About Us

The Sporting Images Agency with a difference.

Action Plus was formed over 47 years ago and was the brainchild of the famed sports photographer Richard Francis. Richard grew the agency with flair and a passion for capturing the best images and providing them to our clients for editorial, news and commercial uses. We cover over 300 different types of sporting events and aspire to be the best at capturing imagery for all of them. During our development, the company progressed and oversaw the introduction of digital photography, immediate on-line delivery of sporting events to our customers and worldwide network of agents and providing new and exciting opportunities for our clients to use our images in the secure knowledge that they were correctly licensed and expertly presented.

Based in the UK and California to provide immediate service to our newspaper and editorial clients, Action Plus now provides imagery and other associated services to clients across the world. These clients include The BBC, ESPN, SKY News, Sports Illustrated,  Reach, World Book Publishing, Pearson Education, Bells Whiskey, Future Publishing, BBDO, Fuji Xerox, The Times, Associated News, Countrywide Realtors, Oxford University Press, The Telegraph, The Guardian Newspaper, News International, Haymarket Publishing, The British Tourist Authority and thousands more. Each week, our imagery is used to illustrate newspapers, magazines, books and web sites as well as provide visual stimulus for adverting and display marketing.

Certain of our images are produced with model releases to make advertising use a simple matter and we also provide assignment and special projects photography, such as the work commissioned for the rebuilding of the Ascot Racecourse, which produced a historical portfolio for the owners as well as interested viewers. With our knowledge of the industry and history with the various clubs, associations and sporting personnel, we can also provide you with assignment photography, assist with rights clearances for sports stars and gain usage rights.

Today, Action Plus Sports Images supplies the sports and media industry with powerful and seemingly endless visual ways to create, communicate and connect. As a leading creator and distributor of still imagery and other premium content, our goal is to inspire communicators – and give them the tools to create inspiring work of their own.

We offer the industry’s best and broadest collections of sports imagery – including award-winning news and editorial sporting content, plus rare and contemporary archival imagery. Our photographers are frequent winners at sports photography competitions and selected for front and back pages of newspapers, book covers and major media events such as Olympic Games and World Cup media advertising.