Howdy Ags,

My name is Robert O’Brien and I’m a redshirt fifth-year COVID senior, who is finally finishing his undergraduate degree this December, but more importantly—to me at least—I have had the genuine pleasure of being photo chief of The Battalion for the last nine months. 

My time with The Batt has been brief when compared to a lot of other Photo Chiefs and Sports Editors, I only started as a photographer in July of 2021 and joined the editorial staff as assistant photo chief to Abbey Santoro in September of 2021. 

In that time a lot has happened in my life: I got to watch thousands of Aggies storm Kyle Field after upsetting Alabama, I got to sit on the court of Madison Square Garden to watch Aggie basketball, I got to experience the discomfort of having dirt from Charles Schwabb Field stuck in my sock for the entire trip back from Omaha and I made the decision to pursue a career in photography. 

I’m honored to say that my photos from each of the aforementioned events are now a part of The Battalion’s—and thus—Texas A&M’s history. These experiences have been some of the most memorable in my life thus far, and yet I don’t remember which photos from those moments wound up in print.

Even though I have a variety of newspaper clips above my desk, I know that they have been cropped unsatisfactorily and they just aren’t the whole photo that was taken. In fact, there is only one photo that I can confidently recall making its way onto paper exactly how I wanted it, and it’s a photo of a student holding a beer on Kyle Field. Everything else though kind of blurs together. 

If I’m being completely honest, I don’t even know if most of my favorite photos have ever appeared in print. The one place I do know where my favorite photos are available, exactly how I want them to be displayed—for the most part— is on Instagram, which has enabled me to share my work with anyone who wants to enjoy it. You may have even seen a few of my photos of a certain baseball coach eating a certain canned potato chip.

This freedom to share as many photos as we want, exactly how we as photographers want them to be displayed, is why The Battalion has started a new Instagram account specifically focused on sharing our best photos in the fastest and most convenient way with you, our audience.

The Battalion has made a significant investment in photojournalism for this upcoming football season, we hope to share our best work of all the touchdowns, upsets and celebrations that we hope to capture over the next few months with you, dear reader. So please, take a minute of your time to open up Instagram and follow us @thebattphoto and continue picking up magazines like this one, as we hope to make a few more this year.

Now, we aren’t doing this to diminish the significance of print journalism or because we are discontinuing print editions, quite the opposite. The magazine that you’re reading right now, dear reader, will eventually be considered part of the historic record. When webpages on thebatt.com must inevitably be archived and when Instagram will one day shut down, that photo of a fan holding his beer on Kyle Field will still exist in someone’s home. So enjoy the digital now, and keep print for the future.

Thanks, Gig ‘em, and give us a follow on Instagram @thebattphoto