Paul Severn is a professional golf photographer with more than 15 years of experience, covering players, and working for sponsors on the European and US tours. Paul works with a large number of golfing publications providing course images, swing instructions and other specialist features. His work has appeared in everything from golfing calendars to magazines and books. Visit www.severnimages.com. Paul took some time from his busy schedule to share his top Golf Photography tips with us.
- Know the golf course backwards: check where the sun rises and sets, the best tee’s for action, look for backlit holes which are tough to play, as players may get in trouble here, leading to dramatic images. There are silent features on the Canon system so you can shoot at the top of the backswings, and not disturb the player as well, which helps.
- You really need to understand golf: there are a huge amount of rules, and you have to respect the player and be very careful not to move or make any noise when a player has addressed the ball. As a result, you have to be very quick to get into certain locations, before the player gets to their ball.
- Weather is everything. When you know what is coming at you hour by hour it can help you to obtain great pictures. If you know the sun is coming you can head to a certain tee that works, equally if a storm is approaching you can get very dramatic images just before it rains. All golf photographers have to have a huge amount of wet weather gear as sometimes it is a two-mile walk back to the clubhouse or media
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The Open kicks off this week while we continue to share our Golf Photography tips from the pros, check out the other three parts above. Head over to Golf Monthly to stay up-to-date during the Open Championship, which takes place July 20-23.
