Access to sporting events is often a bone of contention with wannabe sports photographers, with the seeming ‘chicken and egg’ problem where passes are only granted to those who have had their work published. However, when putting together this article, I contacted a number of sports clubs posing as a keen sports photographer and found responses generally to be positive. Granted, the press office at my local football league team politely explained that I would need a licence to photograph football league fixtures as the intellectual property of such fixtures are owned by a company called Dataco, but even so I was offered the opportunity to apply for a pass for pre-season friendly matches. In other words, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Contact your local clubs, offering a number of complementary images from the day, and you may well start opening some doors. As Steve Mitchell explains (see the Case study, above) using ‘polite persistence’ can bring its rewards.
Ultimately, getting published is the way to advance your sports photography career. A modest collection of cuttings is likely to impress far more than a beautifully produced print that’s spent more than half of its life being tweaked in Photoshop. So work hard to get your name known around local publications and, when you’re starting out, be prepared to work for free. Even if you do become a regular freelancer, the monetary reward may not initially be huge. Local papers are unlikely to pay any more than
£30-40 to cover a non-league fixture on a Saturday afternoon, while a league game may only realise £100. But you’ll be gaining invaluable experience along with those all-important cuttings and it certainly beats being dragged around the shops. Again.
