Getting started-need help

Penquin

Today is the first day I have been on this forum. I was hoping for some help. I want to set up my first web site and I want to do it on smumug. I want to offer shots of youth sports. My question is it legal to post pictures of youths playing sports such as baseball etc. on the internet without their consent or some sort of waiver. I am planning on allowing some down loading of these images. I am just trying to get started and dont want to break the rules. I dont know if there has been a lot of discussion about this in the past or not. I hope I am not bringing up old stuff. I would appreciate your help. Thanks much.

jfriend

Penquin wrote:

Today is the first day I have been on this forum. I was hoping for some help. I want to set up my first web site and I want to do it on smumug. I want to offer shots of youth sports. My question is it legal to post pictures of youths playing sports such as baseball etc. on the internet without their consent or some sort of waiver. I am planning on allowing some down loading of these images. I am just trying to get started and dont want to break the rules. I dont know if there has been a lot of discussion about this in the past or not. I hope I am not bringing up old stuff. I would appreciate your help. Thanks much.

This is not a legal opinion, but some practical experience I'm sharing.

I take a lot of youth sports photos and have more than 10,000 of them online. What I have found is that if you password protect the gallery and give the team parents the password to their specific gallery, then everyone seems to be fine with it (4 years of history and I've never had an objection). I also make sure that the players are identified by first name only (no last name). If you don't password protect it, then a few parents may feel uncomfortable about them being online.

At the transition to high school age, I no longer password protect the galleries.

Penquin

Thank you
Thank you for sharing your practical experience. I am going to take your advice and start building a site. I took a look at your site. Very good.

jfriend wrote:

This is not a legal opinion, but some practical experience I'm sharing.

I take a lot of youth sports photos and have more than 10,000 of them online. What I have found is that if you password protect the gallery and give the team parents the password to their specific gallery, then everyone seems to be fine with it (4 years of history and I've never had an objection). I also make sure that the players are identified by first name only (no last name). If you don't password protect it, then a few parents may feel uncomfortable about them being online.

At the transition to high school age, I no longer password protect the galleries.

jfriend

Penquin wrote:

Thank you for sharing your practical experience. I am going to take your advice and start building a site. I took a look at your site. Very good.

FYI, most of my sports photos are here. Except for the few high school age galleries, they are mostly password protected, but you can see how I've laid things out to present them.

Penquin

This has been a great help
Wow! Thanks a lot. You are a great help. I hope you dont mind me asking you some questions. I looked at how you laid things out. It appears you are doing exactly what I want to do. I live in a small town and take photos of the local kids and spend a lot of time running CDs around. I do some picture packets for picture day (memory mates) and some senior portraits. Do you allow downloading for free or on just some sizes? I was able to get into one of your galleries and it looks like on at least the one I was able to view you charge just enough to cover the cost of printing. This is what I had in mind. I was wondering if you allow for down loading. Does anybody pay to order prints even at a reasonble cost? I assume you must have the pro gallery?? Is that the one you suggest? It appears you have a different password for each kid not just a pass word for the team.

jfriend wrote:

FYI, most of my sports photos are here. Except for the few high school age galleries, they are mostly password protected, but you can see how I've laid things out to present them.

jfriend

Penquin wrote:

Wow! Thanks a lot. You are a great help. I hope you dont mind me asking you some questions. I looked at how you laid things out. It appears you are doing exactly what I want to do. I live in a small town and take photos of the local kids and spend a lot of time running CDs around. I do some picture packets for picture day (memory mates) and some senior portraits. Do you allow downloading for free or on just some sizes? I was able to get into one of your galleries and it looks like on at least the one I was able to view you charge just enough to cover the cost of printing. This is what I had in mind. I was wondering if you allow for down loading. Does anybody pay to order prints even at a reasonble cost? I assume you must have the pro gallery?? Is that the one you suggest? It appears you have a different password for each kid not just a pass word for the team.

I am not currently trying to make money on my kids sports photos, so I price at cost and make originals available for download.

I do see parents ordering prints. A typical order will be for a whole bunch of 4x6's and 5x7's. I rarely see them ordering larger prints, but they do also download originals so maybe they get enlargements done somewhere else.

