Reed Hoffmann
Covering Patrick, Travis and Company
Photographing an NFL game sounds like a dream job, but it's a ton of work. I started doing that in 1980, covering the Buffalo Bills until 2000. Since then I've been on the sidelines at Kansas City Chiefs games. But for the last five years my assignments have come from Associated Press Images, which has made a normally long day even longer. Covering every Chiefs home game, that means I'm on the field 2.5 hrs before kickoff, and by the time the crowd is leaving from the stadium I'll have walked about five miles, shot over 3000 frames and downloaded, edited, captioned and transmitted around 45 photos. Plus, over the next twelve hours I'll send 200-250 more. In this program I'll take you through that entire process, which actually starts a couple of days before the game, and show you the planning involved, the gear I use, how I work the sidelines and the workflow that allows me to turn out that many photos that quickly. And with the Chiefs the last few years, the season lasts longer and usually involves covering Super Bowl parties and sometimes even a parade.
Reed Hoffman
A professional photographer for over 40 years, Reed Hoffmann began his career in newspapers working in Indiana, Alabama and New York. Since moving to Kansas City in 2000, he’s split his time between assignment work, teaching and personal projects. Shooting digital since 1996, he’s helped nearly 50 organizations convert to digital, created numerous instructional photography programs, and produced and led the Nikon School of Photography classes around the country from 2002 through 2018. At this point he’s taught photography to over 15,000 people, from ballrooms to the African savanna. He’s also led over a hundred hands-on photography workshops, from landscape to lighting to wildlife, on every continent and over twenty countries, and regularly writes about photography. His clients have included Nikon, Lexar, the New York Times, Microsoft, ESPN, NBC, Reuters, the Associated Press, Mark Burnett Productions, Getty Images, Agence France Presse and USA Today. Reed’s won several national awards for his photography and been named a Nikon Legend Behind the Lens, Microsoft Icon of Imaging and Lexar Pro Elite photographer. You can see his work at www.ReedHoffmann.com, and galleries of past workshops he’s taught at ReedHoffmann.com/past-trips/
