Update on the youth sports deal

As i blogged about a little while back, i had an interview to shoot for a well known youth sports company here in the DFW metroplex. It went very well, and i signed my paperwork that night.

They asked me to work recently shooting action shots for a girls softball league. Then they wrote back a few days later and said I may be doing team and individual photos as well! Wow, talk about jumping in head first! I was to be there at 7:45am that morning, and shoot until about 4pm.

I got up at 6:30am (after working 12hrs the night before) and the weather was horrible, completely out of nowhere! It has been absolutely beautiful here in DFW the last month or so, minus all of the crazy wind we've been having the last few months. Well, this particular morning mother nature decided she would throw a screwball into the mix. It was 33* outside, with 25-30mph winds, making it insanely cold. But, this was my big day and i wasnt going to let a little weather spoil it.

I put on my fleece PJ pants, then layered my jeans over those. Put on a tanktop, a longsleeved under-armor type shirt, a longsleeved thermal and a hoodie. Socks, Shoes, and a beanie and im ready to walk out the door.

I get a call just as im walking downstairs to head to the car informing me that the shoot was off. Too many people werent going to show up and all of the girls that were there were layered in clothes, and lets face it, who wants an individual posed photo of their child dressed to go to Antarctica?

Needless to say i was a little bummed, but relieved that i didnt have to stand there for 8+ hours in that frigid weather. If any of you out there know me personally, you probably know how much i HATE being cold. I seriously cant stand it.


So fast forward a few days. I've now been asked to work this Sunday, April 5th, shooting softball again. Im really excited about it! As of this post, here is how the weather reads:

Sunday, April 5th: Sunny. High of 77*. 0% chance of rain.


Lets hope that holds up!

Okay, so that day is set.

Today, i got an email asking my availability for two different assignments.

Assignment #1: April 6-9. Definitely available that monday and tuesday, weds is a no-go, and thursday is good too. So that might be quite a bit of work coming in that week.

Assignment #2: April 18-19. Available there too!


So excited that i've actually got some steady flow of photography related income that will be coming in. Its definitely a step in the right direction. Hopefully i can parlay this into bigger sports/venues and eventually up to the pro level. I'll definitely be needing a pro series camera body if i plan to step it up to that level. My current body (Canon 40D) is excellent for pretty much everything that will take me up to the pro level. I definitely plan to make that jump to pro-body in somewhat near future, hopefully by the time the next Hockey/Basketball season rolls around. The good thing about camera bodies is that you can actually get them used for decent prices. Lenses are where the money is at. Granted, there are some $8,000 camera bodies out there, but i dont need that one! The one im planning to buy (Canon 1D Mark II, or 1D Mark IIn),the last generation model, you can pick up used for anywhere from $1000-1700. Sure, it doesnt have all the newest bells and whistles, but it didnt have them 2 years ago when thats what all of the top sports photographers were using either. Basically meaning that even if the camera is a few years old, its still going to produce great images.

Well, i need to go spend some time with Jill. I feel like i've seen here all of about 10 minutes in the last 3 or 4 days. The last thing i need to be doing is coming straight home from work and sitting on the computer blogging all night.

Hopefully i keep this updated more frequently than i have been recently.

Brad