I do have the pro account, but if you aren't trying to make money on your prints, that is not required.

Smugmug does not support password protecting a category so I have to put the same password on all galleries within a given category. The way it works is Smugmug prompts you for the password, the first time you open any of the galleries and then it won't prompt you again for the password if you open any other gallery that has the same password. So, I make one team password and put it on all the galleries for that team.

As I said, I don't password protect the galleries of high school age kids, but as of a couple years ago, I do password protect all galleries for kids younger than that.

I had a little disagreement with the Junior High last year. I volunteered to take buddy portraits at the graduation dance. I had rented studio lights and set up a backdrop with some props and the kids came by with their friends during the dance to pose. I got a lot of great shots and put them up on the web. The principal had told me that I didn't need to password protect them so I put them up without a password. Then, I asked if they could link to them in the school newletter and put a blurb on the school homepage so all the kids could find them. As it turns out, they have rules that don't allow them to link to photos of kids that aren't password protected. Oh well, at that point the cat was already out of the bag as word had already filtered around to the kids about where the images were so I really didn't want to shut them off by adding a password they didn't know. The principal was OK with them not being password protected - it's just that they couldn't officially link to them. But, I could send out email announcing where they were and that would be fine with everyone. In the end, the kids enjoyed the shots and a lot of the kids put them up on facebook.

Penquin

looking forward to getting started
John,
Again, thanks for all of your help. Does it take a lot of work to set up the site and do you spend a lot of time putting photos on the site? My vision is to allow the kids, parents, the school year book, and the local news paper, to use the photos once I put them on the site. When I first started down this road I didnt know if this could be done and here I find this site where you are already doing it. Is there a lot of people shooting photos and making them available or are most people trying to make money? I think I will try the free two weeks thing first and see what it comes out like.

jfriend wrote:

I am not currently trying to make money on my kids sports photos, so I price at cost and make originals available for download.

I do see parents ordering prints. A typical order will be for a whole bunch of 4x6's and 5x7's. I rarely see them ordering larger prints, but they do also download originals so maybe they get enlargements done somewhere else.

I do have the pro account, but if you aren't trying to make money on your prints, that is not required.

Smugmug does not support password protecting a category so I have to put the same password on all galleries within a given category. The way it works is Smugmug prompts you for the password, the first time you open any of the galleries and then it won't prompt you again for the password if you open any other gallery that has the same password. So, I make one team password and put it on all the galleries for that team.

As I said, I don't password protect the galleries of high school age kids, but as of a couple years ago, I do password protect all galleries for kids younger than that.

I had a little disagreement with the Junior High last year. I volunteered to take buddy portraits at the graduation dance. I had rented studio lights and set up a backdrop with some props and the kids came by with their friends during the dance to pose. I got a lot of great shots and put them up on the web. The principal had told me that I didn't need to password protect them so I put them up without a password. Then, I asked if they could link to them in the school newletter and put a blurb on the school homepage so all the kids could find them. As it turns out, they have rules that don't allow them to link to photos of kids that aren't password protected. Oh well, at that point the cat was already out of the bag as word had already filtered around to the kids about where the images were so I really didn't want to shut them off by adding a password they didn't know. The principal was OK with them not being password protected - it's just that they couldn't officially link to them. But, I could send out email announcing where they were and that would be fine with everyone. In the end, the kids enjoyed the shots and a lot of the kids put them up on facebook.

jfriend

Penquin wrote:

John,
Again, thanks for all of your help. Does it take a lot of work to set up the site and do you spend a lot of time putting photos on the site? My vision is to allow the kids, parents, the school year book, and the local news paper, to use the photos once I put them on the site. When I first started down this road I didnt know if this could be done and here I find this site where you are already doing it. Is there a lot of people shooting photos and making them available or are most people trying to make money? I think I will try the free two weeks thing first and see what it comes out like.

It's easy to set up the galleries. What takes the time is taking all the images, then sorting through them all to identify only the decent ones, then tweaking those, then categorizing them by player, generate JPEGs, then uploading them. The web part is the easy part.

