It’s All About the People

Beginning March 1, we have 6 solid weeks of photoshoots and travel, literally every single day is accounted for. To say we are excited is an understatement. We’re thrilled as both the work and who we are doing it for offer amazing opportunities. But first, some serious effort at one key thing which happens to be our single biggest challenge. I was curious if people had any idea what this issue may be so I threw it out there on our Twitter feed (@patitucciphoto)

“What is the single hardest part of being a professional mountain sport photographer? Guess, anyone?”

Marketing? No. No sleep? No. Weather? No. Keeping up with the athletes? No. All the editing? No.

It’s finding people, the right people. Why is it so hard? They must be the right size, have the skills, the time, the look,the desire, the patience, the fitness, and most importantly, something needs to come out of them, something that makes them special, a feeling that we can reveal in our images. Their personality needs to be as shiny as their skills in the sport we are shooting.

Here in Europe we have an added challenge, one that we would never have considered in the US. Europeans don’t “hang out” and they rarely have jobs which allow them to float. Drop into any American mountain town cafe or outdoor gear shop and you are likely to see countless 20-40 somethings all just kind of being groovy. It is almost like they are waiting for a photographer to walk in and discover all their free time. This is a photographer’s gold mine. But not true in Europe, maybe Chamonix, but certainly in few other places. Here people have jobs, during work days they work, when they have free time, they get out and charge doing what they want to do.

I even threw it out there on Facebook, “Seeking Models for Mountain Sport Shoots in Europe” – sure enough, an endless stream of Americans poured into my Inbox. While I’m happy to have a bulging database of Colorado athletes, it does me little good in the Dolomites, Norway, Tuscany, St. Moritz and Chamonix… our immediate plans. We always have the locations and the desire, now it’s all about the people.