A look at Crenshaw football greats from the lens of Robert S. Helfman

Since 2001, Robert S. Helfman, known as Shawdog, has been using his Canon cameras to capture photos of the athletes at Crenshaw High.

With high school sports on hold, he’s been growing restless, so I asked him to pick out five of his favorite photos from five former Crenshaw football players who made it to the NFL.

He started taking football photos in 2008.

The players chosen were Hayes Pullard, De’Anthony Thomas, Greg Ducre, Dominique Hatfield and Marcus Martin.

All were standout players for the Cougars.

Helfman is always carrying around what looks like a 50-pound lens on the Crenshaw sideline while trying not to upset coach Robert Garrett.

He has more than 124,000 public photos of Crenshaw athletes on shawdog.com. And that’s not just star players.

He’s been an invaluable asset, capturing the moments of one of the City Section’s most storied athletics programs.

As long as he keeps lifting weights so he can carry that heavy lens, Helfman isn’t going away anytime soon. He’ll be capturing the next generation of Crenshaw greats.