Every summer I photograph a sporting event for the folks running the event. And, every year, I’d run into the photographers working for the sponsor. The other photographers attitude was always the same. Didn’t really seem to care about the kind of images they’d make. To them, it seemed more about the money.

Usually, that photographer would have a wedding booked on the same day as the event we were both covering. The photographer would shoot the first part of the event and then hand off to another photographer for the remainder of the day.
Neither of the photographers had much experience covering sports, but there they were, year after year photographing the event for the sponsors.

Then last year, I received a call from my contact who is the public relations director for the event. He tells me that the sponsor would like to know if it’s possible for me to have one of my photographers photograph the event for them. YES! IT MOST CERTAINLY IS POSSIBLE! The last thing I’d ever want to say to a client is “No.” Even if I didn’t believe it was possible I would have said yes. I’ll always do whatever I can to make the clients needs or requests happen. At that moment they are my focus. If I can make it happen, I will.

Once I said yes, I submitted an estimate to the second client. They approved. Now, I had to come up with a plan of attack. First, I thought of the perfect photographer to work with me. That was the easy part. Second, I had to come up with a plan for photographing the event. Most of the sponsor and event needs are the same. My solution was to have myself and my colleague shoot different aspects of the event and then edit it down into various categories. Each client would get the same DVD in the end. This way, both clients would get images they need, and better overall coverage if we pooled the talents of two photographers together to offer the clients a better package. I then spoke with BOTH clients. Told them my plans. They loved the idea, but had some specific things they needed photographed. I asked for a shot list. They provided that, and we both used the sheet. I looked it over and found zones where I’d be stationed and my other photographer would be stationed. We then broke down the shot list into zones and proceeded to cover our zones on the list. The plan worked out very well. So well, in fact, that we’re doing it again this year.