An 11-year-old photographer is one of the stars of the CIAA tournament

Myles Minishotta, an 11-year-old sitting courtside, gestured to his camera and showed his mother, Shay Moore, a picture of Shaw’s Camila Barreno’s game-tying bucket, which forced overtime in the game against Virginia Union.

“Mom! Did you see that?” Minishotta asked this week.

The young photographer has become a sensation among Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association executives, players, coaches and media this week at CFG Bank Arena. Minishotta is in the midst of covering the Baltimore event for the first time.

“I’ve actually had a lot of fun,” Minishotta said. “Just being able to see basketball and looking at the pictures and seeing how good they’ve come out is great.”

Since receiving his first camera — a Canon Rebel, when he was 3 years old — Minishotta, whose legal last name is Campbell, has loved to take pictures and has done so at prestigious events. He’s covered New York Fashion Week since 2018, DC Fashion Week since 2021, the Washington Mystics during the team’s championship season in 2019 and Washington Wizards games in 2022.

He’s also taken photos of celebrities, including comedians DC Young Fly and Steve Harvey, rappers Kodak Black, O.T. Genasis, Gucci Mane, Saweetie, Shy Glizzy, T.I. and Wale. He has also photographed former New York Giants wide receiver Victor Cruz and model Winnie Harlow.

Minishotta inherited the passion of photography from his mother. She remembers him fiddling with her camera when he was just 2. Soon after, he asked for his first camera.

His mother told him no, due to the cost. Eventually, though, she began to see the photos he took and was impressed. “He wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Moore said.

“I really kind of got him really, really into it at the age of 5. It’s when I really started promoting him,” Moore said. “I started promoting him at 4, and I said, ‘You could just have a little page on my website with your pictures.’ I didn’t know that it was going to last. I never knew it was going to turn into this. At 5, I told him, ‘I’m going to go ahead and push you. You’ve been doing it for a while now.’ He’s here today, and he’s shot for the cover of magazines. He’s done a bunch of things.”

Moore didn’t initially know how to make it work because there’s typically a process of applying for credentials that requires the applicant to be a certain age. The CIAA tournament granted Minishotta and Moore access to the tournament this season and to the CIAA Fan Fest in 2023.

He’s been a welcome addition. CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams-Parker hopes that he becomes a student at a conference school one day after soaking in the experience of being a young Black photographer at an event for historically Black colleges and universities.

“You can be what you can see with Myles,” McWilliams-Parker said. “He’s out here with professionals. We have a photographer here where this will be his 50th tournament. You’ve got folks that are out here who are experienced, you’ve got student media — it’s great exposure. What I love about him is that he’s in his own little world and he’s watching. When I see cameras moving on the sideline, like you see on TV, he’s doing the same thing.”