Sports Photography Online Portfolio Website

For photographers looking to build a sports photography portfolio, Format has a number of clean and easy to use templates to kick-start your career in sports photography. We’ll help you navigate through building an online portfolio for sports photographers, getting to know the skills necessary to take your sports photography to the next level, and what the role a sports photographer has.

As the sports industry continues to grow rapidly, photographers that cover athletic events have become integral. Now, teams and sports leagues across the world are hiring their own photographers to travel with teams to cover behind the scenes and help share stories with fans. The speed needed by sports photographers to be able to catch the biggest moments in a game can be daunting, but the raw emotion that comes watching athletes achieve their dreams or fall short of their goals can be mesmerizing and make for powerful photographs.

Sports photographers now wear many hats, from photojournalists to editors, as well as fashion photographers for athletes and their partner brands. They are asked to wear many hats with speed in not just capturing shots, but uploading photos to be used as close to immediately as possible when sharing these moments across social media as they happen. If you are passionate about sports photography, looking to build your online portfolio, and want to learn more about the industry – this one’s for you.

Starting a Sports Photography Business

Sports photography encompasses every type of photography that covers sport or athletic events – from the classic ones like basketball, football, soccer, hockey, and baseball to other sports like swimming, gymnastics, cross country skiing, and running to athletic events like track and field. The realm of sports photography spans from high school and college athletics to local sporting teams, all the way up to professional sport and mega sporting events.

For photographers passionate about sports and working with athletes, this type of photography can be exhilarating, fast-paced, and always changing. You never quite know what you are going to get.

To get started:

Get involved in your community – scour social media and newspapers for upcoming sporting events that you can cover.
Work freelance by photographing sports in your hometown and the surrounding areas, whether that is soccer, football, hockey, basketball, swimming, track and field events.
Cover high school sports as a great jumping-off point to kickstart your career in sports photography.
If you are in a mountain town, look to familiarize yourself with mountain sports, like skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, and mountain bikes.
Live near a beach town? Then get to know sports like open-water swimming, surfing, paddling, and triathlons.
Understand the sports you’re planning to photograph. Different sports will require different sets of lighting, aperture, and settings.
Network with other sports photographers and industry professionals, work hard and show off your photography skills through your online portfolio.

Sports are unpredictable, fast-moving, and challenging to predict, so to be able to successfully follow the play and capture the monumental moments or celebrations can be a challenge. Having a baseline understanding of the event or sport you are covering is important in helping you know what you can and should be looking to capture. Plus, the more comfortable you are shooting different sports, the better quality photos you are going to be able to tell. Ultimately, it will really allow you to better tell the story of the game to the world.

How To Make a Sports Photography Portfolio

To get you started on creating your sports photography portfolio, here is a step-by-step guide to getting it off the sidelines:

Pick the best template – your template is the layout of your website, so choose one that allows you to be creative and most importantly, one you love!
Choose your photos – now is time to curate your portfolio by deciding what photos to use. If you don’t have enough content, just 10 photos can get your website started or if you have a number to choose from you can create different galleries to cater to different clients.
Develop an easy-to-navigate menu – your menu is the map that helps visitors navigate your website so keep it clear! Highlight big projects and a way to contact you.
Design your website – now it’s time to design your site by customizing the template you’ve chosen. Add your logo, choose your color palette, and the fonts you want to use.
Introduce yourself – creating an about page that shares your story, experience, and passion will help visitors connect to you. Add a headshot so people know who you are, contact information so people can get a hold of you, and don’t be afraid to share your accomplishments or expertise – awards, published work, and press.

Sports Portfolio Templates: Which One To Use?

