A Picture's Worth | PhotoShelter

What's it Like to Shoot The Super Bowl?

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:45:56 -0500

Super Bowl Veteran Photographer Rob Tringali shares his view from the sideline

by Grover Sanschagrin

As the Indianapolis Colts get ready to take on the New Orleans Saints this Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV, Photographer Rob Tringali is preparing to attend what will be his 20th Super Bowl, an event that, after all these years, still gets him excited.

His images appear regularly in ESPN The Magazine, Sports Illustrated, TV Guide, Newsweek, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine.

I find that when I'm watching the Super Bowl, I'm more interested in spotting the photographers I know on the sidelines, than watching the game itself. But I've never actually worked a Super Bowl.

Wondering what it must be like to be a photographer on the field, I thought I'd ask Rob, who shot his first Super Bowl when he was just 19 years-old, for his veteran take.

PHOTO BY ROB TRINGALI: Guard Chris Snee #76 of the New York Giants celebrates with family the victory against the New England Patriots at Super Bowl XLII on February 3, 2008 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The Giants defeated the Patriots 17-14.

Grover: What's different about shooting a Super Bowl game as compared to regular season NFL or college game?

Rob: Shooting the Super Bowl is far superior to anything else I've shot except for maybe a World Cup Final. Everyone knows you're there, and you know that friends and family back home are looking for you on TV.

I once got hit with a ball during the Giants - Pats game a couple of years ago and got 10 text messages right away from people who saw me. Stuff like that doesn't happen at any regular game.

I usually get to the game about 6 hours before kickoff, and I always make a phone call to some friends right before the National Anthem, as they watch from a bar in New Jersey. They can hear the Anthem live from the cell phone in my vest pocket. Everyone in the bar seems to get a kick out of that.

10 Tips for Using Coupons to Market Your Photography

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 00:01:00 -0500

We spend a whole lot of time talking about inbound marketing strategies like SEO and Social Media, and how they can benefit your photography business. But sometimes, it makes sense to whip out an old trusted favorite that we all know works. In this case, I'm talking about coupons. Who doesn't love a bargain?

Coupons work because they create a new, urgent reason for you to buy something. Many PhotoShelter members tell us that coupons are an important part of how they generate sales of their photography and market prints and products to new buyers. Today, we unveiled a new feature inside of PhotoShelter that lets photographers offer promotions - like a specific dollar value discount or percent off - when people purchase your photography online. We also announced that new print partners AdoramaPix and ExposureManager are both fully integrated and live - joining EZPrints to give PhotoShelter photographers three high quality and affordable options for automated print fulfillment.

But, rather than go on and on about our great new coupon feature and the impressive print partners we now have on board, I wanted to share some insights about using coupons to market your photography. I'd love to hear from some photographers who have experience using coupons as well - feel free to add your insights in the comment section below.

Let's go over some basics:

    * People like saving money.
    * People like to feel that they're being treated special or recognized for their loyalty.
    * People like the thrill of limited opportunities.

Here are some smart tactics for marketing with coupons:

1. Create urgency. Set expiration dates.
All good marketing includes a call to action - you need to prompt the customer to act. If your coupon is open ended, busy people have a way of letting life's other distractions interfere. So, put an expiration date on the promotion and communicate that loud and clear. This will create a sense of urgency around taking your offer. If you can, send a reminder when the promotion is expiring. If your customers are like most humans, they won't act until it's their last chance.

2. Offer a coupon as incentive to sign up for your newsletter.
We often talk about having a goal to "convert" people when they visit your website. This goal doesn't always have to be "buy a print." Would you benefit from getting more names to add to your monthly newsletter? If you would, why not give people an incentive to register with you? Offer a "10% off" coupon to everyone who signs up for your newsletter. You can email them the coupon and use the email to tell them more about your products and services. You now have a new prospect in your marketing database for regular follow up.

Why People Aren't Linking To Your Photo Website

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:31:36 -0500

Ten SEO Tips To Get Websites To Link To You

by Grover Sanschagrin

If you're one of those photographers who wonders why more people aren't linking to your website, then you're probably making it too difficult for them to do so.

The single most important factor in search engine optimization (SEO) is the number of backlinks to your website. Links are like money, you can't ever have too much. I'm talking about real links, not ones you pay for, or that you create yourself.

