mikekingphoto's photostream  

I covered sport in the 80's and 90's for Allsport (now part of Getty), The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph. Don't cover much sport nowadays, but I've recently learnt that great pictures are on your own doorstep. You don't need to go to a war zone or the Olympics to take great photos. And you don't need the best kit, I won UK sports photographer of the year a couple of times, once thanks to a pic from the G.National on a Nikon D1 (2.7 MP). Photography is one of the great levellers of society, we can all do it largely, and it can have an amazing power to improve our World. Rarely does photography have a negative power. In fact it nearly exposes the truth.

I give a lot of my work to charities, I am quite a poor man with a lot of talent working in a field that requires expensive equipment, hardware and software on a constant basis. I'm very reasonable, but please don't waste your time and mine by asking for FREE photos. As a Pro, I don't need a credit/byline. I've had my photos in all the best papers and magazines around the World.

This seems harsh, but it isn't...If you describe yourself as a pro snapper in the making and you do CCommons, please don't contact me. Your work is probably excellent, but it disrespects professional photography. Don't expect to make a living if you try photography, and give it away.

If you wish to use a lo-res picture for a personal non-profit blog, that is fine, but you MUST link and email me the link. If you wish to take a chance and steal, watch out as one day soon there will be a landmark case in favour of photographers where it will cost lots of money for theft of copyright. Far simpler to contact me, and for a fair fee you can use one of my pictures maybe.

I try to add people to my contacts who make me theirs, but I'm running out of space and time. It's a bit scary how many brilliant flickr photographers there are! All the best, Mike.

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