What's Title IX? Title 9 is the landmark 1972 legislation requiring public-funded schools, through to the college level, to ban academic and athletic gender discrimination. For athletes, that essentially means equal budgets and opportunities for boys' and girls' sports programs. From the rising clout of Soccer Moms, to T's gleefully taunting "We're the fast girls your mama warned you about," it's changed how the United States, and the world at large, view both girls and athletics. So many owe so much, the mention of Title IX makes many of our top professional athletes misty eyed.
In 1972, about 1 girl in 9 played team sports. Today, it's about 1 in 2. Yet inexplicably, Title 9 remains under near-constant attack. On a recent anniversary of the Title IX law, Newsweek columnist George Will denounced the ruling as wasting millions of dollars on girls' sports that could more wisely be spent on boys. Suffice to say we read Time now. What are you doing to protect Title IX for the next generation of girls who want to have more options than cheering?
What's Title 9 Photography? Girls may get equal access to sports today, but they don't get equal access to sports media. Watch a boys' game and you'll see more photographers, with more experience, and more high-end equipment. That's not right. With us you'll witness the same dedication, experience and pixel wizardry available at any state-level sports event, regardless of ability, budget or gender.
Who we are: Title 9 Photography is owned by Ben Madden, a Virginia native who recently returned after 15 years of media experience in the Southwest and Southern California. Madden shoots all events, and as required brings on experienced, handpicked photojournalists, both men and women, to complete the roster. Having covered regional, national and world-level sporting events, we have more than a million pictures' worth of sports, portrait and photojournalism experience. In addition to girl-intensive outdoor sports, we have proven ourselves as expert photographers of indoor and night-time sporting events - the most difficult and costly events to shoot. Our sister trademark, Mainstage Photography, is reflective of our leadership in cutting-edge indoor sports and event photography.
Our 2009 cameras (for geeks only): Our flagship camera body is the 2009 Canon 5D II, currently the most sought-after professional digital camera in the world. That's why we can crank out up to four, bright shiny 21-megapixel images every second, even in low-light gyms where most cameras yield a dark, smudgy blur.
Likewise, we use Canon's best, L-Series professional lenses, the same long white lenses you see on every pro camera covering the Superbowl and World Series. Each of our photographers' camera cases typically contains about $9,000 of latest-technology gear. Because we care, we continue to keep our prices as low as possible while keeping our digital gear above the fray.