The card envelopes serve a double function in our process. First of all, we use the card envelopes to keep track of our media cards. It’s a common and frustrating mistake to take hundreds of photos and then mix up your cards and not know where anything is. Learn from our early mistakes and use the card envelopes religiously.

The Dot System

The second purpose of the envelopes is to keep notes on each player. Typically we will split the card into quadrants using two lines. One side is labeled home team and the other for the away team. Under each team, the numbers for any players who have signed up are listed, followed by their field position. You can further designate which types of photos you have captured for each played by adding dots next to their number. For example, for a closeup head shot, one dot, for a group shot etc, two dots and so on. This way you can make sure that you aren’t forgetting anyone’s shots while on the field. Of course these are loose guidelines, and you can modify the note taking in anyway that best suits your purposes.

On the other side of the card we often make notes for the date, the type of game (sport/division), time and field number.

The Slate System

Another important use of the card envelopes is to help keep track of where you took your photos and of what teams. Imagine opening up your media card at the end of the day and seeing hundreds of photos from different teams playing over three different fields. It would take forever to sort out where anything goes. The best way to prevent this hassle is to use the Slate System.

Once you've filled out the back of the card envelope with the game, time, day and field as pictured above, you then take a picture of the back of the card envelope. This way every time you change location or game, you can see where the photos came from.

You may be using one really large media card (32gigs or more) which can hold all of your photos from the day. In this case, taking a picture of the card envelope is even more important, since all of the photos will be mixed together. In cases where you are using many smaller media cards it can make more sense to switch out a card every time you change field or game, and deposit the used card in the appropriate envelope. Doing both is generally recommended so that if you make a mistake, or something doesn't go to plan, you have a backup. You'll thank yourself later!

Card envelopes can be purchased individually in stacks of 100, or as part of the GFcrew Kit which includes a stack of 100.