The art for Sports photography, it is not just about capturing the action and celebration moments but also the emotion of the athletes. Athlete’s years of training just to be to compete in a competition and the chance to execute the movement only once. Sport photographer unlike any other genre of photography, we have the understanding of the sport to nail that action, that winning shot. 

Freezing the action isn’t just enough for me. I’m chasing for the emotions of that close up expression of the sport that people doesn’t usually notice. A good photograph that tells a story. To be able to produce good quality stuffs, understanding of the sports are very important. It takes experience to understand the sports and scouting of the venue beforehand to capture the best action. My forte in capturing action stuff did not just limit sports but also pets as well.

Some of my works are also published in news agency, Nikon professional service platform and exhibition that show the dedication of what I do.

What’s the different between sports and events photography services? To a normal consumer, it seems to be the same, photographer will be there to do coverage of your event isn’t it? In fact, it’s a total different ball game. Sports photography is like the next level of event photography, covering event of really fast action happening.

Why is that so? In an event coverage, you will not see any event photographer walk around with a ”bazooka’ lens to do the photo coverage. Event photography include 50% of candid for action happening around (presentation/ speech/performance), another 50% on group shots which can be posed. They don’t usually have that experience to handle long and big lens and chasing action through the camera.

In Sports photography, it’s important for us to know what is happening during the sport event and know where to position ourselves. The chances of getting the shots only one chance, we can’t afford to miss the action. Athletes are not going to re-perform their moves/routine just because you missed that shots. If you need photographer to cover your sports event, you need one who have that expertises and experience who been covering sports event not just an ordinary photographer. 

My coverage of overseas games started back in 2017 for SEA games at Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. Since then I have covered Asian Games at Indonesia, Jakarta in 2018, Fina World Championship 2019 at South Korea, SEA Games 2019 at Philippines, SEA Games 2021 in Vietnam, SEA Games 2023 in Cambodia, Asian Games 2022 in Hangzhou and Olympic 2024 in Paris. Though every games, other than the photography skills improved, my workflow has also dramatic speed up 10 times faster than before keeping up with the industry pace.  

In major games, every sports venue is like a battle field we sent out key images as quick as we can to the medias. Photography isn’t just like a textbook studying modules, experience counts. Every event is a brand new session where I want to outdo myself from the previous session and improve the workflow even more. Coverage of sport event come really natural whenever I held up my cameras.

Now that’s the fun part, I only use the top notch photography equipments to do my job. I believe all my clients and athletes deserve the best from me. If the photos are not pixel by pixel sharp, I believe the job is not well done.

Having the most advance technology is always great but photographer need the technical skills together with understand of the camera function to make wonder. Have you ever see a photographer during event who spent a lot of times adjust his camera gears? That’s probably a sign that he is unfamiliar with his own equipments.

Another important thing for clients are the photos turnover rate. Have you ever experience after an event is over, your photographer take a long time to send you the photos? It could have been months of chasing before you are able to get your photos. By the time you get your photos, people involved in the event might have forgotten about it.

Other than image quality, I emphasize alot on production speed as well. Living in such technology era now, social media is a very important marketing platform to share photos. A few key photos can be ready for usage on social media within 12hours! In special case where turnover rate need to be faster, this can be discussed. 

My dedication in Sports photography also helped me to clinch several awards along the years. In 2019, my most memorable was when I won 3rd placing for Professional Sports category among photographers from the World in International Photography Award. Back in 2018, I only received a honourable mention for my photo in International Photography Award. My self driven passion in sports have brought me so far in the field that I can’t get enough of it. I’m still pretty excited of every sports meet I get to attend.