What are you looking for in a photographer?

We are commonly asked what we are looking for in a volleyball photographer.

The answer is simple - we are looking for people like us.

We are looking for people that (in no particular order) ...

• People that bring very little personal ego to their work. We are not snobbist or elitist photographers.
• People that really understand and like the sport of volleyball.
• People that like and are interested in other people.
• People that work hard.
• People that enjoy communicating with others.
• People that are dedicated to producing the best images they can.
• People that can work under less than ideal circumstances.
• People that can think on their feet, that can improvise or adapt when things aren't quite going as planned
• People who have a high degree of individual hustle.
• People that are generally fit (hustling throughout a huge convention center all day can be draining).

Because we charge for our photography services, we need photographers that can deliver strong images in all sorts of circumstances. We need sharp, well timed, well composed images of action, jublilation, dejection, portraits, team huddles, etc. We need all aspects of a game photographed and we need a photographer than can do this for the entire team while keeping an eye on the specific athlete that has been requested.

We need 150 - 200 saleable images to result from each half hour coverage, of which at least 70% should be strong action. (Those are general targets - sometimes you just can't get there - but you do the best with the game in front of you.)

Our most popular products are overwhelmingly our collages - that requires a minimum of five strong images per athlete whenever possible (we know it's not always possible to get that many strong images of all athletes in a normal single game coverage). However, our coverages must result in more that just the one sale to the family that purchased the coverage. If they do not, we lose a great deal of money and have to close up shop.

What if I've never photographed volleyball?

While ideally any photographers we hire would be experts in volleyball photography, we know that there actually aren't very many of those out there.

A lot of photographers "shoot" volleyball, but based on our last broad promotion for photographers a few years ago, very few are any good at it (at least none of those that responded to us did it well).

However - to be honest - we weren't volleyball photographers when we got started in this either. We fell into it and developed our eye and technique as time went one.

If you've never photographed volleyball or have only photographed a bit of it and live in the Sacramento/San Joaquin valley area, there is hope. We're looking to put together some practice shooting dates here in Sacramento with some clubs that we commonly work with.

Basically this will involve heading out to a practice facility and drilling photographing different aspects of the sport, looking at the best shooting positions, lenses, etc.

Additionally, we have written a fairly extensive document on how we photograph volleyball and what we are looking for from a photographer who works with us.

So, don't worry if you haven't photographed volleyball - we may be able to get you up to speed prior to the season starting. However, once the season starts, we won't have time for training, so - if you are interested - get in touch soon!

Will you provide gear, or do I need my own?

It's best if you can provide your own gear. However, we can provide a limited amount of gear if needed.

We usually recommend gear along these lines:

• Canon 1D class bodies - the mkII/mkIIn is very well suited.
• 85mm 1.8 (required)
• 135mm 2.0 (highly recommended)
• 70-200 2.8 (required)
• 200mm 1.8 (optional - but highly recommended)
• 16-35 2.8 (optional)
• Plenty of CF Cards (required)

We have nine Canon 1D class cameras (1D, 1DmkII, 1DmkIII) for use at tournaments. However, we do not have a full selection of lenses for each body. We can fully outfit two photographers (in addition to our two staff photographers) - with 1D, 85mm 1.8, 135mm 2.0 and 70-200 2.8 lenses.

We do ask that a 1D class camera or equivalent is used. The smaller 1.6x crop factor sensors in other Canon cameras limit the image capture opportunities with the lenses typically required in these indoor locations. The larger 1.3x size sensor of the 1D class is much better suited.

On the Nikon side, the 1.5x sensor size is somewhat limiting, but a D2hs would be acceptable and if you happen to be lucky enough to be shooting with the new Nikon D3, that should do just fine as well!

Understand that you will usually be shooting a minimum of ISO 1600 at f/2.8 or f/2.0 so we need cameras which perform well at higher ISOs.

Regardless of what camera you shoot with, it MUST be able to output RAW+JPG files at the same time.

Basic Shooting Settings

We usually shoot along the following lines:

• RAW + JPG shooting. The JPGs can be small or medium JPGs. We use the JPGs for display on the viewing stations and RAW for processing the final prints and collages.
• No flash is ever used.
• We typically shoot Auto White Balance. The lighting typically differs from court to court and the style of lights used in most convention centers makes a fixed white balance such as florescent or a Kelvin setting or even a custom white balance useless. Typically AWB gets us close enough for display purposes. We custom adjust every image prior to printing, which is why we require RAW files.
• Manual metering. Each court is individually metered and exposed accordingly. Typically in a good convention center courts are within 1/3 stop of each other. However, there are times where the difference is as much as a full stop to 1 1/2 stops.
• Manually selected, center point, single point AF (turn off the other 44). This can increase camera responsiveness.

How will I know who to photograph?

We photograph by paid request only, so we will provide you with a schedule of shooting assignments.

To learn more about the types of coverages we offer, you can read about them here.

What about photography rights?

We are interested in hiring photographers in a Work For Hire arrangement.

When photographing, you will be doing so as a hired employee and all rights to images will be assigned to Micheal Hall Photography.

We are not interested in a rights grab, but we want there to be no confusion as to ownership of the images.

We have done to work to create the business and opportunity for photography to occur. We are investing time, money, potentially training, travel, housing, food, etc. In exchange, we require clear and undisputable ownership of the images with the ability to display, sell and use for promotion any image taken during the tournament as part of our services.

Pay Rates

Our income potential varies greatly depending on the tournament we are photographing - generally speaking, the larger the tournament (and the closer to the end of the season it is), the better are our chances of good income. Early in the season, our income is lower - tournaments are smaller and the season is just beginning (there is less push for pictures at towards the beginning of the season). So these tournaments serve as "seeding" tournaments in that they supply us with money we need after our slow Fall season and allow us to photograph the larger tournaments later in the season.

Small Tournaments
For small tournaments, we are offering base pay of $150/day with the possibility of bonuses if we hit certain pre-defined income targets (based on a minimum 10 hour day).

Large Tournaments
For large tournaments, we are offering base pay of $250/day with the possibility of bonuses if we hit certain pre-defined income targets (based on a minimum 10 hour day).

Even though the final day of a tournament is shorter than the preceding days, if you work until the tournament ends, it counts as a full day.

Schedule & Breaks

Depending on the tournament, photography typically starts at 8:00am and ends at about 9:00 - 10:00pm.

Typically there are two waves of play - 8:00am - 2:00pm and 3:00pm to ... whenever. Practically speaking, due to game delays, longer games, etc. that first wave can often back right into the beginning of the second wave, meaning no break in between.

As a photographer, your primary responsibility is the capture of great images. That means we need you courtside as much as possible. On average, we ourselves usually photograph anywhere from 15-20 games per day (my personal best is 22 games). We expect photographers coming out to work with us to be able to photograph a minimum of 15 games per day. As each game works out to about 30 minutes on average, that's about 7 1/2 hours of actual, courtside photography time throughout the day. We'd be thrilled if you do more - and it's being able to exceed targets like that which can help us meet income targets that allow us to pay out bonuses.

However, we also know that good photography requires a well rested and well fed photographer. We will do our best to allow for a 1/2 hour lunch break. We recommend bringing some snack bars, or nuts or other things like this to keep in your camera bag. Other breaks throughout the day can be grabbed during gaps in your schedule.

We also try to have a booth staff member make the rounds to bring our water or other snacks at various times of the day. We aren't out to torture anyone, but our window of opportunity for photography in income is narrow and the photographers are usually the hardest hit by this.