Feedback on Photo Effect on Car Shots Wanted

mercphoto

Been playing around with some post-processing techniques, hoping to add to my arsenal of options to provide to clients. Any feedback would be appreciated. Thanks!







Now to find some clients....

Sam

Hi Bill,

First, these are very good. The next thing that popped in my mind, (yes, yes....lots of space for things to pop in and out of), is there a market that is willing to pay a price commensurate with the effort required to produce this?

One of the problems I see is that while many will just love this (also can apply to a lot of the photography services, and products we all have) the number of people who are willing or able, in todays economy, to actually purchase these seems more limited than I would like.

Good luck with a nice creative product.

Sam

mercphoto

Thanks, Sam. I'm finding it hard to get any clients, period. I thought the motion rig would be the killer product to drive in clients. So far has not been the case. Fortunately, while these do require work, its not as much as you might think. I can bang one out in a few minutes.

Zerodog

I like it. They really look like they are done in pencil.

System

They look great. I'll bet you could sell them to the owners of those cars.

black mamba

I like the look of these pictures. I feel you've done an excellent job with them.

As a shooter of car shows myself, I do have some sort of feel for the market....even though I am in no way interested in the commercial aspects of the deal. Ocassionally, a friend or two of mine will enter their collector cars in some of the larger shows. As a present for them, I will shoot their car at the show and give them a quite large print ( 16 x 20 minimum ). Some of the prints are seen at a later date by other members of this " fraternity " of car nuts and they, too, want a picture of their car. This is ceratinly an affluent crowd of buyers....price would be no deterrent....but I'm skeptical that the number of potential clients would support a commercial venture by itself. As part of a larger business approach, maybe so.

In a similar vein, I know of a guy who shoots boat shows....mainly old, wooden, classic boats. Acknowledging that purchases of most any kind are very often an impulse buy, he actually has a small van outfitted with the appropriate equipment and he will present, on site, a very nice picture ( up to 13 x 19 ) of the clients boat. Does he make enough money to make it a viable business deal? I'm not sure, but I think sometimes it's an ego thing with him.

There's an old proverb at play here....." Out of Sight, Out of Mind ". If you could somehow capitalize on this " immediacey " aspect and be dealing with a large enough venue, it might pay off. There may well be some approach involving the internet that would make sense. Let the client send you ....by a variety of ways....a favorite picture he has and you send him a " treated " picture you have generated.

I hope you find an approach that works for you.

Tom

mercphoto

black mamba wrote:

I like the look of these pictures. I feel you've done an excellent job with them.

Thanks for the compliments plus all the other information. I agree the potential market for private clients is small, but I was honestly expecting to be able to get at least a half dozen per year, and that would have kept me content. I'm now beginning to wonder if the potential market is even that high. Either it isn't, or my efforts to get my services known are not working.

South Shore Snapshots

Photos are excellent, the coloured pencil effect is tres cool. I've played around with that filter before and have found that it almost always produces very likeable results.

As for automotive clients, yeah that's a good question. You would think car owners - after piling up thousands of dollars in receipts to bring their babies back to life - wouldn't mind forking over another 50-100 dollars for a really nice print of their machines; or at least that's my take.

My personal plan for this summer is to show my car - 40th Anniversary Pontiac Grand Prix GTP - at a local car show and with it, to put out some of my photography car samples and brochures/cards to possibly drum up some interest in my services. Hopefully other participants (those who don't feel it necessary to watch their cars 24/7) will like what they see and maybe look me up.

Either way, good exposure for my car and my photography...

Rob

mercphoto

South Shore Snapshots wrote:

Photos are excellent, the coloured pencil effect is tres cool. I've played around with that filter before and have found that it almost always produces very likeable results.

That's actually been a gripe of some on the BMW forums, that it looks too much like a colored pencil filter in Photoshop. Actually its a Photoshop Action with numerous steps, five of which require manual intervention. Which is making me believe the result is not sufficiently unique.

As for automotive clients, yeah that's a good question. You would think car owners - after piling up thousands of dollars in receipts to bring their babies back to life - wouldn't mind forking over another 50-100 dollars for a really nice print of their machines; or at least that's my take.

That's a whole other part to the problem, price point plus deliverables. What do car owners want? $100 for a single nice print isn't too bad from the owner's perspective, but factor in how long its going to take for you to get that one killer shot. I've been going more for a package deal, taking a variety of shots including motion, interior, engine, details, plus the usual statics. Gives them something to show off on the forums, plus a selection for a nice print or two.