Employment Opportunities

We are currently approaching our busy club volleyball season and will need both administrative help at our booth as well as more photographers courtside throughout this coming volleyball season.

If you are interested in working very long hours on weekends when friends and family have days off and suffering through amazingly loud crowds, if you are interested in driving/flying hundreds of miles from family and staying in a motel for several days a month, if you are interested in running and shooting constantly, non-stop and only a few minutes here and there for a quick bite to eat - then you're just as crazy as we are and we want to talk to you!

In particular, we are looking for help from those that live close to one of the cities we will be photographing in to help us reduce our already very considerable travel costs. Please see our event calendar to see where we will be photographing this year.

This is not an easy money business. It is a heck of a lot of hard work and long hours. But it is very fun and rewarding.

If that doesn't scare you away ...

Please Send Us

• Your Name, Contact Information and a brief resume.
• If you are an experienced photographer, a portfolio of action, available light, indoor volleyball photography.
• Be willing to submit to a background check (we are very serious about the safety of the athletes we photograph and the image of our company).

Core Staff - who are we?

We are not part of a large corporation or company.

This is a family run studio. I started it in 2001, and it includes many family a friends who are generous enough to return season after season.

People that work with us often come to be considered extended/honorary family members. The hours are long and the work is draining, but can be a lot of fun. We do this because we like working with other families and meeting new people.

We're often in need of help - so if you know of any one else that you think would do well with us, communicates well with others, is willing to travel, work hard, etc. then please refer them - we'd be interested in talking to them!

We've been photographing volleyball for nearly 15 years now and it is has become our primary focus during the first half of the year, particularly during the girls club season. We are the official photographers for the Northern California Volleyball Association and the Southern California Volleyball Association and have become nationally known for our work at various other major events.

You can learn more our volleyball work here.

Our Philosophy

Our goal as a photography studio is a simple one.

We aim to create the highest quality images possible. Images that our customers will be excited by and will keep for decades to come. Our goals are ...

• To create beautiful images and customers so happy with our service and product that they come back year after year.
• For families to think of us as - if not friends - then at least good acquaintances the look forward to seeing again.
• That the images we are created today will be shared by the young athletes with their children and grandchildren in decades to come.
• That we add to the tournament experience by making it more fun and memorable.

So, if you want to work with us, we ask that you adopt those same goals and viewpoints.

If you are a booth staff member, we ask that you do everything you can to be friendly and helpful and make sure that customers leave us happy with the service they have received.

If you are a photographer, strive to create the best images you can and, when photographing, look for something more than just action. Look for pictures that really speak about the people in them.

We aren't out to make a fast buck and we aren't happy with the lowest quality images that will sell. Our goal is the highest quality image we can produce based on where and what we are photographing.

Regardless of your position with us, we expect that you will know all of our products and policies and will apply them fairly and with the goal that families get images they are thrilled with.

Event Calendar

We're planning a very busy season this year and I have posted a full event calendar on our site at: http://volleyball.michealhallphotography.com/eventcalendar.html. We currently need staff for every one of them.

Basic Tournament Schedule

A typical, three day tournament has a particular flow to it.

Days 1 & 2

Unlike other vendors at the tournaments, we do not have product on our "shelves" that people can buy right away. Each item that we sell is completely custom and requires that we actually go and photograph in order to have something to show people.

So Days 1 and 2 are largely photography days - we sell coverages & photograph athletes. We help to educate people about who we are, what we do, what we offer and how things work. Before we can sell pictures, we have to take them and that is mainly what we do the first two days of the tournament.

Day 1 will have a few sales, Day 2 will have some more, but again the main focus is getting people to sign up to have photos taken and then photographing their team/athlete.

The Last Day

The last day of the tournament is the main sales day and is the make or break day of the tournament. Whether or not we make any money or even cover our costs is determined on the last day. This is the busiest day at the booth. Most of our customers wait until the last day to order. So it's the day when we need the most help. Recent improvements to our ordering and checkout software have made the flow of the last day much smoother and easier to manage, in spite of how busy it can get.

The last day is an all-hands day - all staff are at the booth, all day. Usually the final day of a tournament is only about 10 hours long.

Often the photographers will either stop photographing altogether or photograph much less on the last day, as they come back to the booth to help sell or act as cashiers.

For staff that we have flown in from out of town to help, in order to keep you away from home as little as possible, you usually depart right from the convention center, so bring your personal bags in on the last day. We typically arrange a shuttle to take you from the convention center to the airport - we have to stay behind to tear down the booth and pack the gear.