When he first began, Twins photographer Brace Hemmelgarn knew much more about where to position himself on the baseball field than how to operate his camera. A lifelong Twins fan and a former Division-III college player, Hemmelgarn was a novice with his equipment and an expert on where the sport’s most picturesque action occurs.

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Early on, the St. Cloud, Minn., native’s ability to be in the correct spot to capture important action allowed him to overcome his inexperience behind the lens.

But over the years, Hemmelgarn, 29, has improved his photo-taking skills immensely. A full-time employee since the 2014 season, Hemmelgarn also has created relationships and built trust with many of the Twins’ homegrown players. Combine those aspects with unprecedented access, and Hemmelgarn has become a critical part of the organization, supplying the Twins art for their publications and many of the action shots that are displayed throughout Target Field.

He also provides content for the team’s growing social media audience with behind-the-scenes access and photos — a skill that was on display Tuesday, when a squirrel interrupted play on the field in a game between the Twins and White Sox. The video clip went viral, and Hemmelgarn seized the moment by posting an expertly timed photo of the critter running between baserunner Max Kepler’s legs.

Right through the five-hole. #MNTwins

— Twins Photography (@TwinsPics) August 21, 2019

“Brace had the ability to recognize what was important, and the desire to be everywhere and anywhere that we needed pictures,” said Twins communications director Dustin Morse. “We brought him in full-time (in 2014), which was a great decision because social media started to blow up. He’s got a gift for content.

“Brace has done a great job sprinkling in new ways of doing things timely. Walk-off home runs are posted immediately. People are hungry for that content. He’s been living and breathing Twins baseball for the better part of five years, always available, always ready.”

Once again, Hemmelgarn is in an ideal position, working for his hometown baseball team, the one he loved dearly during his youth. He first attended a Detroit Tigers-Twins game in 1993 when he was 3. The first one he remembers attending was July 21, 2001, when the Twins hosted the Mariners at the Metrodome and an 11-year-old Hemmelgarn bought a Matt Lawton bobblehead.

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That the Twins won the division six times in the next nine seasons only created a bigger diehard. In Little League, high school and college, Hemmelgarn played outfield and wore No. 48 because Torii Hunter was his favorite player. One season he switched to catcher and bought all Nike gear to emulate Joe Mauer.

A realist, Hemmelgarn knew his best chance to stay involved in sports was to work for a team. He was handy with Adobe Photoshop and had always made his own baseball cards. When he arrived at Saint John’s University in Collegeville, Minn., in 2008, Hemmelgarn not only played for the baseball team but also started producing publications for the athletic department.

“I was a D-III athlete that rode the bench a lot,” Hemmelgarn said. “I knew I wasn’t going to go anywhere.

“When I was in high school, I had a passion for graphic design. (Saint John’s) happened to have camera equipment. I thought, if I’m going to be designing and laying out publications, it would be cool to shoot my own photos, too. That’s when I first picked up a camera, and taught myself as I went.”

His baseball-playing career helped Hemmelgarn’s photography a lot in the first few seasons. Though he worked with good equipment, Hemmelgarn didn’t understand all the features on his Canon 1D Mark II N.

“I feel like I went backwards from a lot of photographers in a sense,” Hemmelgarn said. “I learned photography as I went, but I understood the sport a little bit. When I went to go shoot a baseball game, I felt more out of place with my camera than I did anticipating where double plays could happen or knowing where hitters like to hit the ball in certain situations. I felt like I was a step ahead when I first started, understanding the sport and knowing where things could happen.”

By his sophomore year, Hemmelgarn would occasionally shoot Twins games for Icon Sportswire. He loved everything about the experience, and always checked out the team’s game notes. In one instance in 2010, Hemmelgarn noticed a mistake in the notes and stopped by the Target Field media office to point it out.

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Busy with the everyday operations surrounding a baseball team, then-Twins publications and media services manager Molly Gallatin was on the receiving end of Hemmelgarn’s correction — and it went over about as well as you’d think.

“Brace was always kind of memorable and I remembered him because he annoyed the hell out of me,” Gallatin said. “We were just busier than we were before. There were a lot of people coming by the office. I think I was coming back from dinner or something and Brace was standing there waiting for someone to point out a mistake to, which is always every PR person’s favorite thing to hear. I don’t know that I reacted super great. But he was memorable enough that I started paying attention to him, and saw some of the things he was doing.”

The impression was notable enough that Hemmelgarn was on the Twins’ radar. In January of the following year, Gallatin asked if Hemmelgarn would be interested in a part-time role with the Twins, one he held from 2011-13.

“(The correction) showed a couple of things,” Gallatin said. “He had a lot of initiative, a lot of drive. I didn’t love the perfectionist mentality, but it goes a long way when you’re a photographer. You have to put the time in and do it right to be any good.”

After exchanging calls and emails, Hemmelgarn received the offer right before the start of a Saint John’s doubleheader in Phoenix. Prior to first pitch, Hemmelgarn signaled to his parents who were sitting in the stands that he’d taken the job.

“I think a few people in the stands were wondering why they were cheering while the coaches exchanged lineups,” Hemmelgarn said.

By 2014, Morse wanted to hire a full-time photographer. Shooting games is only part of the role. The team also needs photos for its publications, and events aren’t limited to the regular season. A full-time employee also could make trips for milestone moments or to the minor leagues.

