5 Tips for taking Sports Photos

sports-photo

Do you like to exercise, but don’t know how to capture it in a unique and fun way? With a little practice, you’ll learn how to capture creative shots that will help you relive the best moments of the game.

Here, five professional sports photographers share creative techniques and tips learned over the years in games and tournaments around the world. The basics of photography are the same for both Canon EOS 90D and Canon EOS 1D X Mark II.

1. Zoom in on a Unique Image

Getty Images photographer Mark Colve captured this image with a ping-pong ball that appears to float above the player’s head. He tells the story behind the shot: “I took this shot for Getty Images The first time I shot table tennis. I knew that the pictures of the players serving were always popular, so I wanted an athlete with a weird serving technique.

I’ve been looking for advice on how to recreate the strange framing of the
mark: “When zooming in, focus on the action and plan as much as possible in advance. Then you’re the perfect moment. With a zoom lens, you often get tempted to zoom in and out many times and get out of focus at a critical moment. You have a better chance of capturing the moment if you have a little patience: first set the focal length and then wait for the image you were hoping for.

 

2. Freezing important moments

Photojournalist Elizabeth Kreutz took the picture of the boxers in the middle of a fight with her Canon. She says that freezing the action at the right moment should be considered a useful learning task. “On this shot of Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley Jr., I used the Canon EF 70200mm f / 2.8L IS III USM lens to get up close and capture the drama and force of the hard blow.

It is important that Elizabeth is “always ready” to freeze such movements. It was also helpful to set the camera to shoot continuously in advance. “Select time preselection and automatic shutter speed preselection with an exposure time of less than 1/1000 second. Also, for continuous shooting, the camera must be set to the maximum frame rate.” Canon EOS90D It can take up to 10 frames per second, so there is a good chance that you will get the best image.

 

3. Be Creative with Motion Blur

Former Canon Ambassador Tom Jenkins is a British Guardian and Observer sports photographer. As you can see in the picture above, it’s a good idea to try motion blur to get a sense of speed and a busy pace. “I took this picture of the men’s 1500m qualifying round for the Guardian,” he says. “This race wasn’t really great, so I decided to try a combination of long exposures and several different exposure shots. I visualized the movements of the runners and devised the colors of the stadium shirts, shorts, shoes, and scoreboards. After several attempts at different shooting positions and exposure times, I got the shot I wanted and panned the camera with the runner as I passed by.

 

4. Taking Pictures in Unexpected Positions

British Press Photographer Marc is a senior sports photographer at The Times, one of the UK’s largest daily newspapers. He is also a Canon Ambassador who likes to install Canon equipment in strategically interesting places, such as horse races or car racing, cars like the Honda SUV Hybrid, to gain different perspectives. “This particular photo was taken with a remote control camera from about 18 meters away. I placed a camera with a transmitter under the gate and confirmed that the photo had a finish line.

 

5. New Include an environment for creating dimensions

“Imagine a creative way to look at the environment you’re shooting and tell a story visually. For example, in the case of the camera’s display pane: Try taking a picture from an unusual angle, flying overhead, in the crowd, or on the sidewalk. Including reflections like this puddle is another great trick. Whether you’re in a car or building, look for water and shiny windows, even with sunglasses. Then, the more you practice, the better your photos will be. ”

Strategic Ways of Selling Photographic Prints

A form of art that should not be enclosed inside a computer’s gallery, it is what photography really means.

The sale of photo prints usually results to a large amount of revenue of a photographer. In connection to this, they also shows their skills and professionalism. Aside from that, these print outs remind your client about you and your services. That way, your clients may potentially reach you out for their next photo requirement.

How to Strategically Sell Photo Print-outs

Below are some helpful ways on how you can effectively sell your photos.

1-Plant before you reap

Let your clients see your finished photos. Make your product quality one of the biggest contributor of your selling point.

2-Present your output

Allow your client to see your work output by showing them how it has been used in their everyday living. Other tip is to make a gallery of your work memories.

3-Establish your selling technique

Selling photo print-outs varies from one photographers to another. It actually depends on their niche and particular client base. So, better to analyse the best strategy that creates the great sense for your photography business.

