Rangefinder Magazine
August 2004

Profile: Jeff Gabbard by Larry Singer

“Happiness,” said American writer Thomas Merton, “is not a matter of intensity, but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”

For 42-year-old sports photojournalist and stellar senior photographer Jeff Gabbard, happiness came from balancing his desire to have his intense photographs of athletes on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with the yearning to have a successful portrait studio and live a normal life with his family in Connersville, Indiana.

Middle School Passion
“ I started with photography in middle school,” Gabbard says, “and it just kind of turned into a passion. My dad and I set up a darkroom in the kitchen, and it grew from there.”

Gabbard’s skill at photojournalism further developed as a staff photographer for his high school yearbook and newspaper.

“ I actually had my first picture published in the local newspaper,” he explains, “when I was a freshman in high school.

“ My plan when I first started at Indiana University,” Gabbard continues, “was to major in photojournalism and work for Sports Illustrated or some other national magazine. But after an internship at a newspaper one summer, I decided that maybe I really didn’t want to work until three o’clock every morning and every weekend. I realized that someday I would want to have a family, so I switched my major from journalism to secondary education. I have a BS in education with a journalism major and an English minor.”

Gabbard taught high school for four years and was the adviser of a national award-winning yearbook and the school newspaper. When he was offered a position with a yearbook company as a sales representative, he accepted.

“ After a while,” he says, “I just kind of hit that point in life where I asked myself what do I really want to do for the rest of my life. Photography had always been one of those things in the back of my mind that I really wanted to try as a career, so, eight years ago, I decided to try the studio route. I was scared the death the first few years because studio photography was all new to me.”

Sporting Inspiration
It was when Gabbard decided to combine his love of, and skill at, action sports photography, with his portraits of seniors, that his professional aspirations began to come into focus.

“ I guess the sports photography/action aspect of my business started about five years ago when my son started playing baseball,” Gabbard explains. “I saw a market with parents who really wanted nice photographs of their kids playing sports. That led me to start photographing his team throughout the year.

“ I would also go out and shoot a lot of high school events, not just because it was fun and I enjoyed it, but to get my skills back in shape.”

When Gabbard was convinced he could meet his own high photographic expectations, he immersed himself in the world of high school sports by trying to photograph at least one event of every sport, then put the images on his web site and sell them online to the athletes’ parents.

“ The problem with that,” he says, “was there just wasn’t a way to let everybody know what I was doing, so it was a lot of time and effort wasted for a project that really didn’t bring that much return.”

Learning From Mister Brister
It was after reading a book by Randy Brister on how to successfully market sports photography, Gabbard says, that the pieces to his sports marketing puzzle began to fit neatly into place.

“ It’s evolved now to where I’ll photograph four or five weekend-long baseball tournaments each summer,” Gabbard says. “I have 5x7s printed of every frame and put together three-ring binders with each team’s photographs in them. The parents can then purchase those pictures and take them home with them at the end of the weekend. We have been selected to photograph two Babe Ruth League World Series with this system, and it works great.

“ The bulk of my business, I would say about 75 percent, is high school seniors,” Gabbard explains. “I also do a lot of team and individual photography for the local high school, middle school, baseball league, softball league, and some for the local Boys Club leagues.

“ There are really two facets of our sports business,” Gabbard continues. “We do most of the team and individual photography for all of the leagues I shoot. Then, with the baseball league, we also shoot action of their season and tournaments. I’ll go in and photograph every team that plays in every division of the league, and then I’ll go back in a week or two and have action shots to sell to the parents.”

Lots of Pictures
One of items that has proved extremely successful for Gabbard, is a 16x20-inch composite of individual athletes that he puts together in Photoshop. Each photo fusion contains five or six different images shot during football games, baseball tourneys and swim meets, and prominently features the student’s name and the team logo.

“ Next year,” Gabbard says, “we’re going to be marketing an expanded version of this package directly to the parents. I’ll let them know in advance that I’ll cover just their son or daughter for one game. I am creating something exclusively for them, and I’ll give them a CD filled with every image that I shot of their son or daughter from that particular game.”

The cost of this service has not been set, but Gabbard foresees a demand-creating price point of around $200.

Get ’Em While They’re Young
Gabbard readily admits that an integral component of his senior marketing success is tied to the fact that because he lives and works in a fairly small town, a lot of the seniors he captures on film have been standing in front of his camera since the time they were playing T-ball.

“ I’ve watched a lot of these kids grow up,” Gabbard says. “In particular, this year’s senior class—I have probably photographed those kids for the last eight years. I get to know a lot of the kids and the families, as well as many people in town. That really helps because of the credibility factor. They know who I am; they know I’m going to deliver what I promise I’ll deliver; and they know if they’re not happy, I’m going to take care of it.

“ The downside of that,” Gabbard adds, “is the senior class in our high school has decreased every year. When I graduated over 20 years ago, we had almost 400 kids in our high school class. This year they have a senior class that’s a little larger than it’s been in the last few years, and still I think they only have 205 graduating seniors. Because of this, we have expanded our marketing to over 4000 seniors in a 60-mile radius of the studio.”

Fortunately for Gabbard, a new opportunity recently arose that allows him to expand his business and get a taste of a vagabond photojournalist’s life by letting him travel to, and shoot, cheerleading and gymnastic tournaments across the country.

The Learning Curve
When asked to encapsulate his personal philosophy of photography and how it’s been shaped by what he’s learned as an ace sports photographer turned successful portrait photographer, it took Gabbard only a few seconds to formulate a reply.

“ I’ve never met another photographer,” he said, “from whom I’ve failed to learn something of value. I go to a lot of photography seminars, and I try to learn as much as I can. I take away ideas from every photographer I’ve ever met and try and incorporate them, one way or another, into what I do to see if it works for me. Even if it’s a bad idea,” he chuckles, “I can always look at it and say, I really don’t want to do that.”

Jeff Gabbard’s web site is www.jeffgabbard.com.

Larry Singer is a writer, photographer and artist now living in Lauderhill, Florida. He has taught photography in Florida and Denver and now has an obsession with hearts. He can be contacted at larrysinger@mac.com. Samples of his work can be viewed at homepage.mac.com/larrysinger/.