An issue came up at the PSP this weekend which I think needs some attention. I've noticed it in the past with other companies but now as a main photographer for PaintballChannel/68Caliber it has come to be a major issue for me and all the rest of the paintball paparazzi out there that there are TOO MANY TEAMS WEARING THE SAME DAMN JERSEYS. There were grey and blue Empire jerseys on a ridiculously large fraction of the teams in play.
I can't be everywhere, so I have to look across fields to see who's going at it and hop in where I can and get as many good ones as possible, often shooting over a thousand pics a day. With so many games running, how can one tell who's going to be where when you look and see (from a distance) identical teams going on and coming off a field? And once editing, to tell if you've gotten enough of each team instead of hundreds of the same? Unless I'm taking them from the back and reading jerseys, which by the way gets you lit up ALL THE TIME, how the F*** am I going to want to sort through EVERYTHING with a microscope? It's bad enough when you're getting back to the hotel at 7, rubbing aloe goo all over your sunburned neck and arms (Well, now I have a lady for that, but in the "old days" it was a bothersome task
) till 8, eating dinner, then having to sorth through it all when you're dead tired and halfway torn between booze and bed...all to get back up at 6:30 the next day. Would you do it? When I'm handing over CD's to the site and magazines, how patient are they going to be with the repetition, made worse by Xball being on identical fields for an hour or more at a time?
Equally importantly, who as a viewer wants to sort through loads of pics to find their team's pics when they're one of perhaps twenty who apart from long hair and maybe a cool ano job on their gun are indistinguishable from fifty dudes from California, ten more from Ohio, and thirty from Florida, all of whom played on the same field that day? It gets boring very, very quickly.
I understand the point that a company wants to put their name out there. Good! Advertising and sponsorship is a good thing. It's only good, however, if it stands out. The blanket bombing approach is tedious and annoying as it is, but the cloning seen now is a serious problem. It's self defeating and it's pissing me off, and I'm not alone. It hinders us from doing our jobs effectively in serving the players and gives us less ability to make our work interesting and unique. I spoke with others like me on the fields and will continue to do so on the matter.
Bottom line: wear different color and style jerseys or we might not photo your teams at all. You don't want that, and your sponsors for damn sure don't want that. Yes Empire teams, this means you, and that goes for the next fad that comes along. Warning now, consequences later if ignored.
I can't be everywhere, so I have to look across fields to see who's going at it and hop in where I can and get as many good ones as possible, often shooting over a thousand pics a day. With so many games running, how can one tell who's going to be where when you look and see (from a distance) identical teams going on and coming off a field? And once editing, to tell if you've gotten enough of each team instead of hundreds of the same? Unless I'm taking them from the back and reading jerseys, which by the way gets you lit up ALL THE TIME, how the F*** am I going to want to sort through EVERYTHING with a microscope? It's bad enough when you're getting back to the hotel at 7, rubbing aloe goo all over your sunburned neck and arms (Well, now I have a lady for that, but in the "old days" it was a bothersome task
) till 8, eating dinner, then having to sorth through it all when you're dead tired and halfway torn between booze and bed...all to get back up at 6:30 the next day. Would you do it? When I'm handing over CD's to the site and magazines, how patient are they going to be with the repetition, made worse by Xball being on identical fields for an hour or more at a time?Equally importantly, who as a viewer wants to sort through loads of pics to find their team's pics when they're one of perhaps twenty who apart from long hair and maybe a cool ano job on their gun are indistinguishable from fifty dudes from California, ten more from Ohio, and thirty from Florida, all of whom played on the same field that day? It gets boring very, very quickly.
I understand the point that a company wants to put their name out there. Good! Advertising and sponsorship is a good thing. It's only good, however, if it stands out. The blanket bombing approach is tedious and annoying as it is, but the cloning seen now is a serious problem. It's self defeating and it's pissing me off, and I'm not alone. It hinders us from doing our jobs effectively in serving the players and gives us less ability to make our work interesting and unique. I spoke with others like me on the fields and will continue to do so on the matter.
Bottom line: wear different color and style jerseys or we might not photo your teams at all. You don't want that, and your sponsors for damn sure don't want that. Yes Empire teams, this means you, and that goes for the next fad that comes along. Warning now, consequences later if ignored.
