Sports photography allows incredible moments to live on forever, seizing iconic snapshots in time and placing them on an infinite loop to be admired and appreciated by fans.
Whether it’s rugby, sailing, cycling, or running, Alligin Photography is an organisation that shows tremendous ability to captivate these glimpses of success, failure, hardship, and triumph in all European sports. They are a UK-based business that provides technology and media support to professional and semi-professional sports clients. Alligin casts curated media teams of talented freelance photographers, copywriters, and both multimedia editors to document and create original sports marketing content.
They then document the game and match day emotions through powerful visuals that become lasting memories for the players, audiences, and future generations to replay and share. As the Director of Alligin, Geraint Ashton Jones uses PhotoShelter as a central workspace to store and share the organisation’s images with stakeholders and fans alike.
Below, learn how the company uses PhotoShelter for Brands to power the British Army Rugby Union’s brand storytelling and content marketing workflows.
The Situation
How does the Alligin UK team manage asset delivery and sharing for simultaneous events?
By creating a cohesive workflow that keeps everyone focused when events are underway.
“In our typical workflow, we have seven concurrent events lined up on the Isle of Skye.”
Geraint Ashton Jones
He continued, “Putting it all together, we have a very simple schematic for all of the information that is flowing. This allows our team to control multiple systems at once, running wireless ports, managing two photographers, and highlighting two games.”
Below is a diagram Geraint shared during the session of his Match Day workflow for documenting the action, uploading the content to the organisation’s PhotoShelter for Brands account, and distributing the edited and curated content through Hootsuite and the FileFlow app:
For content marketing, Geraint mentioned how important it is to highlight and publish images that best represent the event, particularly historic competitions, such as the annual flagship Army-Navy rugby match at Twickenham stadium, first played in 1878.
“We try to make sure that we have the content to showcase the real-time stories to best market the event year after year. Bottom line, it’s about the action, and if we can capture certain images and get them out as part of the story, it shows we are working for the organisation at all levels and not just for the highest end or the other,” he said.
Geraint described the power of moving imagery and the lasting impact it can have, not only on spectators and supporters but on the players too.
“Whether these images are taken in the park or the stadium, it is still about creating great images that capture the moment and tell the story. These images have real use and power for the Army because they are dependent on their unit to release their players to represent the Army and eventually end up in the Army-Navy match,” he shared.
Powering Real-Time Workflow
Geraint explained how Alligin UK also relies on PhotoShelter for Brands for its “all-in” service, citing its increased importance due to the company’s digital working environment, “We do everything through PhotoShelter, each photographer has their own folder which I can monitor. I then put it onto social media and may use ON1 if we want a special template for the image.”
“We are not only using PhotoShelter to be dynamic, but we are always distributing content as a remote organisation. This software allows us to mimic our same workflow while slowing it down, allowing us to take advantage of the different customisable features.”
Geraint Ashton Jones
He offered a final perspective about saving snapshots in time with meaningful images.
“We are conscious that memories are created and we want to capture them. Whether the image is taken fast or slow, it’s essential to capture the moment.”
Geraint Ashton Jones
Watch the 15-minute presentation below to learn more about how Alligin Photography maximises content opportunities and gets to fans first by using the PhotoShelter for Brands real-time workflow:
Want to explore more about how professional sports brands use digital asset management tools to organise massive media libraries and share content in real-time across international markets?