4-Look for the source of your print-outs

Search the market for an easy-to-use e-commerce platform. Keep in mind that convenience must be the primary factor for this aspect of your business.

Why is SEO important to photographers?

Photographers’ websites, just like any other website need SEO to become visible on the web. Without SEO, your website is just a photo catalog. If you want to rank better, you need to put SEO above your artistic soul. You need to help search engines understand what your pages are about. For this, you need as many pages as possible, of course with photos, but also with texts.

Read also: STRATEGIC WAYS OF SELLING PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS

SEO Mistakes Photographers Should Avoid

1) No or wrong keyword research. The so-called “keywords” are your key to economically relevant positions in the search engines! Potential customers google, for example, with the keyword combination “ wedding photographer Munich ” when they – who would have thought it – are looking for a wedding photographer in Munich.

2) Too short or too long meta titles and descriptions. Meta Titles and Descriptions are the most important information about your website in search engines! Unfortunately, many photographers do not enter titles and descriptions at all! Or they choose the wrong text lengths. A title should be a maximum of 55 characters long, otherwise, it could be “cut off” by Google in the display.

Also, be sure to include the keyword you want to use to rank well on Google for that page. A good meta description is a maximum of 156 characters long and also contains important keywords. Please don’t just enter keywords in the description! A good description is informative and tells the clicker what to expect on your website.

3) Missing or inconsistent headings. The first heading on your website should always be marked with so-called “ h1 ” tags. This “h1” heading tells the reader (and search engines) what the page is about.

The most important keyword must be placed in the first headline! So if you want to rank for “wedding photographer Munich” (phew..that’s going to be difficult), then this keyword combination should also appear in the headline.

Important rule: Only one h1 heading per page! The next heading then gets an “ h2 ” tag and then follows “h3” etc. Also, pay attention to the order of the headings! h2 should not come before h1!

4) Too little text and no blog. SEO lives from good texts! A good text offers your reader added value and always contains the keywords for which you want to rank. But please don’t bombard everything with keywords! Just think about the reader (“and always think about the reader”) and how best to inform them!

We really recommend every photographer to start a blog! Your blog is a true marketing machine and will bring you the most traffic through Google! Why? Because you can perfectly optimize your blog articles for longer keyword combinations!

5) No Image SEO. The topic of “image SEO” is of fundamental importance for photographers! Let’s talk about what Image SEO is. For those who are not familiar with the topic, I will quickly explain what Image SEO is. When people engage in image search engine optimization (SEO), they only take the low-hanging fruits: load time optimization and alt text. Image SEO is real science and goes way beyond that.

So, what is Image SEO? Image SEO is the practice of optimizing your images for search engines. It doesn’t just affect the placement of your images in Google images. It also affects your organic search potential as a whole.

6) Lack of internal linking. Internal linking? Yes – this is also very important for your website! An internal link refers to a subpage of your website with further information.

The more internal links refer to a subpage, the more important this page is. Google also sees it that way and will therefore always check whether a page is “important” when assigning positions.

7) Bad page speed (high loading times). The longer your website loads, the lower it will be listed on Google! Okay..that may be a bit exaggerated – but there is still a lot of truth in this statement!

Google measures how long a webpage takes to load, as this is a quality factor! Which user likes to wait for content? So from now on, you should do everything you can to speed up your website!

8) No backlink building. A backlink is a link from another site that points to your website. The more links you get from other websites, the more Google will notice you and place you at the top. The topic of backlinks is huge and will only be touched on briefly in this article. Just this:

There are “good” and “bad” backlinks. You don’t buy links and the easiest way to get them is through good blog articles or good friends in the industry. Get the help of professionals in backlinking – link building service from Outreachmonks

9) No mobile optimization. Is your website easy to read on mobile phones and tablets? No?! Then you should change that as soon as possible! Google recently released an update that downgrades non-responsive websites!

10) Over-optimization. Now take a deep breath and think about how you want to implement our tips. Please don’t overshoot the mark in the “SEO for photographers” section!

Don’t bombard your website with keywords and don’t buy backlinks! Think of your readers and your potential future customers. And especially how you can give them a good experience on your website.