steve88

Great interview, thanks! It's always interesting to read about the life of a true professional sports photographer. When I first got into photography 5 years ago, I had aspirations of doing it professionally but I've all but given up on that endeavor. It's a very hard way to make a living, steady work can be hard to find, you're self-employed so benefits like medical/dental/401K don't exist, and you start at the absolute bottom. You can rest assured that Otto has paid his dues if he's made it to this level.

Thanks again for the interview and photos!

Cool, thanks...I'll start playing around with different photo sizes and maybe I can find something that won't look bad once Flickr "embiggens" it...

What would be the ideal size to upload to Flickr then...in order to make the "embiggen" feature a non-issue? How big? Thanks!

Pathetic! They still have "Embiggen" enabled by default in the Slideshow mode. Does anyone at Flickr even know anything about photography? If I upload a 900X600 photo, for example, and it's viewed in Slideshow mode, it's "embiggened" by default (stretched to fit across the entire screen). So, if someone has a 24" monitor, that 900X600 image is going to look like garbage (soft and mushy).

This is a major pet peeve with a number of Flickr users and I can't believe they still refuse to address it. I know there's Lightbox mode where the image is not "embiggened" but I still have to provide step-by-step directions to anyone I email a gallery to in order to explain how a slideshow in Lightbox mode works.

I was waiting for this so-called upgrade to come along with the hope that they would address this issue but obviously they have not done it.

Again, does anyone at Flickr even own a camera or upload photos to a website. Unbelievable!!!

That is fascinating! I think I would've taken a bite out of the penguin, however, just to make the leopard seal happy. Better that than to have her angry and disgusted at you for refusing the free meal. :)

Thanks for sharing all of this info and advice. It's really helpful for those of us who might be considering trying to make a full-time living as a pro. Also, it would be nice if you would consider offering online courses for those of us who aren't in the CA area. Thanks again for the article!

I've been shooting with a 7D for a little over a year and want to go FF so I can get better low-light/high ISO performance for indoor sports. Some of the sample 5D3 images I've seen so far from current owners and photography review sites have been fabulous but these samples here don't look all that impressive.

I'm going to just wait until the "full and complete" reviews come out from DPR and other sites before I make up my mind.