Core Ingredients of Outdoor Sports Photography

Adventure Sports Photography photo by Jay Goodrich
photo by Jay Goodrich

“What is the basic component of a salad? Lettuce.”

“What is the basic component of a photograph? Light.”

These are the words of Jay Goodrich, and when he taught Intro to Adventure Sports Photography, he invited students to approach building a photograph the same way you tackle cooking a meal. You don’t start adding the seasonings without the primary ingredients in place.

The core ingredients are the, “staple of the photograph,” Jay explained.


Adventure and sports photography enthusiast? CreativeLive has incredible classes catching the action. From Intro to Adventure Sports Photography to Advanced Lighting, all adventure and sports photography classes are on sale now. Save up to 40%!


And those staples are: clarity, context, light, composition.

To demonstrate how he works in the proverbial kitchen, Jay took students through this thinking on a snowy ski shoot.

The shoot happened on sunny day on a steep mountain and in the video you’ll see how he used a lone tree to mitigate the intensity of shooting directly into the sun (light) and how that same tree offered context and interest to the composition. And how the clarity is in the settings.

Watch Jay explain his work and share his tips on helping viewers make eye contact with subject they’ve never seen in real life in this clip from Intro to Adventure Sports Photography:


Adventure and sports photography enthusiast? CreativeLive has incredible classes catching the action. From Intro to Adventure Sports Photography to Advanced Lighting, all adventure and sports photography classes are on sale now. Save up to 40%!


Rachel Gregg FOLLOW >

Rachel is the content marketing lead for the CreativeLive Craft Channel. Her side hustle is floral design and her day job is awesome. @ms_gregarious.