When she’s not on the court starring as a forward for the Atlanta Dream, you can find Naz Hillmon shooting another type of shot.
This year, Hillmon has cultivated an overdue passion for photography, an interest that first peaked when she was in high school.
On every Dream road trip, Hillmon embarks on a mission to photograph her surroundings. She’s well-equipped for the task, with a Sony a7 III camera—a Christmas gift from her mom—and her boyfriend, Andrew Wells, who graciously carries her camera bag.
Hillmon, who has emerged as a frontrunner for the WNBA Sixth Player of the Year award, believes professional athletes should have a hobby outside of their sport. Though she spends the majority of her time during the season around Dream teammates and basketball, Hillmon prefers not to take photos of her day-to-day life as an athlete, instead keeping her passion and her job separate.
“I love my job. I love basketball, but I think everybody needs a moment to step away,” said Hillmon, who averages 8.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists. “[Photography] gives me that moment.”
In an interview with Andscape, Hillmon shares the stories behind some of her favorite shots from this season.
SEATTLE: “Since I was little, I’ve always loved going to different cities and seeing their skyline. I always thought, when I was younger anyway, this is my favorite city, just based on the skyline. Just the different buildings, the shapes, the sizes, the contrast of like the sky in the background, depending on whether it’s sunny that day or cloudy. I think that always brings a lot of character into the city or the buildings. How the sun reflects off of them if they have a lot of windows in that building? That’s a big thing that I’m always drawn to is the architecture. Whether it has a lot of high rises, if there’s a mix, if there’s any kind of weird-shaped buildings. I find that very interesting.”
Naz Hillmon
Brooklyn, N.Y.: “For this image, I really liked all of the lines, or the wires for the bridge. I think it popped more in black and white, giving it a moody feel. It brings more attention to those lines. If it were in color, maybe you would just be focusing more on the bridge, but I really like the symmetry of how there’s a little bit more of a shadow. There’s more focus and emphasis on that. I think the black and white also kind of blurs out the people a little bit. I feel like that’s the last thing that you look at, which I kind of wanted. I really like the shadows and I want you to see the symmetry of the lines compared to the other one (above) where I thought I liked the sky and liked how bright it was.”
Naz Hillmon
Ohio: “This is like my pride and joy, my niece, Shyla. This was during the All-Star break when I went home. I hadn’t seen my mom in a while, who got me the camera. [My mom] usually comes to all the games, but she hadn’t been able to prior to the All-Star break. My niece and I were actually making friendship bracelets. She’s really big on that right now. This was like the first [photo] I was able to snap because she wouldn’t let me continue to take a picture. She wouldn’t look at the camera anymore. So this is the one I ended up getting. I actually have one of her friendship bracelets on right now. She’s photogenic, so I just wanted to make sure I got a picture of her.”
Naz Hillmon
Chicago: “This is my teammate, Rhyne Howard. The hat she’s wearing, we actually went to a store to make the hat. It says Chicago on the front. The red lining already came with it, but we were able to pick out our patches, and they ironed them on for us. That was a trip that we had planned prior to going to Chicago. We saw it on TikTok or something. I wanted to take this picture, kind of like being in Chicago. I didn’t wanna take it straight on. I kind of liked how it was just the side view of her head. I think we were walking, and I saw this angle, and I wanted to take it this way to get in her side profile, but also [get] a little bit of the buildings in the back and the street sign as well.”
Naz Hillmon
“When I was younger and I was just taking pictures on my phone, I used to take like close-ups of the grass to see the dew. Getting outside more is something that I want to do in general, being closer to nature. I really like the detail [of this flower]. I think that’s the biggest thing when I’m taking pictures of trees or flowers or grass – being able to see the detail. From far away, if you were to see these flowers, you would just see the pink and not how the edges are white or how they have the little white pieces in the middle. I really wanted to get a close-up of that and [show its] vibrancy. This actually wasn’t even outside. It was in a flower pot at a market that I was in [during] All-Star [Weekend]. You would’ve thought I was outside, and that was kind of what I was going for. Just the detail and the simplicity. These are the same flowers but they all look a little different to me, and you’re able to see that in the picture.”
Naz Hillmon
Minnesota: “I definitely think [being an athlete] gives you a different perspective [as a photographer]. I think I’m able to kind of filter what an athlete would really like to see after a game, and being able to have a little bit of variety as well.”
Naz Hillmon
“I am awful at golfing. I enjoy being with my teammates Rhyne (right) and Lish (Allisha Gray). So that’s how I incorporate myself into their daily plans of going. I’ll just say, I’ll caddie, and I’ll bring my camera, and I’ll just take pictures. You guys golf. I’ll tell you whether or not you guys are good or bad that day. I’m just the photographer. I do not swing the club,”
Naz Hillmon
“I actually think it’s really hard to photograph sports. Obviously with things in motion and being able to catch it at the right angle or speed, your apertures. I feel like you have to be perfect when it comes to sports photography. I’m really just dabbling into that. I’ve done a little bit more golfing than anything else.”
Naz HILLMAN
Minnesota (left, center): “I really just liked the colors of this building, but also the [stone]… I like being below or underneath the building, so it would feel more like a castle because it’s so big and built up, as well as the angle of the sky.”
San Franciso (right): “I was actually walking back from getting some lunch, and I looked down the street and saw this clock tower, which I thought was beautiful. Honestly, I didn’t even initially see the statue at the bottom, but was like, ‘I absolutely love this shot.’ I could have gotten closer, but I really liked how the light was hitting the clock tower. I’m literally in the middle of the street in the crosswalk to take this picture. I could have probably taken the same picture from the sidewalk, but I really thought it was important to kind of get that right down the middle so that you could see the statue as well as the stop sign of the stoplights, and just like all of the lines and the colors as well.”
Naz Hillmon
Seattle: “We were on a boat in Seattle. It was actually Jordin Canada’s birthday, so a lot of the team went out on the boat, and we had jet skis. This was a really hard picture to take, actually, because we were still moving along on our boat, and [Maya Caldwell] (pictured here) was moving as well. I was just kind of snapping away, trying to get the perfect angle, the lighting, everything needed to basically be perfect for this photo. What I like about this picture so much is how it’s off-center. I think it really speaks to how hard it was to take this picture and how I wasn’t able to get the perfect shot.”
Naz Hillmon
Seattle, WA: “[Rhyne Howard, Atlanta Dream Guard] posed herself actually in terms of [putting] this orange in front of her face. I think I was taking some pictures of the background, and she just kind of stood like this. I had to angle my camera to get the shot I wanted, but this picture is actually her own. I really liked how the trees were kind of poking out from behind her. The sky was so clear that day. I thought the orange was a little bit of a funny little thing, with it being her smile.”
Naz Hillmon
“I do usually take pictures of things that kind of catch my eye.”
Naz Hillmon
Vancouver, BC: “I was walking through a market and we saw this: It’s ice cream with puff pastry on top. This was mine. It had chocolate pretzels, peanut butter, and there was like one of those puff pastries at the bottom as well. I never had one, and it was in a different city, well, a different country. I thought, “Before I eat it, it looks pretty.” So I just snapped a picture. It was also yummy. So it looks good and it tastes good.”
Naz Hillmon
Seattle, WA: “[This] picture, the Loback Meat Co., I feel like that’s like a nostalgia picture. Maybe because of the lighting of the sign. It just feels a little bit older to me. I really enjoyed that and the color of it as well. I actually took this picture the first time around we went to Seattle, and I went home and I edited it, and I hated it. So then I was like, when I go back, I have to take this picture and really capture what I was looking for. I think this time I was able to capture that.”
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