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Is Live Sports Photography Really Photography?

by 9 Comments

What about concert photography?  Fashion show photography?  Paparazzi? Red carpet event photography?  Or pretty much any circumstance where there are multiple photographers taking the same photos from the same location, in the same light, with the same gear, at the same settings, producing photos that look pretty much the same as every other game / concert / fashion show / celebrity photo ever taken?

Live Sports Photography

Real Photography Is Branch of Visual Art Right?

When I started my career, I had a very hard time calling myself a photographer.  In fact, I still do – because I still consider most of my photographs to be nothing more than pretty pictures.

Back then, it felt like I was more of a technician than a photographer.

I could point my camera at something and push the button.  If the settings were right and the thing in front of me was interesting enough, the camera would snap a nice picture.  If I took enough photos of the same thing, a few of them would eventually turn out better than the others.

If you think about it, that process is not that much different than how most photographers approach live sports and other event photography.

Stand where you’re allowed, take as many photos as you can, use the same gear, settings and light as all the other photographers standing beside you – and if you’re lucky you’ll be in the right place at the right time to snap a picture that is marginally better than the other guy’s.

If you’re even more lucky you will snap a picture of someone important doing some amazing feat that is marginally more amazing than all the other photos of nearly identical amazing feats ever taken.

I mean, if you choose a set of 10 photos from a random football game last weekend, they are going to look nearly identical to any set of photos from any other football game over the past 10 years.

Live sports photography

So is this photography?

To me real photography has to have some form of artistic merit.  A story, an emotion, something unique to the photo.

To Create Value A Photographer Must Have Artistic Vision – Not A Lucky Snapshot

The problem that arises when you are essentially relying on a lucky snapshot for your income, is that you have to rely on a system that restricts access to others who would otherwise take the same photos you are taking.

If you look at the work of successful sports photographers, concert photographers and even paparazzi, there is always something tangibly unique about their work that creates value – something that is different from everyone else taking the same photos.

As someone who does quite a bit of work within the realm of sports photography myself, this is something that I struggle with personally – it is even harder for live event photographers.

If you’re struggling with the same thing, here is a great clip from an old Scott Kelby Grid episode with sports photography legend Dave Black.  Skip ahead to the 37:30 mark where Dave talks about the importance of ideas and artistic vision versus technical skill and the marketplace for visionary images.

One of the things that was a great aid for me throughout my career was raising the bar above where my competitors were either willing to go, or could afford to go.

Dave Black

Are You A Photographer or a Technician?

So, what do you think?  Are you a photographer or a technician?  Does live sports photography and other live event photography really qualify as photography?

Is there a threshold between when someone taking photographs evolves from being an interchangeable button pusher to a photographer?

Leave a comment and let us know what you think!

[Football photo “Handoff to Todd Newell” by US Air Force ID 071231-F-0558K-017  (CC) ]

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  • is that a trick question? #photography

  • mikespivey

    There is a fine line between lucky and good. If you anticipate a great shot or are just dumb lucky to be standing there when a great event happens, what’s the difference?
    I shoot dirt track race cars at night. the tech aspect is challenging but after you get over that hurdle, you keep looking for the unusual shot that tells a story. Next week I will shoot the Chili Bowl in Tulsa, one of the premier dirt track events. There will be 70 or so photographers elbow to elbow around the inside of the track hoping to get “the shot”. Not likely, but possible. Most other races, you move around, shooting from the outside the track in daylight, usually inside with flash after dark. There are opportunities to be creative.
    For instance, at a very short track, there is a tendency for drivers to pull wheelies coming off a turn. A certain driver has a tendency to pull monster wheelies. So when he runs his heat race, I stand inside the front straight instead of in a turn. I get rewarded with a monster wheelie and make a great shot that tells a story.
    I consider myself a photographer and a technician, although lately, most of my gains have been on the photographic or journalistic side. In the end, does it matter? Can you make pictures with impact?

  • Rocco

    The idea that photography is art is something that I don’t believe at all. There is nothing in photography that i consider art. I consider it a craft. Of course, as many crafts, you can make art with it. As many crafts, you can make products that sell by the millions, sell custom products to a reduce audience, create a product with an artistic sensibility, create real art, or just do it for leisure. But in general I don’t see art in photography. We like to think it is, as a home decorator can think he is doing art because he is using some artistic sensibility to decorate a nice room, we are doing the same.

    There are some people that use photography as a medium to do art, but they are very few. Art is something that takes years to stablish, a style, an idea, it is not a click of a button. Yes, many people think that because they have an artistic sensibility, they are doing art, but they are doing the same that the room decorator who went to art school and uses its art studies to decide the paint and furniture in a room for someone to pay him.

    • mike

      I mostly agree with you, but I also think that anything can be art. “Art is in the eye of the beholder.”

  • Jason Wright

    Are they taking a photo? If yes, then it’s photography. That wasn’t hard was it?
    Originality or quality are not considerations when defining the act rather than the outcome.
    Is it “good” photography? That’s a different question.

    Even the photo of the back of your lens cap is photography.

  • gs_790

    The wordgame in the headline is about how others perceive a certain endeavor, whereas the wordgame in the body of the article is about how one perceives his or her own work.

    Would a landscape photogrpaher think event photography a lesser thing? Probably, we have a tendency to have a higher opinion of our own work and work that looks like ours.

    This whole “art,” “not-art” thing is a lot like the “sport,” “not a sport” conversation: to me, it always sounds like just another way of saying, “I like my thing better.”

  • Yes. For me at least. Part of being a good photographer is knowing how to get the best result from the gear at hand under the given circumstances.

    If a photographer takes a stunning photograph of a landscape, it is photography. If he is taking an identical picture standing in a crowd with people taking the same pictures, I think it still is photography.

    That being said, sometimes I let my kids use my camera, they are 4 and 7 years old. Sometimes I’m surprised how good some (but still very few) of the images turn out. Amongst all the pictures of legs, backs and random objects there are some good shots. Certainly, they are not photographers, but the images don’t always show it.

  • dave

    Now you’re just being a troll who is bordering on insulting. What a stupid article.

  • Ralph Hightower

    Oh geez, cameras in the 1980’s weren’t all manual exposure. I bought a Canon A-1 in 1980 that had aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and program mode; it also had manual exposure and stopped-down exposure. That A-1 which I bought new still works and I still shoot film with it.
    Oh yea, there was no autofocus back in the 80’s.

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