So over the last couple weekends I covered a number of high school football games, I took thousands of photographs but I also tweeted news and photos of the action. I got some good, but not great, shots that I quickly tweets with news of the action. I got many quick retweets from news outlets and reporters; a lot of people saw my photos.
But . . . I noticed that the quality of my photos has suffered. I have not been concentrating on the game and being in the best position to get good photographs. I been much too focused on “impressions” and “retweets.”
I had a nice conversation with a very talented photographer who is one of two or three sports photographers in the Chicago area. He said, “Sports photography is 90% luck, 10% skill and the rest being in the right spot.”
Very true.
The 10% skill part is paying attention to the game and concentrating on taking photos. Tweets and talking to reporters and spectators have gotten in the way. I gave up being a sportswriter because it’s hard and I am a better photographer than sportswriter.
I think I am going to get back to making good pictures and leave reporting to the reporters. What little I know about good sports photography is anticipating the action and getting the exposure and shutter speed right.
Except I love Twitter, so I guess we shall see what happens.
[I planned this post for last Monday or Tuesday but I didn’t have the right photo available, so it is going up now.}
