help with event photography

I want to know how to get Started in sport photography, or really any event

photography. Right now I mainly do wedding photography, and well it?s been 5

years and I really want to try something new. I thing it would be fun to do

dog shows,or horse shows, something along that line. But I have no idea on

where to start. Any help would be great.

 

Jamie

The only people who succeed at photographing any event, competition, or social activity (including weddings) are people who really <i>get</i> what goes on at them. If you haven't, for example, attended (or even participated in) many dog shows, agility events, field trials, etc., then you'll have a very hard time knowing the flow of things, the culture/personalities involved, etc. Likewise with sports. If you don't know anything about baseball, you're going to have a hard time knowing which shots count, and a hard time knowing the rituals surrounding what people want to see you record.

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Your best bet is to become involved in whatever activity it is you want to cover. Even if you're just a groupie. Go to ten rodeos, walk around, talk to people. THEN decide if that's something you think you might be able to profitably photograph. Horse shows... there are tons of people who specialize in that very difficult field. Unless you know horses and horse people, you'll have a steep uphill climb.

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Find out what your friends do, when it comes to organized actvities like that, and as them to take you along and show you the ropes. Shoot casually through a dozen or more such events, and you'll <i>start</i> to get a sense for what makes the difference between the thousands of snapshots already taken at any even where people are involved, and really great (sellable!) photography of the same.

That is some of the best advice you could get.

Sport & event is 75% of my business. Matt's advice is good, however you need to realize that there is a tremendous investment in equipment, software and skills that will be needed. The successful ones have the best cameras (MKIII or D3) with the best lenses because they are shooting fast action in low light. Most either print on-site or have extensive web sites for selling. It's a tough biz.

Hidden in my advice, Doug, was the fact that one will - in the course of casually shooting an activity for that first dozen times - discover whether or not you've got the equipment for it. Most, of coure, do not... and almost certainly don't have the redundant equipment. The three assistants to run storage back and forth, man the table, and print/cashier is quite the wake-up call, too! I opt for the greatly lesser returns (and fewer headaches) of sending people to a web gallery after the fact. But then, I'm not shooting mainstream activities, so I have some latitude that, say, a high school hockey shooter would not. You're sure right, though, about the hardware sticker shock that most people will experience once the reality check kicks in!

I'm nowhere near being a professional but started out shooting my daughter's cheerleading, football and softball games. I got great responses from my photos that I started doing much more. I upgraded to a Canon 40D camera with 400 zoom lens and I post all my photos on SmugMug. I then e-mail the web site to the parents of my daughter's teammates and they order their photos directly from SmugMug. This is working out fairly well right now and I'm loving capturing the "moment" in sports and then editing it in PhotoShop and posting it on my web site...SmugMug does the rest. Good luck!