las Vegas shooting the Red Bull Rampage, an extreme mountain biking competition.
She found the competition through an online resource the night of the deadline. Ozaroski quickly threw together a portfolio of her favorite action sport pictures and submitted them, not expecting to hear anything back. Her work spoke for itself.
When not behind the lens, Ozaroski loves to keep active with any kind of sport, especially gymnastics since she was on Temple’s gymnastics team for four years. Now that her NCAA eligibility is up, she continues to practice and help coach the team.
Traveling is Ozaroski’s third passion, having been to much of the United States including Chicago, Boston, Colorado, and most recently, Las Vegas. She now has her sights set on conquering Europe with her Cannon 20D.
Ozaroski discovered her love for photojournalism while interning at the Delaware County Daily Times several summers ago. After interning for only three weeks as a writer, they hired her as a photographer for the paper.
Musing about her imminent post-graduate future Ozaroski said, “Ideally, well the way I look at my major, I see it as photojournalism…I want to work for a magazine.” Ozaroski’s dream job is to work for Sports Illustrated or Rolling Stone in the future.
If there’s one thing Ozaroski dislikes about her major, it’s the lack of appreciation people outside of her profession have for photojournalism. If only she had a dime for every time people asked “You have to go to school for that?”
“It’s frustrating because people don’t realize how much work goes into it; there are so many technical aspects,” she said. “You have to have a good eye. Its more than people think.”
It’s just a matter of time before Rolling Stone and Sports Illustrated will be vying for her talents.
Josh Chamberlain can be reached at Joshch@temple.edu.
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