This is a response to an email sent today asking for an image (assumed for free).

“Nick I only shot one game of your team between matches that I was hired to shoot. I have posted all of the images from the event I am going to release. In the future I would suggest hiring a photographer for the event to assure you get images. If we all gave out images for free none of use would ever get hired and have no reason to be there.

I understand how that sounds a bit cold but please understand we have to be like that to assure we can in the very least afford the upkeep of our equipment. Just one of my camera set ups is well over $4000 and they take a huge beating at every event. ”

As you can see I can only end up being the bad guy in this email. I do shoot the sport for the love of the game and don’t think otherwise. You pay a ton of cash to play in the event for entry, paint and travel…don’t you think hiring a photographer for a little more than the cost of a case of paint per match is worth the memories in the form of a bunch of photos? Or why not ask the event promoter for your paint for free…you did pay for entry after all or do you want that for free to?

Playing for a few minutes on the field a few times a day in a tournament is great but watching it from outside the nets, well it is just not the same. Being on the field the entire day enjoying the game however, that is the best seat in the house.

Who needs 3D when you can experience the game up close? It does however come at a price as I get shot from time to time. Not so bad right? I mean come on you get shot all the time while playing right? Well that is when your adrinaline is flowing and your heart rate is through the roof, imagine if you got shot when you least expected it. Lets just say at times it can bring you to the tips of your toes while other times it is no big deal. The difference is that as a player what you bring on the field is made to take what the sport deals out, my cameras are not.

Being a photographer I enjoy each and every game, as I try to place myself where the action will be not where it is. Kinda like making history (a photo is always of the past) by looking to the future. Being where the game is going to be can place you right smack in the line of fire. Making those photos is nothing less than a blast and at times that can mean literally a blast.

Hey I am just a photographer, imagine being a ref! Those guys get their brains cooked all day on the field with little to no break just to make a call.

Want the best seat in the house, become a paintball photographer or better yet rock the zebra stripes and call the game. It is after all a blast-

See you at SC Village in Corona California at WCPPL Event #2 and as always check back the night of the event for images from the event.

Michael

Please help show your support for what chrono300 is all about. Some sites ask for donations to help keep them afloat others hire themselves out, I figure my little click of the shutter has got to be worth a buck.

I have been watching my friends try and hock their work off for $100 to $200 an event to follow a team from start to finish at local two day events. The way I figure it is a team playing the race to 4 or 5 shoots about 10 cases or more paint a match and play about 4 matches an event (less finals). That is somewhere in the neighborhood of $1600 just for paint. Well $1600 in paint is quickly spent with a single squeeze of the trigger. Well for a simple buck you can get an image to print, email or share on facebook and it will be around long after the event is over. Heck at a buck an image you could grab a few of your teammates.

Thanks for the support and I look forward to shooting you all season long.

Michael

Here it comes the first big tournament of the year at SC Village in Chino California. The WCPPL has single-handedly changed the face of paintball in California making a bold move to five man just last year. Well this year I am going to make a change in how I deliver images from the event, it is going to be not so different than I did in 2006 and 2007 where you will be able to look on-line that night and see images from the event. There is a catch however and I hope it will be a little of give and take this time.

In the past I posted hundreds of photos from each day of an event I covered, this was great for everyone…well sort of. See by giving away all of those photos it ended up costing me work from teams that would rather download the images from the site than hire me, thus me making $0 at events. Bad business plan is what my buddy Robbo (Creator of the Photomob.com and fellow photographer) and he was right it hurt every one of the photographers.

With that I am going to be putting up a very limited number of images from the event each day somewhere in the neighborhood of  25 to 50 images per day. The catch is I am no longer “for hire” and you will not see me pimping my self on PBNation saying “hire me I am the best” or whatever….thats not me and really I have always sucked at it. So how is Mike going to solve this issue and come up with something that not only works for me but it also will work out pretty good for the players? Well a little conversation with Dr. Gary Baum Jedi Master of PaintballPhotography.com gave me a great new business plan to try out…the $1.00 photo.

That right I am going to be selling my image files at $1.oo each and no these are not going to be the images from the site, these are going to be the same type of images that you can print up as an 8 x 10 without a watermark. my goal at this event is going to be to get a photo of just about everyone as crazy as that sounds. So if you are looking to purchase photos from the event but your team can not afford to hire a photographer for the day, hold on to your soda money I think I will have something different that you might pull down from the self in 20 years to remember the great event you played paintball.

Michael

I AM SITTING HERE LOOKING AT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF IMAGES!!! Look I have brought the site back and stripped it down a few times over the years but this time I am going back to the roots of why this started in the first place. I have said in the past “Chrono300 Paintball Pictures 4 the Players” and when I felt it was not about that and it was about me I stopped. Fact is I miss paintball, so much in fact that I am willing to bare everything.

Everything? Well everything I could find amongst 6 or seven hard drives. My goal is to re-upload every gallery I have ever posted. Look some of it is down right ugly for me to look at as time has been more than kind to my photography skills. Why would I do that you may ask? This is not about me or a pat on the back to say I am the best (I am not). It is to show the images from where some 14 year old started playing paintball back in 2004 and is still behind the hopper flinging paint across the field in 2011. I really think those images are going to mean something special to them.

As I go through these images there are some tough times for me as I see faces of players that are no longer with us like Roger Farmer of LTZ who I shot for so many practices and tournaments that they became like family to me. Or now retired friends/players like Bea Youngs (now Paxson) who helped me get my first NPPL pass to shoot on the field in Las Vegas and who helped me get my first images in a magazine (2005 Cal Jam at SC Village for Paintball Sports Magazine). Or my long time partner on the Kat Thompson of Katspix who helped get me a job writing and shooting for PB2X Magazine (I hope to see her return to the field one day).

But even after all of the thousands of images to come from the past, this site is for you the paintball players of today.

I will not be able to travel the country shooting like I did back in the day because there is very little paying work for magazines in the sport of paintball these days. I am based out of Southern California  and I will do my best to cover the sport of paintball once again and try to bring you some great paintball photos.

By the way I will not be the only Chrono300 photographer so don’t be surprised to see photos from places outside of California.

SHOW YOUR LOVE OF WHAT I DO – ROCK THE STICKER

Michael