Sports photography marketing tips

[eyefreelance]

HEY ALL
i am an amateur photographer in which is wanted to quit my day job and venture into photography as a profession. i am interested in local sports photography. I am writing to you for hints and tips on how to get this idea off the ground, how to market my services and how to get sporting clubs to accept me at there games. Also what is the best way to contact the sports cluubs and what to say. After i have built my portfolio on sports photography locally i would like to expand to bigger events.
thankyou

luke

www.eyefreelance.blogspot.com:idea:

[Grandpaw]

A few observations. First you say you want to be a sports photographer but yet there are no sports pictures on your site. Second of all, none of the pictures were clear when I clicked on them. Third , I would suggest slowing down and perfecting your skills and getting some experience under your belt before trying to jump into a photography as a profession, Jeff

[fidgety]

I totally agree with Grandpaw on this one. I've been shooting semi-professionally for five years and wouldn't dream of giving up my day job at this point, generally due to the small revenue stream of being a sports photographer. Granted, I make a few bucks at it but it's a tough business competing with big houses that come in on a large scale basis to shoot sporting events. For a lone shooter to try and compete with that can be very difficult. Stick with perfecting your skills at sports photography, getting your name out there and if you're good enough things will start coming your way and you'll then have a better idea if this is somehting you can do full time. Best of luck!

[livin4lax09]

putting "trial version" watermarks just screams unprofessional, by the way.

[vikas8596]

Understand the difference between shooting news/documentary images for a publication like Sports Illustrated and shooting commercial projects for a company like Nike—they are not mutually exclusive, but the goals and methodologies are different.

Like any area of photography, set goals, do your research, and figure who is going to pay you to do what you want to do.

Find your own voice. I’m not saying you can’t make money shooting what everyone else does, the same way they do it—just that I think if you want to show yourself to the world you need to be unique in some way.

[LightBright]

Hi eyefreelance. I am actully trying to make sports photography my career right now as well.

1st off, I strongly agree with Grandpaw.
"I would suggest slowing down and perfecting your skills and getting some experience under your belt before trying to jump into a photography as a profession, Jeff"

You are thinking to far ahead and you need to be able to get to the point where you can go to any sporting event with confidence that you will always get good photographs. Also ask people who work in the industry to look at your work and don't get down when people say you have to improve in some areas, that way you can make your pics better the next time you shoot.

The 2nd most important thing is to make contacts and build a portfolio. The way I make contacts is just by doing my own thing. Just go out to a sporting event a lot and eventually you will meet people who want to help you, but you have to be out there doing this type of photography all the time. A portfolio is like a photographers resume so its important to build a strong one of your best sports photos.

I myself still have along way to go building my portfolio and making this my job. Currently im working for a online based college news paper ( which will eventually expand to other community colleges) that requires sports photographs from me. I don't get paid in money just yet, but I am happy to get paid in experience....

You have beautiful photos btw....