Though it seemed like photographing them was his destiny, Green actually aspired to be a documentary photographer. Becoming the Cubs photographer, he recalls, was serendipitous. Green was doing a graduate thesis on Wrigley Field, then owned by the Wrigley family at the Art Institute of Chicago, but unable to afford the tuition, he still decided to work on the project independently. For the next year, he covered publicity events and the seventh inning stretches. When the Wrigleys sold the ballpark to the Tribune Company at the end of the 1981 season and with their photographer retiring, Green was offered the position of official photographer. In his 35 years, he’s photographed alongside Associated Press and Sports Illustrated photographers including Walter Iooss, John Biever, Neil Leifer and Brad Mangin. One of things he’s picked up over time is shooting things that moves. With that in mind when on assignment for magazines, Green explains the different approaches in shooting a baseball game outside of the basics. “If you’re shooting for a trading card, you just need very clean peak action,” he says. “If you’re working for a magazine, it’s usually a story specifically driven about a player and you want, like in Sports Illustrated or those magazines, a picture that’s got a lot of emotion in it and a lot of intense action.” Of all the Cubs teams he’s photographed over three decades, Green states the 2016 Cubs were his favorite to shoot because the group had grown up together and had developed a history, unlike previous years where players acquired through trades and free agency didn’t stick around for long. “This team’s really kind of cool,” he says. “I really love photographing [infielder] Javier Baez. He’s so athletic. He’s so excitable and fun to shoot. They’re all so different. Kris Bryant is very classic. His form is really good. He’s really easy to take a good picture of. Same with [Anthony] Rizzo. His swing is so perfect. But Anthony Rizzo is very emotional. He’s very responsive.” We talk about his love of photography, jazz and blues, Oprah and rain delays.