Whether you are covering sports as a hobby or as a career choice, creating an online portfolio and presence to share your photos is integral to your success. People need to be able to get a glimpse at your capabilities as a photographer, and your online portfolio will allow you to gain access to new opportunities and subsequently, grow your freelance career. It could also help you turn freelance work into a full-time gig as a sports photographer. Here are some tips to help you choose the perfect sports portfolio template:

Choose a template that showcases your personality – Format has a number of template options available, so be sure to pick one that suits your personality and embodies the brand you want to build.
Group your photographs into galleries to highlight different sports – to show your versatility and ability to shoot different sports, create different galleries to highlight your skillset with different sports.
Drives leads with contact forms – add contact forms to your website to make it easy for potential clients to connect with you and share the pertinent information needed to reach out with the next steps.

Sport Photography Portfolio FAQs

Use your online portfolio as a way to explore creative ways to highlight your best photographs – the ones that show the intensity of the game, the highs and lows, the successes and failures, the moments that can captivate the world.

Your online portfolio can also create opportunities where athletes who are building their own portfolio reach out to you to photograph them after seeing how you’ve highlighted their sport. This could help them with sponsorship potential or simply grow their own brand. Be sure that your sports photography portfolio captures a wide range of your skills and abilities as a photographer.

Being a sports photographer can be stressful, but it’s also is an opportunity to see the game or event like no other. While you have a courtside view and a backstage pass, you’ve got a big job to do, so here are some tips on the skills you need to be a sports photographer:

Think fast on your feet – action sports photography can be tough and sometimes dangerous as games move fast, so as a good rule of thumb always follow the ball or puck!

Strong technical ability – good sports photographers need to keep up with the rapid pace of the event and know how to manage your camera settings, lens options, etc. With how fast events and games are, you won’t have time to play with your camera settings during a game so focus on honing your skills beforehand.

Adaptability – it’s important that sports photographers can adapt to new environments or areas they aren’t as familiar with and still be able to share the story of the game.

Creativity – finding creative ways to share stories through your photos include playing around and being unafraid to try new things with your camera! Test wide shots, tight shots, different coloring, or lens focusing. These creative shots can also really help you build a strong online portfolio.

The salary of a sports photographer can range from $102,000 to as low as $19,500, but the average salary hovers around $49,047. The amount that sports photographers make is heavily dependent on the size and scope of the type of sport you are shooting.

Sports photographers should make somewhere between $50-$300 as an hourly rate and land between $500-$3,000 for a flat rate for an event you are covering (between four to eight hours of coverage). The more experience you have and the larger or more captivating your sports photography portfolio is, the easier time you will have to increase your hourly or day rate.

The role of a sports photographer is to capture the moments of athletic events and to be able to tell the story of them. It’s about capturing the emotion – the successes and the failures of the athletes – to be able to portray the essence of the event to people who weren’t in the stands.

From the intensity to the frustration, the concentration, celebrations, and the unforgettable shots or moments. People need to be able to feel the passion and energy of the sporting event by just looking at the photograph. Beyond this, a successful sports photographer is going to be able to capture the behind-the-scenes moments that allow athletes an inside look at their preparations, including warming up before big events, entering a stadium, speaking with their coaches, or candid moments.

Sports photographers have a very important role at athletic events – they’ve captured iconic sporting moments that have allowed those moments to live on through history.

The sports industry and the culture around sports are continuing to grow in popularity, so there is a lot of space for sports photographers to grow inside the industry. While it is a competitive landscape, building your online portfolio, gaining experience, and following your passion are ways that you can find yourself on the sidelines of sporting events with a camera on hand. It can be a challenging task to cover professional sports as a sports photographer, but there is tons of demand for covering athletic events.

Build Your Sports Photography Portfolio

Bring the action of sports photography to life into your sports photography online portfolio website. Format can help bring your portfolio to life and the action in front of people’s eyes. Easily customizable, you can create your portfolio on-the-go and share your work with clients around the world.

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*Offer must be redeemed by April 30, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. PST. 50% discount off the subscription price of a new annual Pro Plus plan can be applied at checkout with code PROPLUSANNUAL, 38% discount off the price of a new annual Pro plan can be applied with code PROANNUAL, and 20% discount off the price of a new Basic annual plan can be applied with code BASICANNUAL. The discount applies to the first year only. Cannot be combined with any other promotion.