Turn your passion into your career.

Sound advice shared by countless guidance counsellors, life coaches and entrepreneurs, and an adage fully embodied by sports photographer Charlie Lindsay.

Lindsay grew up playing basketball, even serving as captain of his high school squad. After not making the team at the University of Windsor, he approached the coaches about creating a new position with the Lancers: videographer.

“I was taking a TV show course, and we had to create segments,” says Lindsay. “I thought it would be cool to do basketball segments because no one was really doing that at the time.”

After graduation, Lindsay interned at a digital production house in Toronto. He’d take photos on his phone on his walk to work and post them to Instagram. When his internship ended, he turned his focus solely toward photography, with one particular subject in mind.

“The chances of playing professional basketball aren’t high, but I started seeing other avenues [to be involved in the game,]” he says. “Photography was something that I took up at university. I liked it a lot, and once I started getting better at it, I tried to merge the two lanes into one.”

He also had an intended audience in mind.

“I wanted to shoot for the Raptors, and the way I figured I’d have to do that is build a basketball portfolio,” he says. “I’d come up with concepts and shoot my friends on specific [outdoor] courts.”

Slowly, Lindsay began making his name. There was no definitive breakthrough moment, just a steady climb that started with him shooting from roofs overlooking concrete courts and ascended to him shooting from the rafters of the Air Canada Centre (Scotiabank Arena).

“What I enjoy the most is being able to shoot how I see what’s there as opposed to trying to get the shot you’ve seen before,” he says. “I’m working at getting better at making something my own, taking the photo that no one else can because they weren’t there in the same moment that I was.”

Lindsay grew up cheering on his favourite player, Vince Carter, from the cheap seats of Scotiabank Arena. In 2016, he shot the NBA All-Star Game there. In recent years, his work has appeared in SLAM, a magazine he grew up reading. Last year he earned his first SLAM cover, former Raptors All-Star DeMar Derozan.

But Lindsay shoots more than just basketball, and his experiences away from the court may be even more enriching. He’s shot in the Congo for the Serge Ibaka Foundation. He went to Panama to give sneakers and school supplies to kids. He travelled to India to explore its people and culture, a project he pitched to the Creator Class.

“That was one of my favourite trips just because I learned so much from so many different people,” he says. “There’s a language barrier, but we were still able to communicate. That says a lot about people in general: You don’t have to be the same to be able to relate to someone on certain things.”

There are still plenty of unchecked boxes on the bucket list: shoot the NBA Finals, March Madness, the Olympics.

But at the top, all by himself, is Vince Carter. Lindsay has shot his childhood idol in game situations, but he’s looking to go one on one.

“There’s a specific shoot that I want to do with him, and hopefully I get the chance one day.”