12 Feb 2025 Kai Caddy: Arkansas basketball’s shot taker
By Donna Lampkin Stephens
Everything in Kai Caddy’s past has led him to where he is today.
Caddy, 41, of Conway, has been a photographer, designer and videographer since earning his degree in journalism with a minor in art from the University of Central Arkansas in 2007. He made the move to freelance work with Kai Caddy Visual Storytelling, LLC, last spring.
“I hate to say that I’m surprised at how well it’s going, but I am a little surprised,” he said.
After four years in roles including photographer, copy editor, sports editor and delivery with The Echo, UCA’s award-winning student newspaper, the Glen Rose High School graduate went to The Morning News in Springdale as a sports page designer, then to Arkansas Times, where he was art director, then to the UCA Athletic Department as video marketing coordinator, then to Arkansas PBS as a graphic designer.
Through Arkansas PBS, he has photographed the state high school basketball championships at Hot Springs since 2020.
“That’s probably the best,” he said of being on the court for the 12 championship games. “The student sections are at the ends, so they’re right behind you, and that’s always a big part of it. The student sections are all fired up, and the crowd in general is pretty good, especially for the smaller classifications. The whole town is there.
“At the state finals, the stakes are higher even for the photographers if you want to capture that perfect moment.”
While his business specializes in cycling photography, he said basketball was his favorite ball sport.
“Especially in the finals, these kids are playing their hearts out,” he said. “The emotion, the athleticism — I think sports is the coolest kind of photography because you get that emotion. You’re stopping these moments in time. It’s a moment they’ll never forget, and it’s cool that they’ll have this photo to help them remember.”
The biggest challenge to shooting basketball, he said, is the speed of the game. That, along with the quality of today’s cameras, sometimes requires him to make editorial judgments about the images he uses.
“Nobody wants to see one of their eyes closed, or their mouth looking funny,” he said. “I’m not trying to embarrass anybody. You’re not going to look 100 percent while you’re playing a sport. It’s not like a portrait. I want your eyes to be open.” He’s also shot the state football and volleyball championships.
He played football, basketball and ran track at Glen Rose, but he said he learned all his photo skills at UCA, mainly under the tutelage of Dr. Polly Walter in journalism and Donna Pinkley in art.
He started cycling himself after he moved back to Conway in 2010. As soon as he touched the road, he said, he felt like a kid again. He’s done everything from 30-minute trail rides to 100-mile road rides. He rode every day for two years during COVID-19 because “I didn’t have anything else to do.”
His fellow group of riders in Little Rock encouraged him to try racing, but he said all his friends were more advanced, so instead he picked up his camera. The rest, as they say, is history. He does a lot of work for cycling teams nationally, having traveled to California, West Virginia and Oklahoma to shoot races. He also shoots Arkansas’s National Interscholastic Cycling Association events for middle and high school mountain bikers.“
Arkansas has one of the bigger leagues in the country,” he said. “It’s another high school sport I cover, not [an Arkansas Activities Association] sport, but just the same great positive vibes — kids really love the sport.”
