Sports Photography

Sports photography is the art of capturing a sporting event on camera and telling the story of the sport through pictures. Any kind of sporting event is appropriate for sports photography, and images have been captured on events from the Olympics to the Super Bowl to high school games.

Sports photography has it's roots in photojournalism, in that, pictures were captured to tell stories. Now, sports photography is unarguable it's own genre and specialty of photography, and television channels, print publications and picture books have all been dedicated to the art.

Many sports photographers are employed by publications, while many others are independent contractors hired for a certain event. Still others are freelance sports photographers, in that, they will shoot a sporting event, and then later try to sell the images to a publication.

Because of the amount of fast-paced action in a sporting event, sports photographers typically shoot with the aperture wide open to accommodate a wide variety of different activites taking place at once. A sports photographer definitely needs a reliable camera with a steady zoom lens, and needs to have mastered the art of keeping the lens open, so as not to blur background action.

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