Said sporting event also has official photographers by the event organizers, but they are only paid via direct sales to participants, no upfront payment.

To everyone crying for the poor take-advantage-of photographers who accidently got themselves into this awful arrangement, gimme a break. I do plenty of direct-to-participant speculative event sales, which I find profitable enough that I’m happy to pay the photographers I have trained in my methods $500 a day plus all flights, hotels, and travel expenses to shoot with my gear and give me the memory cards to upload. I’d highly suspect they don’t need your advice or pity.

If they didn’t negotiate exclusivity, shoot your shots and stay out of their way. Don’t make it weird, if you know them, just say hello and point out who you are there for–if I was shooting the event officially from a publicly-accessible area, I’d be happy to duck down when your athlete was going, or share settings etc. “I’m working with that girl, she hired me for this as a part of some other work I was doing for her…if you guys are ever shorthanded for events like this, I’d be happy to talk!” is a lot better than trying to be sneaky and coming off like a creep, plus they might end up booking you for a larger event in the future!

If you were hired by a client, and you only shoot that client, worst case scenario is that the “official” photographers lose out on a sale to that person. As usually a large batch shooter in the same situation, one person not buying my stuff is not going to make or break the job for me.

Assuming that anyone can shoot the event, yes it’s morally ok. It’s not your problem that other photographer is too dumb to negotiate a decent contract

This one is easy, imho. The client made this decision, not you. He/she has already decided not to purchase from the other photographers.

Best steer your friends away from those unpaid, absolutely bullshit gigs and try to work directly with participants like you’re doing.

There is no conflict here. You are being hired to do a job. The fact someone else is also being hired to shoot the same event (and maybe didn’t negotiate a very good deal) is nothing to do with you.

This is no different than a sporting event hiring a photographer and local newspapers sending their own along too.

To go against what some people have said here, depending on the type of event and the standards in that community, shooting could get you blacklisted. That’s an extreme case, but with equine events at least it’s accepted that there’s the official photographer, and if you shoot at the event without consulting them you can be kicked out, prevented from shooting at that venue (and others, because people will talk), and restrict your chances of ever being the official photographer. I don’t know if it works exactly the same with other sports, but equine venues absolutely will kick out individually hired photographers if it’s interfering with the official photographer.

Venues have a stake in this, since if their official photographer gets undercut then they’ll just stop showing up. Then they don’t get any photos, lose out on marketing material, and people at the event get upset because there’s no photos. It’s not the end of the world, but it definitely hurts them financially.

For the official photographer, it’s directly hurting their sales. They may be ok with it, since it’s just for one client and isn’t likely to be a huge dent in their sales, but if you don’t talk to them beforehand (and the venue) it can create a lot of hard feelings. And as the official photographer they’re better connected, and can make it difficult for you to get into any more events if it becomes a problem (again, the venues have motivation to look out for the interests of the official photographer so they continue to have a photographer at the events). If you reach out and they’re fine with it, it can help you in the long run as well. If you do a good job with your shots, between the courtesy shown of reaching out an quality of work it’s possible to get recommended when they can’t make an event. Or be asked to work as a second shooter when there’s more to cover than one person can handle. All of which will build connections that will let you start shooting the events yourself.

So before you take the job I highly encourage you to reach out to both the venue and official photographer to clear it first. Not only will it help prevent any conflict of interests, it’s a good way to start building the connections that will boost your career.

Also, as someone who shoots equine under this model of work, the venues really aren’t being an asshole about it. The photographer can make a lot more from individual sales than the venue could pay them upfront, and exclusive access to shooting the event is worth it. The venue will (often) also pay for some of the photos as well. Think of it like this- wedding photographers will charge 2k-3k for ~6 hours work on average. Depending on the event, you could be there anywhere from a couple hours for sports like basketball, soccer, football, etc… or up to twelve hours for longer events like track, equine, or cross country. With the shorter events they could pay for the time but it’s really not going to be worth it for the photographer if that’s all the money they get. For the longer events, the venue can’t afford the time if they’re paying up front. But even at low-level equine events, I can sell individual photos for $10-$20, and end up making a few thousand dollars for a day of work even if only a small percentage of participants buy photos. At higher levels, I can sell the same photos for $40-$50 and double my profits (and that’s not including the fact that more people tend to pay for photos at higher level events).

So as the official photographer, while it’s technically a risk to shoot unpaid and only sell the shots later, it actually benefits me to use that model since I have exclusive shooting rights. It helps the venue to, as it cuts their upfront costs some to not pay for the photographer in exchange for not letting in other photographers. Which is why it can be a problem for someone to come in and start shooting when they aren’t the official photographer, and why both the photographer and venue have a reason to not allow that to happen.

So if nobody wants the pictures you take you get nothing? Sounds like a shit job thb…

Your client most likely booked you because they want pictures of themselves or specific people and don’t think the “official” photographer will be able to capture enough of their people. So, I wouldn’t feel bad about taking maybe 5% of their potential sales when it’s all said and done.

If you’re paid upfront then go by all means. If this person is aware there are gonna be photographers and will bring their own chances are this person doesn’t want to buy what’s offered.

Some of the other photographers may get pissed, but business is business. They should get pissed at the organizers or plainly just choose not to participate under those terms, I wouldn’t.

If event organizers don’t ban unaffiliated professional photographers, then I think you’re probably OK. Because here’s the way I look at it – and others can feel free to disagree. You have one client. There’s no guarantee that this client would make a purchase from the other photographers based on your description of this event.

Now, if you amass a portfolio of clients for said event, or take photos of everyone and make sales afterwards yourself – without being an official photog – then we have an ethical problem.