Getting people to link to your website isn't easy, and getting important sites to link to you can be quite difficult, but well worth the effort. Remember the more important the site the more valuable the link.

I've assembled a list of guidelines to follow if you're looking to encourage sites to direct more web traffic your way.

Secret Social Media Marketing Recipe from Photographer John Lander

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:33:17 -0500

Five Ways to Use Social Media Sites to Boost Your SEO

by Grover Sanschagrin

Imagine every one of your PhotoShelter galleries that you care most about is showing up on the first page of Google Search results for their chosen keywords. Impossible, you say? Not so, according to John Lander, who is accomplishing this by using social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinedIn and StumbleUpon as the main ingredient in his SEO-boosting recipe.

Lander is a freelance writer and photographer based in Japan, specializing in editorial and stock images of Asia.

Try these Google Searches and you'll see:

Japanese Garden Images
Kyoto Images
Dalat Images
Hakodate Images

To boost search engine ranking for his images, Lander estimates that he spends about 50% of his marketing efforts on social networking sites.

"I spend a lot of time working on SEO. Tweaking captions/keywords, tweeting photo galleries, adding them to Facebook and recently using StumbleUpon as well with very good results," Lander said. "I have managed to get almost all galleries on page one of Google."

Social Media for Photographers. Have you joined the conversation?

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 12:00:00 -0500

How much junk mail did you receive at home in the past week? Doesn't it feel like an anachronism to kill trees to send information out that's out-of-date by the time it reaches you? And while the trees are dying, other companies are encouraging you to follow them on Twitter or join their Facebook fan page. They are fostering social interaction with their brands, while building communities.

When you need something nowadays, do you find yourself flipping through a magazine waiting for an ad to inspire you? Or do you Google for instant suggestions and comparisons? Maybe you jump on Facebook and ask your friends for recommendations?

Marketing is changing everywhere in response to how we consume and share information, and the way you market your photography should be no different. Interruptive outbound marketing (like ads, direct mail, and even email) is losing ground to inbound marketing. Inbound marketing focuses on optimizing your presence online so people can find you precisely when they're looking for whatever it is you offer. Inbound marketing - making use of your website, your blog, SEO and social media - has become a powerful and efficient way to market a business - any business - including photography.

How to Photograph Motorsports

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:57:17 -0500

by John Thawley

The majority of my motorsports shooting is done traveling throughout North America with the American Le Mans Series. I want to be perfectly honest here, I enjoy car racing... though I am not a racing fanatic. I like what I do. I like it a lot. But I love photography. A lot.

I make this distinction because I often get emails asking how to get into motorsports photography where the writer will cite; "I love racing and I love photography... nothing would be better than combing my two passions... blah, blah, blah." Being polite, I don't delete the email, I answer it. But I have to tell you, that comment is about as ludicrous as stating, "I love blondes and I love brunettes... marrying both would be my dream...." No it wouldn't. It would be your demise.

What I'm saying is, pick one. Pick one and be prepared to bleed for it. Make no mistake, the racing community loves their fans. However, they don't want them working on their team, in their garage or standing around drooling in pit lane. If you want to shoot motorsports as a pro, you'd better be a photographer first. And please don't stop me at the track to discuss this point. It's non-negotiable.

Another thing I'd like to get out of the way is the credential process and safety.

The 6 Elements of a Successful Photo Website

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:00:41 -0500

The secret to a wildly successful photo website isn't complicated at all. It's actually SIMPLE.

For part of my "Websites of the Future" presentations and photo business webinars, I compiled a list, called "Six Elements to a Successful Site." Most photographers are quickly overwhelmed with the task of building and maintaining a website. If you follow these 6 simple rules, you'll be headed in the right direction.

These rules will work for just about any website, not just photographers.

The Six Elements of a Successful Site

1) Search Engines index your content.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing are extremely rich sources of traffic for any website, so it is vital that your website be constructed in a way that search engines can properly index your content - all of it.

That means lots of text, lots of keywords, lots of captions placed closely to images, lots of text-linked keywords to content elsewhere in your site or archive, carefully written page titles and meta page descriptions.

Be extremely careful of Flash because it's difficult for search engines to index content within Flash. If your heart is set on a fancy Flash website, make sure you've got an html "shadow site" that the search engines can see.

Look for every opportunity to embed keywords in your website. Image "alt" tags are often left blank, which is a shame because they are an opportunity to inject keywords into a page.

