How to grow as a motorsport photographer?
I know this is a HEAVLY asked question but in my defense here is my story. I’m 20 years old, college student in the region of Algarve in Portugal. I’m a amateur photographer that started shooting in 2022 and already have a “well established” portofolio and style to my photos (Idk if I can share my site here so if anyone wants to see my photos please DM me). I mainly shoot regional rally events and circuit races. Here we only have one circuit and it’s the Autódromo of Portimao (or Autódromo International do Algarve), and all year round they have some nacional races as well as international races. Prior to any event in the circuit I email EVERY and I mean EVERY team that’s going to participate if they want a photographic coverage of the weekend completely by free as I only want to expand my portofolio and roots in motorsport, I do this wether is a nacional/club race or a Internacional race, been doing this for months now and only got a couple of answers, some were not much enthusiastic and only one stand out for me because it was a F4 team that accepted the offer but some days before the race they “sacked” the media manager I was talking with and they didn’t answer back. I’m just wondering what I’m doing wrong, I already did what everyone says “start small then find your way to the top” but even entering in the “small” is hard. In rally some of the drivers ask me for the photos and I send them for free because at this point I do not care about the money I just want connections, but that’s about it, and that’s at a regional level. I simply cannot go any further and I don’t know why. I think i’m more than cable of doing so I’m just “limited” by a lot due to my region but even then, when regional races happen here I can’t get any teams to even respond.
Well, that’s my rant, feel free to ask anything in the comments because I might be forgetting key points in this
EDIT: Not to mention that track days ISN'T a good option since if you want to enter the track here in the Algarve as a spectator in a track day you have to pay the same as the drivers (so around 200euros). Stuppidiest thing ever
EDIT 2: Other problem I'm facing is the lack of diversity. Becasue I shoot in the same track it gets repetitive