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With the Twins in a rebuild, Morse wanted an archived history of a young core that was being developed in the minors. In order to document the early days of the careers of Byron Buxton, Miguel Sanó, Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco, José Berríos and others, he wanted his photographer to spend a week with those prospects. Not only would it give the Twins more archived content, but the trip afforded Hemmelgarn an opportunity to start relationships with players the franchise believed it would be building around.

The increased audience created by social media has only made Hemmelgarn’s position more critical.

“With the Instagram and Twitter craze, it has been three- if not four-fold with documenting history, artwork around Target Field, social media and publications,” Morse said. “Whether I ask him to go Pensacola or to jump on the plane and come on a road trip because we want to showcase some lifestyle, behind-the-scenes things, Brace has the ability to do that.

“He’s done a great job on his own of building relationships with players. They’re very comfortable in front of the camera, which I believe has given him the ability to get better quality. Players buy in. They know where the pictures are going.”

The trust factor between a photographer and a player is significant. The Twins have occasionally granted Hemmelgarn behind-the-scenes access, shooting a game-ball ceremony or postgame celebrations. Players need to believe the team wouldn’t recklessly send out a photograph of them holding a beer or chewing tobacco, or even something as simple as wearing the apparel of a rival sporting company from the ones with which they are under contract.

“You’re around them a lot, and a lot of behind-the-scenes situations,” Hemmelgarn said. “Building trust over the years. I’ve kind of grown up in a sense with the young core. My second year was Buxton, we had him signing, and shooting him in Cedar Rapids. Him, Berríos and Polanco a couple of years later, Chattanooga with Kepler and (Tyler) Duffey. By the time you get to the big leagues, they know who you are and you’re not surprising them. …

“They know what you’re trying to do and you give them their space when they need it. But you know you’re trying to make cool photos and all of a sudden after a game the guys are texting you and they want pictures from that moment, that play. It’s kind of cool.”

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Perhaps Hemmelgarn’s biggest test when it came to giving a player enough space while doing his job came on the final day of the 2018 season. Prior to the Sept. 30 game, Hemmelgarn learned from Morse that Mauer would don the catcher’s mask one last time, though when it would happen was unclear.

Throughout the game, Hemmelgarn, who now uses a Canon 1D X Mark II, kept an eye on bench coach Derek Shelton. Shelton would signal to Hemmelgarn when Mauer was headed into the clubhouse to change. After the top of the eighth inning, Shelton sent the signal and Hemmelgarn was on the move.

He began to follow Mauer from the dugout to the clubhouse and noticed that Kent Hrbek was waiting in the hall. Briefly, Hemmelgarn kept his distance because he didn’t want to interrupt the moment.

But when Mauer sat down at his corner stall in the clubhouse, Hemmelgarn moved in and snapped a series of pictures, including the iconic one atop this story in which Mauer cried as he donned gear he hadn’t removed from his bag since the day he suffered a concussion that forced him to switch to first base.

“The whole goal is to not be noticed or stand out,” Hemmelgarn said. “Do your thing and get out of the way. That whole day we didn’t know what inning Joe was going to catch. I had a few outs to prepare.

“We didn’t know where he was going to put the gear on, if he was going to do it in the tunnel. It just happened that we had enough time he went to his locker. Boy, I didn’t anticipate the crying. That was a tough one to be in the moment knowing what was going on, what was going through his head. But, knowing from my perspective, trying to capture that moment, that Twins fans could see what he was feeling. It’s kind of tough to describe. It was a different feeling than I’ve had shooting sports.”

Despite snapping that moment, Hemmelgarn effectively stayed out of the way. In a phone interview earlier this week, Mauer said he had no idea Hemmelgarn was in the clubhouse until later.

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The two have always had a strong connection as Hemmelgarn’s older brother Brett was college teammates and roommates with Mark Dunnigan, who played baseball with Mauer at Cretin Derham Hall High School.

“I know there was a couple of cameras that came in later, but that one was before I even realized people were in there,” Mauer said. “When I see that picture, I can go back and relive where my head was at that moment and how emotional it was and how special of a moment that was.

“He’s kind of like a ninja. You don’t see him a whole lot, but he ends up getting these great photos, capturing some moments. My whole last year he was around and he’s got such great pictures of some of the moments at the end of my career. It’s something you really appreciate now when things are done to look at those photos and kind of take you back to when that happened.

“My son never saw me play. To have those moments and show him when he gets older, that’s something I thank those guys so much for. It’ll be so much fun to show them someday.”

Hemmelgarn describes it as the most iconic photo he’s taken. Between the 2019 season, Mauer’s last moment and the 2017 wild-card game, Hemmelgarn has had several chances to reflect on how lucky he is to be in this spot right now.

Hemmelgarn is also glad that his photography skills have caught up to his positioning.

“My early Twins stuff, you look back and realize how far you’ve come and wish you were better back then,” Hemmelgarn said. “But it’s kind of cool to see the progress as the years have gone on and try to improve every year.

“It’s crazy. Taking a step back and realizing I get to document my hometown team in my favorite sport on a daily basis is pretty surreal. All the guys I’ve grown up watching and to be able to follow that team, document it and be a very small part of it has been kind of crazy. I never thought I would have been lucky enough to do what I do.”

(Top photo: Joe Mauer got emotional as he put on his catcher’s gear for the last time, and Twins photographer Brace Hemmelgarn was in the clubhouse to capture the moment. Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn / Minnesota Twins)