SONY Alpha Pro

Rob Skeoch makes his living as a sports photographer from his studio on the outskirts of Burlington, Ontario.

Rob Mostly shoots pro sports but he is happy to shoot amateur games if there is a call for his services. Rob has been working as a sports photographer for over 30 years and he stated that he is starting to get an understanding of what makes a good photo.  Most of what he covers in his work is live action at major sporting events that he gets assigned to IE:  Pro Hockey, Soccer, NFL Foot Ball.  But more recently, Rob has also starting shooting editorial portraits of the athletes during his assignments as an addition to the action coverage of those sporting events.

During 2008, Rob Skeoch participated in the launching of a new publication called Canadian Sports Magazine. This full color publication could be obtained online or can be picked up at a few select outlets through Canada.  The magazine is a unique publication that is designed to help youth  sports programs and other cause related organizations raise maximum revenues, but without the expense, need for candy bar sales, car washes, or other fund raising ventures.

Rob work has been published in past issues but most of his work was that of the Photo Editor for the publication.

Rob has been shooting football for years… not as much in the Canadian Football League but he has covered more NFL games.  In the most recent past Rob had shot for NFL Images… then switched to Wireimage when it became the official supplier of the NFL…. then on to Getty Images when it bought Wireimage.   Rob is still currently still shoots for Getty Images.  The photos were used throughout the league and were published regularly in sport journals such as Sports Illustrated, Sports Illustrated for Kids, and ESPN.

Currently Rob has found Baseball to be his favorite game and has been covering it since the Blue Jays won the World Series. He has been one of the league photographers since then working under contract for MLB Photo and Getty Images. Most of his images are currently be used by the league and regular sports and baseball publications ESPN’s Major League Baseball 2010 Baseball Hall of Fame.
Over the years Rob Skeoch has had pictures published in all the magazines that matter and in 2008 had his sports action images published in over forty sports related books. Besides being well published in magazine, books and on the web, Rob has had 100s of trading cards published by Upper Deck, Topps, Pinnacle, and Pacific Trading Cards.

Rob current camera of choice is the SONY Alpha a700, SONY Alpha a850, Alpha a900 and most recently the SONY Alpha a550. Rob points out that the value of these cameras are in the construction, durability and the super sharp SONY G and Zeiss Lens that SONY offers for all of the SONY Alphas.  Most recently, Rob has produced several find videos featuring the SONY Alpha cameras in a variety of different shooting environment.

But Rob’s biggest love in photography is still film.   Very large format film.   We are talking about 4X5 to 11X14 sheet film.   This all started during the 2004-2005 NHL hockey strike.  Rob decided to use his free time and get back into large format photography… something that he had done years ago but drifted away from.    Rob bought an 8×10 and re-learned how to shoot with this large camera, filling much of his time during the NHL strike.  Well that year Rob found that shooing a large format Camera was as additive like crack… only more expensive… and he was hooked.
It was hard for Rob to get film and supplies so he approached a number of companies that catered to large format photographers and started importing these hard to find items that he was using and thought other photographers would find useful. Allot that he now offers in his Big Camera Work Shop includes Black and white sheet films, fibre base papers, wood tripods and cameras.  Rob also taught workshops on large format photography and put together gatherings where photographers could get together for a social… and talk large format photography.
Now after a few years Rob still shoot sports for a living and continue to do editorial portraits for magazines. But lately, Rob has started to shoot some of his portraits on black and white film for a look that’s different than digital.

Before Rob Skeoch got started shooting sports full time, he was shot editorial assignments for newspapers and magazines.  During that time period which Rob recalls “My Leica Period” he spent some time shooting for Doctors Without Borders in Cambodia and Haiti. Rob had owned four Leica M6 cameras and a bunch of the lenses. He shot with rangefinders for a number of years and developed a  love for the Zeiss Ikon and Voigtlander Rangefinder camera system.  So great was his love of these cameras, he now sells them on his Big Camera Work Shop website.   Today, Rob finds myself shooting with the Zeiss system more and more and really enjoying it.   In June 2009 Rob traveled through China, mostly shooting with rangefinder cameras and three lenses. He was shooting black and white and a bit of digital, but mostly for Getty Images.

Rob works with SONY in testing many of the cameras and lenses that are available today and many that will seen in the future.   It is through Rob’s hands on testing, that gives SONY allot needed information that lab testing would fail to reveal.

Special Note: The Publisher of Canadian Sports Magazine has place the magazine on hiatus until advertiser feel confidant enough start to spending money again.

You can Visit Rob Skeoch at his web site:  http://www.thepicturedesk.ca/default2.asp

If you have a taste for Large Format Cameras or Range Finder Cameras, visit Rob’s  Big Camera Work Shop website.

All photos furnished by Rob Skeoch and are copy written by Rob Skeoch, The NHL and Getty Images.

Special Thanks to Bob McKenna – Publisher of Canadian Sports Magazine

~ by pthomaslambert on June 3, 2010.

Posted in Photographers, Profile Thursday
Tags: 70-200 F2.8 G Sony lens, SONY 70-200 f/2.8 G, SONY Alpha a500, SONY Alpha Mount, Zeiss