How I Photographed The Barstool Sports Golf Tournament

How I Photograph for Corporate Clients

I recently photographed the Barstool Classic golf tournament at Raindance National Golf Course. It is a 4-person scramble tournament hosted by Barstool Sports. I have shot other golf tournaments before, but his was a unique situation and here I will briefly talk about my experience working for a large company as an event photographer and how I approach these types of photoshoots to best serve my clients and capture exciting images.

With a company like Barstool Sports, marketing content is very important. They have a lot of eyeballs on their content and brands are willing to pay a pretty penny to have their products and services featured in Barstool Sports content. The sponsor to event organizer relationships changes the way I photograph events like this one.

For a majority of events I photograph, other than any must-have shots the client has, I am mostly aiming to capture the essence and emotions of the event. I’ll put together a gallery of images that tell the story of the day so that those in attendance will fondly remember their time at the event, and those who didn’t make it will want to be there next time. While I was going to capture some of those types of images for the Barstool Classic, they were not the priority. Instead I needed to focus on prominently featuring the event sponsors and barstool signage to show the sponsors that they were being advertised at the event and to ensure their products/services will be shown in the photos used to showcase the event.

Serving My Clients Needs First

When photographing a golf tournament, there are already a lot of things to consider. There are typically 18 teams of 4 golfers at tournaments like this. Each team starts on a different hole and plays the full 18 holes until they get back to the hole they started on. As the photographer, I want to capture as many teams as possible, in as many different locations as possible, doing different types of golf shots. That is to say, I want variety in the photos. My typical game plan is to drive the course in the opposite direction that the golfers are playing through it, stopping as I pass teams to snap some pictures of them. Sometimes they will be teeing off, hitting from the fairway, hitting out of a bunker, putting, hitting over water, etc. These are all types of shots I want. Being able to identify that, for example, someone just hit their ball into a sand trap and I don’t have any shots of a ball getting hit out of a sand trap allows me to get that variety.

Now add onto that the fact that sponsor branding is a priority and the sponsors had specific holes where their signage was and I had to get a bit creative. I would first identify sponsor branding present on the course, then determine how I could feature it in an interesting image. There were four sponsor holes (each with a different sponsor) so my game plan was to get to each of the holes, stopping along the way to get shots of the golfers. Including the sponsor signage did limit the composition of photos a bit, but it also challenged me and made me really think hard to come up with a variety of angles that wouldn’t get stale. It required me to use compositions and angles I wouldn’t normally use in order to meet the requirements of the shoot.

As a commercial photographer, it is important to prioritize the needs of your clients. I always talk with clients before the shoot to understand their needs so I can make sure they are addressed. I like to understand why they hired a photographer in the first place, and what having these photos will do for them and their business. I love creating beautiful photos that capture the beauty in every moment and my edits often reflect a more fantastical and atmospheric vibe. While my clients have seen my style and want me to do my thing, I also need to understand that they are not going to be putting these images in an art gallery or making artistic social media posts. They want to promote themselves, their event, and their sponsors. When looking for compositions for photos, I think about those needs first. Is this image addressing the needs of my client? Once the answer to that question is yes, then I add some creative flair with angles, composition and lighting.

Approaching these types of shoots in this way helps me challenge myself while also capturing photos that excite me. It also better serves my clients since I am taking a pretty mundane objective, photos of sponsor signage, and turning them into creative, visually engaging images. This approach also helps me stay more engaged and excited about the photos. Barstool Sports wants photos to promote themselves, I want to make creative photos that tell a story, finding a way to bring these together makes both myself and Barstool happy, and results in better looking images!

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