Congrats. Your coming in at the right time with football to start in a couple months. Focus on quality, if an image is not perfect...delete it. Or risk the gallery not being posted.
After reading this thread I decided to apply for Maxpreps this week as well and just received an acceptance email. My daughter will be starting HS soccer this Fall and we'll have an exchange student playing Volleyball so I figured I would start with those sports since I would be there anyway shooting the games. Plus we have a shared football stadium for the three district high schools that is close to my house, so it should be convenient to cover football games.
Anyway I know nothing about strobes, so will be doing some research on that given Maxpreps requirements. Is it possible to shoot without strobes if you have a D3s or D4 and get accepted for indoor and night outdoor games?
The only time I have ever posted any indoor or night games on MP without strobes or the low mounted flash is when I shot from a professional arena. (HS Championships)
Welcome to the MP family! I've shot for them since 2006. Shooting for MP has really made me a better photographer. I've learned to leverage my MP work into more youth T&I gigs. If your in an area that doesn't have the MaxPreps brand recognition, have Todd send you a banner (once you've shot a bit). That'll help.
Yes, MaxPreps will accept non-strobed "stuff"; but, it's gotta be clean.
Thanks to all who have replied with the congrats and compliments and a special thanks for all the good tips. Also congrats back to threepairsphot and MichGoBlue for getting accepted to MP as well.
Cameras not needing strobes for football or indoor sports - Canon 1DX, 1DIV, 5D3 Nikon D4/3s/3 (maybe the D3) and D800.
Get exposure right in camera, and sharp in camera, and anything above 800ISO I like to run noise ninja over my shots before sending them into MaxPreps.
Oh, and state championship indoor sports do not need to be strobed (MP understands that some places you just can not set strobes up) but if you can, do.
What does joining MaxPreps offer you? Around here they are looked on in some disfavor by most smaller schools as the state accrediting entity has adopted their "unbalanced schedule considering wins only" algorithm which has disrupted traditional conferences and rivalries with rankings and power points. It's so absurd (and yes I've studied the stats behind it) that for the state baseball tournament this year they were going to put in 4 teams with losing records and exclude 4 teams with strong winning records. The argument was the wins the losers had, though few, were so good it made them better than teams with strong winning records. There was quite an uproar and somehow the winning teams got in.
I've been shooting for the local paper for about 3 years. This is a very small town in the middle of nowhere and all of the local HS' opponents are equally small and poor (except for a few religious related teams that seem to have amazing talent and support). Most of the families in these schools have very little money, so there isn't a real lucrative market for pix. Some, but not enough to pay for a major push to market them. How would MaxPreps figure in this sort of market?
Carl, your tips on dealing with teams, officials, schools, parents are spot on. I always talk with head coaches, the referees, and any available school official. When I'm going to visit a school for the first time, I contact the AD to see if they have any concerns. No one has ever had a problem and frankly most are glad their school is getting attention. After a while one gets to know most of the officials and coaches and they've seen me work so it becomes more of a "high, how are you" than anything else. For sure any photog has to absolutely know that nothing about the event is for their benefit. They are there to record with the safety and convenience of all others coming first.
The injunction to learn to flash and strobe has to be counter-balanced by local rules. The league I work in, for whatever reason, bans flash. I've several times politely probed the policy and it seems to stem from the belief that if an athlete is distracted by the light she/he could get hurt. I've suggested otherwise, but nothing changes. Believe me the gyms and particularly the football fields are truly dark around here as several have 50+ year old lighting systems with parts of them completely dark.
So I'm interested in what MaxPreps "certification" confers.
Everything I am about to say is what I HOPE will occur. I have shot for a few years for parents mostly. They hire me to shoot their athlete. The school won't promote any business with their announcements unless they purchase an ad in the program. The funny thing is that the photg that shoots the T&I gets a free ad. Ad costs over $400 for the year which I purchased. Heck last year after the parents were complaining that the T&I photog would only shoot one game per year, and his cheapest print was $35.00. So last year the boosters made my studio the Game day photog's . The T&I guy got pissed and showed up to every game (I have a son playing so I was already there) he then got the announcers at home games to say that all his game day photos were FREE, giving back to the community blah blah.
So my intent is to get to both teams, home and away and see if we can drum up sales by covering both teams. My thought is since I'm not associate with a local firm, a national firm may and I stress may, offer a better route to sales.
Don,
Thanks for laying out what you hope will happen. Hope it does. I've never understood a photog getting POed because he/she has competition. Thought that was the American Way
I've got a press card and shoot and report all the local sports or as much as the editor is willing to print. I'll go over and look at MaxPreps, but I have a sneaking suspicion that even wonderful shots of the Tohono O'odham Eagles against the Ajo Red Raiders aren't going to be big sellers.
Great read here on Maxpreps, and thanks to all for the insite.
I have a few quick question.
1. In my area we are seeing more schools afraid of photography of the young athletes. Is there anything with Maxpreps that protects you from parents that may not want their child's photo put out in the public?
2. How can MaxPreps sell photos for commercial use without the individuals signed permission?
