Photo Courtesy Of Elle Watson/ Instagram
An eight-year-old Black girl photographer named Elle Watson was spotted capturing pictures at a recent Memphis Grizzlies game.
Watson was seen at the Milwaukee Bucks vs. Memphis Grizzlies game at FedExForum in her hometown on Mar. 26, where several players walked up to her and asked for their photos to be taken.
“Can I see them?” Grizzlies’ shooting guard De’Anthony Melton reportedly asked the young girl after she took a few shots of him.
Shortly after Melton reviewed his photographs, he complimented them, and then Bally Sports analyst Brevin Knight walked over to Watson.
“Where’s my girl?!” Knight asked before she took a picture of him and her grandfather, Thurman Hobson, who she affectionately called “gran-man.”
The third-grader later took to her Instagram page, which her parents have been managing, on Mar. 27 to express her gratitude.
“I had a ball taking pics of the Memphis Grizzlies at courtside!” she said. “This is a dream come true! Thank @memgrizz for the opportunity and to my family for their support!”
“I loved it,” she also said about the game to Commercial Appeal. “People gave me hugs. Some people gave me fistbumps, and I loved being there…When I was at the game, the players made me feel like I was famous. It makes me proud to be a little girl with a camera. It’s unbelievable that I can do all this and see these new people.”
She reportedly picked up her first camera at the age of one and began getting paid for taking pictures at just four years old. At six years old, she was privileged to take photos of the 30th annual Southern Heritage Classic football game.
“Some of the stuff she shoots, I look at it, and it totally amazes me she’s able to capture the images that she is at such an early age using professional equipment,” her grandfather said. He was their family photographer for 50 years and introduced his granddaughter to the craft.
“She’s taken on what my dad loves so much,” Watson’s mom, Hobson-Walton, added. “It started out as a hobby for her, but now she’s getting a lot of jobs because of her professionalism. She’s a kid first, but she comes as a professional.”
Her daughter’s first booking was reportedly for $25. Not only has she photographed the recent Memphis Grizzlies game and multiple Southern Heritage Classic football games since then, but she was also booked for over ten weddings.
Walton received the opportunity to shoot at the Grizzlies game through her aunt, Tiffany Hobson, who met a marketing specialist with the Memphis NBA team at an event. “The kid photographer” came up during their conversation, and less than a month later, the eight-year-old was granted pre-game access.
“If she commits to a job, she carries it out, and that for me, I can say that I’m most proud about,” her mother said.
The pint-sized photographer is a CLUE student at Grahamwood Elementary in Memphis and has been playing basketball. Her favorite NBA player is Grizzlies’ point guard Ja Morant. However, Walton has expressed that she would rather be behind the camera.
“‘Mom, I enjoy this. This is cool,'” she told her mother, as her goal is to be a “noted, famous photographer.”