Keywords within the URL itself are also another opportunity. Make sure your URLs have actual words within them because this is yet another keyword-rich opportunity.

Download the free "SEO Cookbook for Photographers" kit from PhotoShelter. It will explain, in-depth, how search engines work specifically when it comes to photographer websites.

The 10 Things All Staff Photographers Must Do Right Now

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:46:58 -0500

During the last few days of 2009, the Washington Times unexpectedly eliminated all nine of their staff photographer positions. The news spread fast and furious throughout the photo community. Photographers who were still fortunate enough to maintain a staff position somewhere got another wake-up call - they could be next.

With all the layoffs we've seen in the industry in the past few years, what surprises me most, however, is how common it is for a staff photographer to be "surprised" with the news of their own layoff. They are very often leaving themselves totally unprepared for life as a freelancer.

"The staff photographer who believes he will have a job in 10 years is kidding himself," says John Harrington in his book "Best Business Practices for Photographers".

The writing is very clearly on the wall, so I thought I'd ask Harrington, a freelance photographer, blogger and author, to help me come up with a list of things that photographers (both staff, and former staff) should be doing immediately.

The 10 Things a Not-Yet-Laid-Off Staffer Must Do

1. Know that it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when, you will lose your job. No one gets gold watches these days, and your company, no matter how much you think they care about you, only cares about the bottom line. Don't take it personally, it's not personal, it's just business.

2. Save, save, save. You should have at least 6 months (if not a year or 18 months) worth of savings that will sustain you.

3. Establish your online presence, including a website with your URL, and a professional e-mail address (that means no @gmail or @hotmail accounts!)

4. Over time, build out your businesses infrastructure. Acquire a laptop, cameras/lenses, cell phone, and street legal software (stealing Photoshop is bad karma for people stealing your photos).

5. Determine your cost of doing business in the event that you are no longer subsidized by your full-time employer. The best tool to help you do this is the NPPA's Cost of Doing Business Calculator.

P-P-P-Polaroid, P-P-P-Polaroid Face

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 21:55:47 -0500

Lady Gaga Named Creative Director for Specialty Line of Polaroid Imaging Products

LAS VEGAS --(Business Wire)-- Jan 06, 2010 PLR IP Holdings, LLC, owners of the Polaroid™ brand, today announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Lady Gaga, who will serve as creative director for a specialty line of Polaroid Imaging products. The partnership brings together one of the world's most iconic brands with today's fastest rising musical artist and cultural trend setter, known for her string of smash global hits including Paparazzi, Bad Romance and Poker Face, her fashion forward design aesthetic and her exceptionally close connection with her fans.

Lady Gaga will make a special appearance at the Polaroid booth at the 2010 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Thursday, January 7 at 10:45am to talk about her new creative and business relationship with the Polaroid brand.

"I am so proud to announce my new partnership with Polaroid as the creative director and inventor of specialty projects," said Lady Gaga. "The Haus of Gaga has been developing prototypes in the vein of fashion/technology/photography innovation--blending the iconic history of Polaroid and instant film with the digital era--and we are excited to collaborate on these ventures with the Polaroid brand. Lifestyle, music, art, fashion: I am so excited to extend myself behind the scenes as a designer, and to as my father puts it--finally, have a real job."

We have some Lady Gaga fans at this office, and they couldn't be more excited about this. Can't wait to see the new products!

Hang Ten: Surf Photography Ain't Easy

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 01:23:00 -0500

I was born and raised in Hawai'i. When people ask me if I surf, I always answer "Sure...the web."

*insert laugh track*

Ok, so I didn't surf growing up, but I did body surf and boogie board, and I spent countless hours in the supermarket while my mom shopped, looking at Surfer magazine and the incredible work of people like Aaron Chang. Since those days, I've always wanted to give surf photography a try. I mean, how hard could it really be?

Hawai'i can be a bit of a wasteland for camera stores. All the ones that were around when I was a kid have gone out of business, but I surprisingly found a little camera store in Kaimuki which opened last April and not only sells gear, but rents it too. Joshua Strickland is the propietor of HawaiiCamera.com and has an assortment of pro gear and underwater housings at really reasonable prices.

