Hi Everyone

Today in this blog I will be looking at event photography and the importance of possessing knowledge of the event you are photographing. As a corporate and event photographer Edinburgh Glasgow and throughout Scotland, I am a conference photographer in Edinburgh, a sports photographer in Glasgow and a general event photographer in Scotland.  So what is the most important skill (after your photographic technical ability and skills, that is), well I think the crucial aspect is knowledge of the genre and we will will use sports photography as an example.  I used to work as a newspaper photographer in East Lothian, Midlothian and Edinburgh and this gave me a grounding in all different types of photography.  For the first time I had to photograph rugby.  Now I participated in a lot of sports when I was young and everyone knows I am a big football fan, but I was never really into rugby.  However as photographers, we should be willing to tackle all sports and I was more than happy to try my hand at rugby.  I found out that without the required knowledge of the sport, it was going to be difficult to photograph it.  You need to know the best position to stand, you also need to have an idea what is going to happen next and this is probably the most important thing for event and conference photographers in Scotland, timing your next photograph and being in the right place is the be all and end all in sport.

So as a professional event photographer in Scotland, what could I do to acquire this knowledge.  Firstly I was lucky I have a lot of friends who are into rugby, they helped me to understand the rules, gave me an idea what was going to happen next and on what and who to concentrate on during the game and more importantly why I should do this if I want to capture the action.  I also read about the sport and started to watch games, both locally and internationally, until I now actually enjoy watching rugby.  The other thing you can do is to look at images from excellent sports photographers in Scotland and throughout the sports community.  After photographing local rugby, I was asked about 10 years ago to photograph the international rugby sevens at Murrayfield in Edinburgh and now I love photographing the sport at all levels.  Of course this also applies to conference and event photography, it is important to know your subject, anticipate what will happen next and understand the motivation of the people participating.  In addition knowledge of the light you require to take a good photo is also crucial in these situations.  Also, the ability to distinguish the difference between local sport and high level often international level sport, is important.  There is a difference in pace and athleticism, which has to be taken into account, a well as positioning, which will be more limiting for the photographer at professional level.

So I hope this helps in your quest for excellent event photographs.  Until next time.

Kind Regards

Colin

www.colinwrightphotography.co.uk