There are always a few moms or dads taking pictures of their own kids. I have seen some pros selling images at a soccer tournament, but I've only seen that once and I've never seen anyone doing it during the regular season. My sense is that it's a hard way to make money. There is competition for the parent's own cameras and from the advanced amateurs (like me) that has devalued what parents are willing pay for images. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just that it has happened.

I've followed a few online discussion of some pros talking about how they do it and I came to the conclusion that the ones that have the best business do it by some sort of advanced arrangement with the team. They charge $25/player (or something like that) to shoot the team during a tournament and that includes some images and then folks can buy more if they want. The "pre-commitment" both guarantees the photographer some income and gets the parents into the mode of looking at the images and deciding what to buy. From the photographer's end, they have to get decent images of everyone on the team which I know can be hard (some don't play that much, some aren't around the ball that much, some are only on the field when lighting for their direction is bad, how do you keep track of who you have shots of and who you don't, etc...).

Anyway, I don't have any plans to start selling. I want my images to be as good or better than those who sell, but I'm not selling right now.

Penquin

Thanks
I think you misunderstood me. I am not interested in selling the photos other than just giving the kid or the parent the option of ordering at a low cost like you have. I want to make my photos as good or better than those that might want to sell. Basically I want to do the same thing you are doing. I was wondering if you thought many people have set up a site like you have, that are really more interested in photography as a community service because they like the kids and taking photos. I do make a little money on memory mates if a team asks me to be the photographer for picture day. I have put together a picture envelope but I dont advertise because I have a full time career job which keeps me busy enough. My picture packet costs are still way less expensive. It looks like I have two choices for a lab. Which one do you use?
Thanks again,
Walt

jfriend wrote:

It's easy to set up the galleries. What takes the time is taking all the images, then sorting through them all to identify only the decent ones, then tweaking those, then categorizing them by player, generate JPEGs, then uploading them. The web part is the easy part.

There are always a few moms or dads taking pictures of their own kids. I have seen some pros selling images at a soccer tournament, but I've only seen that once and I've never seen anyone doing it during the regular season. My sense is that it's a hard way to make money. There is competition for the parent's own cameras and from the advanced amateurs (like me) that has devalued what parents are willing pay for images. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, just that it has happened.

I've followed a few online discussion of some pros talking about how they do it and I came to the conclusion that the ones that have the best business do it by some sort of advanced arrangement with the team. They charge $25/player (or something like that) to shoot the team during a tournament and that includes some images and then folks can buy more if they want. The "pre-commitment" both guarantees the photographer some income and gets the parents into the mode of looking at the images and deciding what to buy. From the photographer's end, they have to get decent images of everyone on the team which I know can be hard (some don't play that much, some aren't around the ball that much, some are only on the field when lighting for their direction is bad, how do you keep track of who you have shots of and who you don't, etc...).

Anyway, I don't have any plans to start selling. I want my images to be as good or better than those who sell, but I'm not selling right now.

capitoljayhawk

jfriend wrote:

FYI, most of my sports photos are here. Except for the few high school age galleries, they are mostly password protected, but you can see how I've laid things out to present them.

Jfriend, love your layout. How do you have locked galleries without the little "locked" symbol next to them?

jfriend

capitoljayhawk wrote:

Jfriend, love your layout. How do you have locked galleries without the little "locked" symbol next to them?

The small padlock icon can be hidden with CSS if you want. The locked thumb will go away when you set a featured photo for a password protected gallery.

capitoljayhawk

jfriend wrote:

The small padlock icon can be hidden with CSS if you want. The locked thumb will go away when you set a featured photo for a password protected gallery.

Excellent. Do you mind if I ask what the code would be to hide that padlock? (Or i can go ask on customization thread.)

jfriend

capitoljayhawk wrote:

Excellent. Do you mind if I ask what the code would be to hide that padlock? (Or i can go ask on customization thread.)

.locked {display:none;}

would hide it everywhere or you could hide it just in some categories/sub-categories if you wanted by prefixing that with a category class like:

.category_Brownies .locked {display:none;}

capitoljayhawk

jfriend wrote:

.locked {display:none;}

would hide it everywhere or you could hide it just in some categories/sub-categories if you wanted by prefixing that with a category class like:

.category_Brownies .locked {display:none;}

Thanks!