Low-Xpectations Practice

[timmyshoota]

To be honest, I don't think any of the shots are good enough to be in a magazine. They are certainly better than the first set you did, so you're improving, which is always good. I don't know if some of you understand how hard it is to get published anyways. I've got a friend who is an AMAZING automotive photographer. Infact that's his job, but he's only had one picture published and it was in the "Reader Rides" section, and it was because he had a nicely modded car, with an excellent photo taken in the middle of Manhattan at night. Even then it was just a tiny pic in the magazine.

If you ever get a chance to go to a major event, like XPSL, PSP or whatever the NPPLish league is now, go and try to talk to some of the major media people, like Gary Baum. Connections will probably get you farther than just skill alone. It takes skill, luck and who you know to get published.

[bigred76]

Yup, I'm highly considering going to USPL (the new NPPL style league, RPL is Shawn Walker's POS league, XPSL is no longer) HB the next time around. I'm also going to be shooting the new RaceTo league that's starting up soon here as well as the Bushwhackers (local field is now sponsoring them, so they're going to be there every weekend pretty much) and possibly a couple other local leagues.

As soon as I get a second camera body, I'm going to be training a second person so I can do more events where the money really is: weddings. It'll also help me to better cover the local paintball scene, which is great to start off with. Little steps will lead me to success, large ones will only lead to tripping and falling down the flight of stairs.

Thanks for noting the improvement, Chris. I thought I was, but I always need a second opinion just to make sure I'm not deluding myself. The first set was the second time I shot paintball, and the second tournament I shot was my first time ever shooting in the rain and was really hard to get the settings right. This last (third) tournament was just about where I was getting comfortable with getting into the lanes (nubes don't always lane the players, they see a ref and shoot a rope) to snag a couple shots, and with this day under my belt and looking quite good, I can't wait to shoot the tournament next weekend (Event#4).