THE SHARPER IMAGE
NICK WOSIKA HAS BECOME A GO-TO PHOTOGRAPHER FOR BOTH UPPER DECK AND TOPPS … AND HE HAS HIS HOBBY BACKGROUND TO THANK FOR HIS SUCCESS.
NICK WOSIKA IS BUSY. e 45-year-old from Shakopee, Minnesota, a suburb about 20 minutes southwest of Minneapolis, is the father of two, a youth hockey coach, and the driving force behind the slick, hobby-oriented web series, e Card Show.
He’s also a successful, multi-sport photographer whose work has appeared in Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, and
USA Today, among other illustrious publications. And in recent
years, his images have become staples in sets produced by Topps and Upper Deck. One of them graces the hottest card of the season, Kirill Kaprizov’s 2020-21 Upper Deck Young Guns RC (#451).
Even though his calendar is full, you won’t hear this lifelong collector complaining.
“I have a philosophy,”Wosika said.“If you have the time and the talent and someone is going to pay you for some
thing, and you don’t have any moral or ethical objections to what’s going on, then go ahead and do it. Work leads to work. You’re going to meet new people, and that’s going to lead to something else.
“Honestly, this is all a dream come true,” he continued. “I’ve got the coolest job ever.”
How he landed that job is the kind of story that could inspire any sports fan to live out his or her own dreams.
Photography wasn’t always in Wosika’s blood, but the hobby has been part of his life for almost as long as he can remember. He grew up in Minnesota but was bitten by the collecting bug in Southern California. He was there attending a wedding when he met an older neighborhood kid who gave him his baseball cards.
It wasn’t long before he was cracking wax and selling cards out of his fanny pack to his junior high classmates. By the late-80s, the teenaged Wisoka was running a card show with a buddy out of his parents’ basement. “There were six tables. We even took out a classified ad in Beckett Baseball to promote it,” he said. “We were both super entrepreneurial at a very young age. We took the money we made at that show to pay for table fees at local hotel shows.”
When he took up photography, he dreamed of making it work with his other passion. “It was always the goal to shoot for baseball cards and hockey cards,” he said.
When his early efforts with a camera didn’t live up to what he pictured in his head, he enrolled in a two-year photography program. at was a frustrating experience as well. e program was focused on the most practical level of commercial photography. Wosika wasn’t having it.
“All we were learning was how to shoot glamor shots or bags of chips. at was the extent of it,” he said. “One day I told them I wanted to shoot rock stars and professional athletes. ey said we’re not going to do that, so literally the next day I emailed (every photographer) I could find within a 50-mile radius of me and asked, ‘Can I follow you around? Do you need an intern? Are you hiring?’”
He got one reply. at opportunity in a local newsroom offered a shock lesson in modern digital photography and editing. A day later he was offered a job and was on his way. Before long, he was freelancing for wire services and taking any assignment he could land. It was enjoyable work, and his services were in demand.
Flash forward 12 years to 2015. Wosika was scanning eBay for cards when he came across something unexpected.
“I was looking at this card thinking that it looks like something I would shoot,” he said of the 2017 Topps Now José Berríos (#160).“I dug through my (photos) and there it was.
“I bought five of them right away,” he said. “I mean, this was the dream come true.”
It was a success story he shared with the player not long after.
“Literally a week later, (Berríos) is doing a signing at one of the fan shops around here. I went to him and said, ‘Look, I know this is going to sound weird, but this is my first baseball card.’ So I got a picture of me and my son and him holding up the card. He signed it and it was super cool.”
Even as he made inroads with Topps with
his baseball photography, hockey remained his first love. But how to catch the attention of Upper Deck? A trip to Winnipeg, where he met up with some local photographers who had experience in shooting for the hobby market, put him on the right path. “I wanted to do what they were doing. at was the gig for me,” Wosika said, recalling a lively conversation. “We were huge nerds, just talking about photography and hockey cards. I finally asked them for John Ibriks’ contact information – he’s the photo manager at Upper Deck (for more on Ibriks, see page 10). So I just emailed him and said, look, I know you probably get 100 of these emails a day, but I shoot a ton of hockey and here’s my work. He called me up and said yeah, we need a guy in Minnesota. is was in 2017 and I just started working with them from that point.”
