You want to be as good as the legendary photographers at Sports Illustrated, don't you? It's a steep mountain. But with a lot of work you may eventually reach the top. Here are some things that they do that you probably aren't doing.

Know the Game, Know the Players

Before you get your camera out, you should have a good idea of what you're looking for. Who are the key players (even you're only after your kid), what position do they play, who is likely to win? The answers to these questions will help you figure out the best angles to shoot from.

Shoot Tight

Not just tight, but super tight. You need to get in close to the action. Shooting super tight takes some serious getting used to. Expect to be frustrated for your first several sporting events. But stick with it. By pushing yourself to shoot extra tight, your skills will improve. You will be more accurate following the action and your reaction times will get faster.

An SI photographer will commonly use a 300mm or 400mm for indoor sports and a 400mm or 600mm for outdoor sports. If you don't have a lens that long, try to stay as physically close to the action as you can.

Shoot Loose

Once you've mastered shooting tight, think about shooting loose. Especially on the big plays. You know, the end of the basketball game when there's a second left on the clock, the team's down by a point and there's time for one shot? On big plays like this an SI photographer will often shoot a wide shot to capture the entire environment of the moment: The player, the scoreboard, the fans going nuts (assuming the shot goes in!). And here's why— a shot of a player taking a jump shot is just that: a shot of a player taking a jump shot. That's all it tells you.

Shooting wide on the big plays will capture the emotion and the environment surrounding the moment.

Shoot a Lot

A photographer for SI will shoot as many as a dozen GIGABYTES of photographs from a single game. That's because if you miss a great action moment, it's gone. So you want to err on the side of more exposures rather than less. You will end up with a lot of throw-away images. But the more throw-aways you have to sift through, the more diamonds you'll find.

Show Few

This one is probably the most important. Only show your best work. While an SI photographer may shoot  a thousand or more images at a sporting event, only a handful (at most) will actually make it into the magazine.

Sports Illustrated employs some of the finest photo editors in the world. So not only do you have to compete with their photographers, you've got to compete with their editors.

Again, only show your very best work. If it's not your very best effort, file it away. Then go out tomorrow and improve on your efforts.

Once you get comfortable with any of these sports photography skills, push yourself to improve on them. When you get comfortable shooting super tight, push yourself to shoot even tighter. Even if its just for part of a game. You've got to keep pushing yourself. The moment you get comfortable, you've got to find a new way to challenge yourself. Keep pushing yourself. Keep pushing yourself. And again.