I put in a reservation for an SPL housing for my Nikon D3, but unfortunately the unit was out for regular servicing and maintenance. Josh talked to me a bit about the Ewa Marine bag. It certainly wasn't my first choice -- something about putting a $5000 camera into a plastic bag seems counterintuitive, but it turns out that the bags are very durable, and are actually rated for deeper waters than the hard housings.

I returned home and stuffed the camera into the bag with a 17-35mm f/2.8. It was a snug fit, but I suppose you don't want the camera sliding around in there. A metal clamp with three screws seals the bag.

I wasn't quite sure how to prevent the lens from shifting in the bag, so I used a thick rubberband to stabilize it, and off I went to Kalaeloa (aka White Plains Beach) on the western shore of O'ahu. I met up with a surfer, Katie, who agreed to be my test subject.

fotoQuote Pro 6 Integration in PhotoShelter

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:55:14 -0500

One of the new items that we unveiled with our new features yesterday is fotoQuote Pro version 6 integration. For those who haven't licensed stock on their own before, fotoQuote is the industry standard pricing tool with information painstakingly compiled by Cradoc Bagshaw so that both the licensing types and price are commensurate with what is happening in the industry -- not just conjecture on what photographers or trade groups want it to be. Cradoc is one of the good guys -- always fighting for photographer rights, always trying to educate photographers on best practices.

So we're psyched to integrate the newest components of his software to provide PhotoShelter users with a way to have a rights-managed pricing calculator that gives photographers the ability to have a 24/7 stock photo business from their websites.

Some of the major enhancements include:

Updated pricing and revised categories
Usage packs for frequently used bundled licensing
Regional and Worldwide support for easy grouping

As it was with the previous version, fotoQuote provides a baseline pricing within PhotoShelter, and users can then create pricing variances by category or geography. For example, you could create a pricing profile that only allows "editorial" usage in North America with a 10% increase over the fotoQuote pricing.

When it comes to regional support, fotoQuote uses a multiple to calculate the price. For example, licensing in Spain might be $300, and licensing throughout Europe could automatically be calculated at 1.3x that price. When we started to look for logical groupings for regional support, many of our users kept pointing out how elegantly Alamy had structure their groupings.

So I sent an e-mail to CEO James West, and he graciously allowed us to use their groupings to enhance our regional structures.

We think the new system rocks, so make sure to check it out.

Lastly, Cradoc has graciously extended a discount on his desktop versions of fotoQuote, fotoBiz and the keywordHarvester to all PhotoShelter members. A very crucial difference of the desktop version is the coaching tips that help you understand the psychology of the buyer and how to best negotiate with them. Pricing is one of the most vexing aspects of photography, and one of the most frequently asked areas of inquiry. If you're planning to create regular revenue from stock, fotoQuote and the other products are a no-brainer investment. Check out our member discounts, and hurry because the offer ends on Dec 31.

New Print Vendors: ExposureManager & Adorama PIX

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:00:00 -0500

We like to consider PhotoShelter as a hub of a photographer's post capture workflow. That means once you upload your images to your archive, you have the ability to do many different things with those image like putting them into galleries, posts them on social networking sites, etc. Of course, one of the main activities is the sale of photos, and prints sales seem to be as robust as ever.

We've been hearing for some time that our customers wanted more fully-automated printing/shipping options. As we surveyed how other services were integrating their print providers, we noticed that a lot of companies were forming exclusive relationships. We didn't like that because it assumed that the photo service knew what was best for the photographer. Instead, we decided to create a more flexible solution whereby we could integrate several print vendors, and the photographer could choose which company they wanted fulfilling their products. Then we went a step further, and decided that a photographer might like the 8x10's from one print vendor, and the mugs from another print vendor.

So we're pleased to announce the integration of two new printing partners: AdoramaPIX and ExposureManager. There are a ton of print vendors out there, but a few things impressed us about these companies and made the decision a no-brainer.

1) Print quality. Both companies have top quality equipment and paper, but more important is that they have humans reviewing the prints as they go to press. This was imperative to ensuring a pro-quality print. And both companies provide color correction options that you can turn on with a simple checkbox. This is a great option for photographers who don't want to color profile every single image for a different output device. If you haven't seen prints from these companies, I think you'll be very impressed.

2) Good people. Donovan Janus from ExposureManager came to meet us in our offices earlier this year to talk about how we might partner together. I was really impressed by his dedication to building an infrastructure that would ensure the highest quality prints. In EM's early days, they actually used third parties to fulfill their printing, but finally decided that the only way to satisfy their high threshold of quality, they'd have to build it themselves. So Donovan did just that in California.

