Youth Sports Action Photography

I'm interested in what others think. I've shot Youth Sports Action

Photography now for around 5 years. This is now the main portion of

my part-time photography business.

 

WHAT do you as photographers (and many as parents) think makes a

youth action photo "great". Is it the show of action? The

lighting? Intensity? or something else?

 

Thanks for any input! Just a question to get something going here :)

"WHAT do you as photographers (and many as parents) think makes a youth action photo "great"."

 

A great youth action photo is one that gets parents to part with their money!

LOL ! I guess when it gets down to it, that's what we're out there to do is sell the pictures otherwise we wouldn't be spending 15 hours on a softball (or soccer, baseball, etc) field.

You're starting out with some pretty good photos so I'd say it's mostly a matter of polishing them.

 

The first thing that I noticed is that your JPEGs could be sharper. If you rely on selling from a website by letting the parents and kids decide based on the JPEGs you upload, they should be a little sharper.

 

Also, if possible, you might work the eyes *very carefully* to tweak them just enough to emphasize the clarity. But unless the eyes make up a significant portion of the overall frame you won't have much to work with so it's easy to go overboard.

 

From what I see you already have good timing and can catch the peak moment. The exposures look fine. And you can't do much about the lighting. You seldom get to use flash, other, perhaps, than at toddler soccer matches, so you just work with what you've got.

 

About the only other thing I can think of is close to nitpicking. I don't know what kind of adjustments your dSLR has for contrast, brightness, color, etc., but you might come up with a few choices ready to go to suit the situation. For example, with my D2H I usually set the tone compensation to low contrast for bright sunny days, high contrast for overcast days, etc. I also have a custom setting for use with flash indoors. It helps me straddle that line between blown highlights and flat photos.

I find it's more a case of how you package it up and create a buzz. The more people around the delivery point the more I tend to convert. Strange but true.

 

rgds

Mark

I don't sell a majority of my photos online. Most of mine I sell at the event by showing them on a network of 5-7 computers then taking orders (I fill the orders and mail within 2 weeks). I do sell online but the volume is MUCH lower. I feel showing them within 5 minutes of the game keeps the excitement going. Lots of the girls come over to see the pictures. Of course not all buy, but the players and the parents love coming over to see the pictures.

 

Selling the way we do, there's not a lot of time to go through the pictures to clean them up. I do try to clean them up some before filling the orders. I'll crop in on outfielders, sharpen images, lighten them up, etc.

 

Thanks for all the input!

Hi Gary,

 

I am covering the Softball World Series (11-12yr olds). I've been selling my pictures for the past couple of days. The parents LOVE great action shots of their kids. But they also love candids. There has been a little controversy here at the World Series. One girl got suspended for having her shorts rolled up at the waist. She cried and I was there to capture the images. The girls grandmother came to look at pictures the next day. The grandmother started crying once she got to the images of her grand daughter. SHE PURCHASED ALL OF THEM. Many things can make an image great. I feel that it all depends on the person looking at the images. I will be covering the championship game on Thursday 6:30 PDT. It will be on ESPN2. Tune in...you might see me running around on the field. I have field access. When I get the time I will post some images.<div></div>

Wish I could be there to work that one with you! I agree with you that many things make a photo special. I've said this many times that the purpose of Youth Sports Photography is to preserve memories. A photograph of the final score in a big game (not necessarily THE big game, but one that a player has really excelled in), a great play, a photo of the player cheering on his/her teammates, two buddies hugging, ... All of these make up the memories of the parent and the child. I've even taken pictures of a girl napping between games. My wife did the mother's scrapbook for her and that picture was among the ones that she turned in to be in the scrapbook.

 

I hope you build your own memories of this tournament and I'll be watching! Send me an email and tell me about how it goes!

This summer was my 1st time to shoot and sell. I shot baseball Allstar games, I shoot 3 games and made about $450. Some of my best pictures were a hindcatcher reached out to catch a foul ball, one kid hit an over the fince home run and the mom bought the whole series from him swinging to running the bases to giving high fives after reaching home plate. Others bought of their kids hitting with the ball in the picture. I really enjoy being out on the field and catching thier reactions. I will be shooting my first kids football game Sept 10. Wish me luck.

Let us know how it goes for you...

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