Shooting Events...

Hello, I see so many of you shooting these great events.. So just how do you get permission to shoot. Who do you contact? or Who are you speaking with?

For some it is a job, they get paid. For others such as high school and below or club sports you just walk up and start shooting.

Walk confidently and carry a big camera.

tennfan Please don't say you are a Tennessee fan living in Lexington, KY. Keeneland opens in 8 weeks, great photo ops there. The first three days will include some of the best horses in racing. Go to the works for some beautiful early morning shots.

I just shoot public events. What specifically are you interested in?

tennfan1125 wrote in post #17074157
Hello, I see so many of you shooting these great events.. So just how do you get permission to shoot. Who do you contact? or Who are you speaking with?

You need to know your area and learn where to find events where cameras will be tolerated. Examples:

I am a Tennessee fan, I was born in that great state....but now I'm in ky for the last 15 years of my life. It's a bit of adjustment. But anyway I would like to be a professional sports photographer. I now have most of my gear, now I just need to get my foot in the door.

Craign wrote in post #17075109
Walk confidently and carry a big camera.

tennfan Please don't say you are a Tennessee fan living in Lexington, KY. Keeneland opens in 8 weeks, great photo ops there. The first three days will include some of the best horses in racing. Go to the works for some beautiful early morning shots.

Well... probably not the right way to do it. Start at the bottom, little league, HS, etc and get good at it. Build a portfolio and then work your way up. There is no easy way to do it.

Yeah that's what I plan on doing xchangx, So how did you end up at Getty, pretty impressive. I checked out your website. You seem to do and shoot exactly what I'd like to do. Great images, great shots. Thanks for the words... Working my way up is sheer I'll start

I'm not anything near xchangx's level, but here's what I did to start shooting at a couple Div 3 colleges about five years ago.

They're not big schools and they didn't worry about people standing near the fields. I shot a couple Football games and emailed the Sports Information Director a few of the photos and mentioned my interest in shooting if they needed someone. He liked the photos and invited me to shoot more sports and it evolved into shooting other related events for them as well.

I didn't make huge money doing it but it paid for the gear and it was fun for a while. Something to think about anyway.

Now I just like to shoot leisurely, mostly Surfing. Kicking back on the beach!

Sorry, I can't really help ya. Even though I am doing a bit of stringing for Getty this summer/fall, they found me (thanks SportsShooter.com ), I didn't go looking for work. I do it mainly for the enjoyment as this is just a hobby for me. I shoot mostly local high school and amateur stuff.

Though I must admit I have a blast doing the stuff I am doing for Getty.

I do remember reading this post on another forum though and thinking that he pretty much describes the tribulations of becoming a professional sports photographer pretty well.

http://photocamel.com …her-jobs.html#post1822206

I currently shoot for Maxpreps.com A division of CBS Sports dedicated to high school athletes across the US. You could try to start there. Submit an app and some samples of your work and see if you get approved. Once approved you need to have a minimum of 10 galleries approved and posted to your Maxpreps account before they will issue a media pass. Snoop around their site, look at other photographers images there and get an idea how we do things. Hope this helps.

I started with my local high school shooting some events and them creating a FB page to show them.Soon a lot of kids and parents began to "like" my page and pretty soon after that I got the AD's blessing (and pass) to shoot anything and go anywhere.
I started showing up and shooting a lot of other local high school events and making myself "seen" by as many AD's as possible and in some cases giving out hospitality photos to the right people.
Now I'm pretty much known by most AD's in the area and when I show up at most any event around here nobody even questions why I go where I go.
Like a previous posted said walk confidently and show that big lens around and with your dual cameras-act the part!!
Now I have some regular paying sport shoots and am growing in my paid shoots,senior shoots are coming too.
You have to get out there and shoot, once people know they can trust you, your on your way!

canon rookie wrote in post #17076079
....walk confidently and show that big lens around and with your dual cameras-act the part!!

Something kind of funny related to that is when I was at the Nissan Open PGA golf tournament at the Riviera CC in Los Angeles. It was the Pro Am day and I was in there with my 300 f2.8 on one camera, 70-200 on the other. No credentials.

Walking close to some of the pros from one hole to the next, the security guys held open the ropes and motioned me to come inside right along with the golfers.

Of course I didn't resist, went in and got some nice shots as they tee'd off and then walked down the fairway with them.

Start at the bottom, I started by heading over to my local sports park and snapping pics of guys playing Rugby, I set up a facebook page and tagged their teams and encouraged the players to share the images and from that I now Photograph my Provincial Rugby team (Big Deal for me) I'm getting a little bit of work and a few photo orders just by putting myself out there.

There isn't much too it.

Create a good portfolio over time. Generally 10-15 images, only 1 image per event and get that portfolio in front of the right people.