We've known Ingrid Spangler for several years through our association with Adorama. They co-sponsored some of our free research reports, and I still buy a bunch of photo gear from Jeff Snyder, one of the best sales guys in the business. Back during the PhotoShelter Collection days, Adorama Pix made a number of large prints for various events that we held, and we were always very impressed at how good the images looked. Adorama is located just a few blocks from us, which makes it really easy to maintain a great working relationship (and spend all our money on new gear).

3) Entrepreneurial Spirit. It's hard to explain how important this, but I don't really need to explain it to you, because you likely a sole proprietor or small business owner who understands the challenges of trying to do something yourself without the backing of some mega corporation. Entrepreneurs make things, they solve problems, they care about their customers greatly. We wanted to make sure that if a problem arose throughout the printing process that we could pick up the phone and talk to our partners and get "no bull" solutions.

Now for the nitty gritty.

Happy Holidays: New PhotoShelter E-commerce Features!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:48:42 -0500

As we slip into the holidays, we figured that it would be great to get a whole bunch of frequently requested features into the product. So we're happy to announce a slew of new functionality that has been made possible by an entire rewrite of our e-commerce engine.

More Print Vendors
AdoramaPix and ExposureManager join EZ Prints as automated printing/shipping solutions for your website. We think you'll be very surprised and pleased at the level of quality and responsiveness of these two services. We certainly were. I'll have more information on this partnership in another blog post.

FotoQuote 6 Integration
Our good friend and photographer proponent, Cradoc Bagshaw, released fotoQuote Pro 6 earlier this year, and we're very pleased to offer the updated pricing information to enable rights-managed sales within your PhotoShelter website. The new release includes the oft-requested usage packs and regional support that I'm sure will make some of you very happy. Cradoc has also set up a great discount until the end of the year on his software products in our Member Offers area.

Easier Sales Configuration
We've simplified the sales setup within your PhotoShelter account and created much more consistency in the user interface. We've also made the creation of self-fulfilled products (e.g. an autographed book) much easier by significantly reducing the number of steps.

Tax Handling
Taxation varies by jurisdiction -- whether at a state or country level. In order to satisfy the taxation requirements of our very broad user base, we've created a tax table. You can determine what you want to tax, whether it should be assessed as a VAT tax, and what the rate should be on a state or country level.

And More!
There are a bunch of other changes that we've outlined in our feature history. Just log in to your account to see the changes and start taking advantage of them. This month, we're also offering a 30-day trial of our website customization features for free through our Starter account. So if you've been waiting for an excuse to sign up, now is a great time to do it.

In addition to the new features that are announced today, a major component of the new code will be better reliability and easier extensibility. We'll have some great new features early next year to build upon our e-commerce engine that I think you'll really like. Stay tuned!

11 Great Gifts for Photographers

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:31:37 -0500

I always have problems coming up with gifts, so this year, I thought I'd help you out with some of my favorite tools of the trade. Now, now. no need to get them for me because I already have them. This is not some sort of shill list for our partners -- these are things I purchased and use (well, with the exception of the last item on the list...feel free to gift that to me).

Under $30
Giotto Rocket Blower - $9.99
The latest generation of cameras have anti-dust vibrating sensors. Sounds cool, but at the end of the day, sometimes you need a blast of air to really get the dust off (and out of the chamber). Not sure why the Giotto is any better than any other blower, but it is.

Lumiquest Pocket Bouncer - $21.95
There are lots of different contraptions to attach to your flash unit from spheres to domes to mini softboxes. But I seem to get pretty darned good results from this plasticized piece of cardboard. Fortunately for me, the price is right, because I tend to lose them more frequently than I care to admit.

Gaffer Tape - $26.95
Tape? Who wants tape for Christmas??? I do. Perhaps you remember a humble guy named MacGyver. Need I say more? The difference between tape and gaffer tape is that gaffer's doesn't leave that sticky residue. It's sort of like blue painter's tape, but better.

Under $100
X-Rite Digital Color Passport - $99
Color seemed to be so much easier with film. You'd shoot your roll, drop it off a the store, and get back a version of your images that some technician (or computer) deemed color appropriate. But with digital, we can tweak everything, but sometimes it's just hard to tell what's right. X-Rite's Color Passport is a mini color chart/gray card that you can stick in your camera bag for a reference image, and comes with plug-in software for your image editing programs like Adobe Lightroom.