It wasn’t long before the company began regularly using Wosika’s photos across its brand portfolio. It’s no surprise that he’s become a go-to shooter. When he works games, he goes in with an eye sharply honed by his hobby background. It gives him an edge that makes him uniquely suited to meet the needs of manufacturers.
“When I cover games, I see (photographers from) Getty,
AP, USA Today. I’m not going to beat those guys to market on editorial stuff, so I just let them do their thing,” he said. “When I went to a baseball game, I went to shoot baseball cards. When I worked a hockey game, I was shooting for hockey cards. Nobody else was shooting that way, so I started getting more (of my photos selected for) cards.”
When he shoots a game for Upper Deck, he’s armed with a list of the company’s priorities. “e hobby is rookie driven, so those guys are usually 1A, 1B, and 1C,” Wosika said. “But I like to get a good mix of images, because I know these products and I’m so into it. I shoot a photo and as I’m editing I’m thinking, ‘is would be good for Artifacts, this would be a good insert.’ at’s the process in my head. If it’s a good photo and it’s only from (chest up), I know it could be a good patch card, or maybe there could be an autograph here. at’s how I’m thinking when I edit. I don’t think anyone else does that because they don’t have that understanding of the ultimate usage.”
While he’s pleased when any of his images are selected, he takes special pride when they’re chosen for Upper Deck’s Young Guns subset.
“My first Young Guns was Elias Pettersson’s (2018-19 Upper Deck) Canvas card,” he said. “I was shocked the first time I saw that card busted out of an online break. I was like, that’s my shot! I freaked out.”
Naturally, when the year’s most productive rookie turned up in his own back yard, Wosika got the call to deliver the shot for Kaprizov’s Young Guns. “He’s a challenge to shoot because he’s so quick. He’s so good on his edges. I equate him to a drunken bumblebee. He’s so unpredictable and so creative.”
He estimates he submitted well over 200 photos of Kaprizov to UD, then sat back and waited with the rest of the hobby as the dynamic winger began piling up the stats. “I didn’t have any say beyond that,” he said. “I had a heads-up that one of mine was chosen, but I didn’t know which shot until Upper Deck released the image on their social channels. It was exciting. My five-year-old self was high-fiving me when I saw it.”
When the product went live he quickly bought one off eBay. “It’s already sitting here on my mantel next to all my other Young Guns (with my photos),” he said.
One of those is the 2019-20 Upper Deck Young Guns Jack Hughes (#201).“at was special because of everything I got to do that went into that card, with (e Card Show) shoot, the traveling, the people. I was involved (in the planning) from the start. I even went to UD. It was a fascinating process to learn how many people touch this thing before it gets (printed).”
Like everything else this past year, shooting games has been impacted by the Covid pandemic. Breaks in the schedule, arena restrictions, and the absence of extra-divisional games have presented challenges.
“It’s always about access,” Wosika said. “If you can get access, you can make something happen. And access is tough this year.
“I think the fans not being there has been a double-edged sword, too,” he continued. “I can shoot a pro hockey game like a high school game. I can move around, go over here, go over there. But I’m also missing out by not having the fans there. ey’re like an assistant, in a way. If I’m (focused) in camera, I can tell (what’s going on) by the crowd’s reaction.”
Despite those roadblocks, Wisoka is grateful every day to be doing what he loves. “Hockey’s a very beautiful game to photograph,” he said. “There are lots of leading lines, diagonals all over the player. You can see the emotion in the players. And I think the Upper Deck team does a really good job on their end.”
He’s proud of all of the photos he’s had selected, but adds, “I think the Kaprizov is the one that will be most remembered when all is said and done … at least until somebody else comes along and just blows the door off the league.”
Whenever that next player comes along, Wosika will be uniquely prepared to capture his image.