We edit all kinds of professional photos—product photos, ecommerce shots, headshots and portraits, car photography, and sports photography. In this post, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about sports photography in 2024.
Sports photography refers to any photos taken of sports and/or athletes. Sports photography could involve action shots as well as team shots, athlete portraits, behind-the-scenes looks, marketing and promotional photos, and pretty much any photo related to some type of sport.
Shooting sports photography involves many different contexts and scenarios. You might have action shots taken during a match, or editorial and promotional images taken in a studio far away from the field or court.
Some headshots are meant to highlight an individual. There are tons of reasons for this—maybe it’s a founder or C-level executive, a LinkedIn profile photo, or a business owner. These photos could be used for profile pages, about us pages, and more.
The Women’s Eagles rugby team also has individual headshots on its website. In this example, there are many individual headshots to showcase each of the players on the team.
Team headshots involve multiple people. In some cases, the whole group is on-site to take the photo together. In others, the photos are taken individually and later clipped and composited to be one group photo.
For example, one sports photographer we work with on clipping paths and retouching takes both team and individual photos of 16 different sports teams for each season. That’s a lot of headshots!
Action shots focus on capturing the live action and movement during the event. They’re taken during a sporting event, showing the athletes actually competing. These are difficult to shoot and edit, but they’re exciting. We get lots of requests for background removal from action sports photos.
Sports event photos are either for games or matches, or for promotional events like celebrations or parades. Event photography captures the broader aspects of the sporting event, including the crowd, ceremonies, and the environment.
Editorial sports photography provides storytelling through images that accompany sports journalism articles. This might also include sports fine art photography, where sports photographers focus on the aesthetics of the sport, emphasizing form, motion, and emotion in a more artistic manner.
Asking “how much does a headshot cost?” is similar to asking “how much does a car cost?” The prices vary depending on many factors, including:
We researched many different photographers’ pricing and found the range is quite wide—it seems that most sports photographers land anywhere from $75 to a few thousand dollars. According to this reddit thread, most expect it to be around $200–$400 for a standard headshot session with one or two subjects.
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Keep the following sports photography tips in mind:
When preparing for amazing sports photos, it’s essential to get the right camera equipment. While technically speaking, you can take your sports photos with a smartphone, a mirrorless or DSLR camera will give you the best result.
Here’s a quick-hitting list of equipment to consider for sports photos:
Shooting sports photos with fast-moving subjects moving in sometimes unpredictable directions requires a lot of advanced skill. You’ll need to familiarize yourself with a variety of camera settings—a very important one includes shutter speed.
A fast shutter speed is helpful for action spots, while you can use a slow shutter speed for shooting sports photos in controlled environments, like team photos or portraits.
While you want to do your best to capture the perfect shot, there are likely to be some required edits—especially when you’re dealing with action photos. Be careful not to go overboard here, because you don’t want an overly edited photo that looks like AI or gives an obviously false impression of the subject.
Some sports photo edits you might make include:
If you want to learn how to take great sports photos, there are tons of courses and workshops that can help you fine tune your skills. Here are a few options to investigate and see if they meet your needs:
When fine tuning your sports photos, a close eye for detail is important. You don’t want to leave your edits up to some faceless AI technology that requires manual review—and often further edits to refine its mistakes. That’s where Path comes in.
All the editing action is completely done by hand when you send your shots to Path. No shortcuts or compromising quality here. And we’re available around the clock, so you can get your edits back in as little as 6 hours!
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Sports photography is a specialized genre of photography focused on capturing moments of action, emotion, and intensity during sporting events. It involves photographing athletes in motion, the dynamics of the game, and the atmosphere of the event, often requiring fast reflexes, technical skills, and the ability to anticipate key moments.