SanDisk Extreme 8GB CF Card - $99.95
In truth, it doesn't really matter how big or what brand -- the point is, you can never have too many compact flash cards. I personally use a 32GB and 12GB card in my Nikon D3, which makes me feel like I'm never going to run out of frames when I'm away for a weekend wedding.

Under $500
Photo Mechanic - $150
There are a few programs that I use daily, and Photo Mechanic is one of them. If you're not a photojournalist, you might not even heard of it. But if you need the fastest tool available to plow through hundreds or thousands of images, pick your selects, add meta data, and finally transfer them to a destination like PhotoShelter, Photo Mechanic is the cat's meow.

Fotoquote 6 - $149
If I had a penny for every time someone asked me how much they should charge for a photo, I'd not only be rich, I'd probably have created fotoQuote myself. Fortunately, industry-advocate and veteran photographer Cradoc Bagshaw has done it for us. PhotoShelter uses fotoQuote as our rights-managed pricing engine, but you can only get the valuable negotiation tips and coaching with the desktop software. Make sure to take advantage of the special discounts to PhotoShelter users.

ThinkTank Airport Security v2 - $369
One of the cool thing about all the products in the Under $500 category is that they are created by small businesses who care deeply about photography. Doug and Mike wanted to create a better bag for serious photographers and thus ThinkTank Photo was founded. Back in the day, photographers prided themselves on carrying as much stuff on their back as possible, but common sense took over. Now we have rollers like the Airport Security. It's lightweight, well-designed, and fits in an airplane overhead compartment. Neat.

The Sky is the Limit
Canon 5d Mark II - $2699
Nikon D3s - $5199

Video has been at the fingertips of photographers for years, but it's only in the past few years, that full frame, HD video has made its way into the D-SLR camera. The significance is less that photographers can be videographers, as much as it allows low-light, shallow depth-of-field videography that simply wasn't possible before. Combine that with the cottage industry of software and hardware to fuel D-SLR filmmaking and you get stuff like this:

Apple iMac 27" - $1999

I grew up watching the A-Team on a 19" television. I could have never imagined what my computing experience would be like with a 27" monitor, but with my 7 year old dual G5 computer on its last legs, I decided to take the plunge and get a new iMac. Sure, the first two computers that Apple sent me had cracked screens, but hey, who's counting. The third time was the charm, and even though I've only used it for three days, I shudder to think at how many hours of lost productivity I've had because of the newfound speed.

Oh yeah, it looks good too.

Leica M9 - $6995
I admit there is a cult of Leica. There are some really great photographers who have used Leicas. But there are also a lot of hacks who take crappy pictures with Leicas, but think they're Cartier-Bresson because they dropped $10k for a body and lens. But let's put all that petty stuff aside and marvel at the M9, which judging by early reviews and inventories, is a grand slam. I shot with a rangerfinder. Once. And yet, I find myself lusting over manual focus and spending oodles and oodles of money so that I can stand on top of my camera like my friend Justin Stailey (2:09).

How to Photograph Football

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:07 -0500

by Rod Mar

Football is easily my favorite sport to photograph. Combining peak action, great emotion and a sense of ritual and ceremony, football is not only a visual feast for the eyes, but also your camera. There's a reason why up to 100,000 fans pack stadiums every weekend, planning days, weekends and even annual vacations around games.

The basics of all sports photography- great action, good light and clean backgrounds all apply - both Brad Mangin and Darren Carroll mention these "must-haves" in their articles about baseball and golf, respectively.

Let's talk about shooting football in college terms.

Football 101: Two Faces and a Ball.
The essence of all sports photography can be captured in an old adage, often repeated by crusty old wire service editors to young wannabes:

"Two faces and a ball, kid. Two faces and a ball".

You get two good faces and the football in your frame, and you very likely have a usable photo. However, that's harder to achieve than you'd think.

Why? Because players wear helmets. They duck their heads. Often, a player is getting tackled and his head is twisted away from your camera. Anyway, however you slice it, two faces and a ball is a good place to start.

Remember - the eyes have it. If you can see their eyes, your photo is better.

Photo by Rod Mar

Football 201: Field Position Matters.

Now that you know what to look for, it's important to know WHERE to look for it.