I guess I will recap the Saturday meeting for those that weren't able to attend. For those of us that did find their way to Classroom #2, please feel free to correct any mistakes I may make.

Roughly 35 photographers attended with Craig Luecke, the Director of Technology/IT (our boss) for the 2015 Fairfax WP&FG hosted the meeting. 'Buck' Best, an Associate Director of the WP&FG (the parent organization) gave a presentation on sport photography and what types of images the organization wants to see from us.

If you attended the first orientation meeting last year, this one was quite similar. As volunteer photographers we will have to jump thru all the same hoops that the other volunteers do ( application, background check, pre-game classes (e.g. EEO) some of which maybe online but at least one will be in person, and credential process). All volunteers are expected to commit to at least four (4) work shifts for the entire games. The shifts are 4-6 hours long. Volunteers will be provided and will wear WP&FG shirts. Craig went over some of the social media feedback (over 9 million people may see your images).

Craig went over general information on each sport and venues. All venues will have wifi to upload your images. The venues have been broken down into four clusters (north, south, central and west). The ideas of the cluster is to group venues that are close together, reducing our travel times. We will later be asked to chose at least one cluster, but Craig stated that we could choose more then one if there is a sport which you want to photograph that is not in your original cluster.

Later we will be able to choose the particular sports or particular games as the scehedules are created. Images that you capture that day should uploaded that night or as soon as possible (next day), so that they may be made available to the news outlets. Craig needs the largest/best quality JPG you can capture.

Craig stated that they were looking for volunteers to assist in culling and editing the images sent in by us. His 'command center' will be in the hotel in Reston Town Center and right next to the media/press room. They have not worked out the upload process yet. Craig is working thru the best/easist method for us (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). There is a large screen board in the Athlete's Village that will be showing a slideshow of our images during the Games

Buck gave a presentation on sports photography and what the WP&FG expect from our images. Buck creates an archive found on the WP&FG site. Buck's presentation may become available online. Images should be your best work so we capture people's attention and hold it. Cull ruthlessly.

Craig will be sending out a request to photograph the venues for the ATHELETES. The idea is to have images of the venue (approaching, access points, fields of play) and points of interest to the athelete (food, water, lockeroom facilities) so that any athelete (non-english speaking especially) will be able to plan and navigate their way to their competition.

There will be other pre-Games photo projects that will be sent out via email list. It will be first response gets the project.

We went into a Q&A that seemed to help.

My take:

We are serving two master's I think. Buck's objective is to archive the Games (think long term). Craig is looking promote the Games of this year. They both agree the atheletes should be the focus of your images. Buck wants clean, competition driven images. He has a team he will be working with and will take monthes editing his images. He has no time pressure. Craig needs the images to be contemporaneous, and having a logo of a supportor in the backround isn't the worst thing. Buck believes in shooting in RAW only, but the needs of Craig's quick turnaround supports shooting in JPG. Shooting RAW+JPG is a good tactic in case you miss the WB or if you have time to edit or plan to print large later. I think if you submit in JPG and they want to use an image for printing, they can ask you for the RAW image. If possible, add your name into your cameras' metadata and don't strip it out on export/upload.

The free wifi at the venues is great unless everyone is using the bandwidth, so don't plan on doing your uploads on site. This is true if you follow Buck's advise and shoot RAW only, you would have to edit at the venue.

It was brought up that our active photogaphic duties may not last an entire shift (e.g. wrist wrestling may only last 3 hours). Craig was aware of this. Me: You must take into account the work you will be doing off site - importing, culling, editing, exporting and uploading your images

During the venue photography project, the photographers could scout the venue for our needs as well and post them here on this group. Otherwise it will be up to the individual volunteer photographer to scout the venue for their needs. Most of the venues have times which they are opoen to the public and the volunteer photographers should take these oppertunities to do their homework.

Craig mentioned a photographer's shirt. We all agreed it should be a dark color, instead of the neon color that may be selected for the normal volunteers.

I'm sure I've missed quite a bit, but I've rambled on enough. To my fellow attedees, whatever I've missed that you think should be covered, please add in the replies.