Parents buy portraits of their children who happen to be playing soccer. Portrait orientation with well exposed faces and sharp eyes are what parents want. No eyes? Don't bother. Most parents are less concerned with your great action shot than with how their child looks in the photo.
Taking care of billing, collecting the cash and sending you a check is worth something. That they are also taking care of dealing with CC companies, shipping, returns & what ever sales tax, etc. is good--tracking that and submitting sales taxes yourself is a pain. It's something you need to do so whether it's someone else or you; it still needs to get done.
Anybody know what the other services charge as a percentage of sales? If you manage yourself, how much time do you spend on bookkeeping?
I think it's worth it to pay SmugMug for their services. I love being totally hands off when it comes to sales. However, I'm not really worried about selling pics. I shoot sports for the love of it, not to pay my bills. If I'm able to be compensated while I shoot, great, if not, I don't care. I'm still having fun. I've had my site for about 1.5 years now and I've made $2575 in profit just from my site and probably a little over $2000 in cash payments for CD's and from being a paid event shooter. SmugMug allows me to only worry about shooting and putting pics on the site, which is really all I care about. The only drawback that I see with using SM is when pics are shipped to my customer, they have a smugmug label not Erbeman Photos. I don't like that at all.
If you are looking to be the most profitable, then no, SM is not the way to go. If you like not having to do all of the business type stuff that is involved with selling, then SM is the way to go. It's that simple. You just have to decide what is more important to you and base your decision from there.
Parents buy portraits of their children who happen to be playing soccer. Portrait orientation with well exposed faces and sharp eyes are what parents want. No eyes? Don't bother. Most parents are less concerned with your great action shot than with how their child looks in the photo.
If you are looking to be the most profitable, then no, SM is not the way to go. If you like not having to do all of the business type stuff that is involved with selling, then SM is the way to go. It's that simple. You just have to decide what is more important to you and base your decision from there.
I guess the other thing I want to learn is what folks think the value of their time vs. the cost of a service. And to get folks thinking about the true cost of doing business. Which is to say if you spend a few hours a week doing bookkeeping and fulfilling orders (printing & shipping plus the odd warranty claim), then that time needs to be accounted for so that your $50 of sales doesn't turn into a loss for shooting the game in the first place.
Moderator Journeys/Sports/Big Picture :: Need some help with dgrin?
While I was checking out your photos (they're really nice), I looked at your pricing. It looks like you have the smugmug pricing on there. You may want to change that, unless you really are selling your 4x6 prints for .22. Just wanted to let you know.
thanks for the complement and for letting me know - but some galleries, the parents bought all the jpegs and are free to down load them off of smugmug (it's easier for me than burning them a CD); other galleries should have prices for online purchase. I usually price about $5 for a print/image and you should see downloads comparable to print prices for those galleries. No one I know of in my market would pay more for the file, so I don't sweat it.
My bread and butter are weddings, but the winters are slow for me, so I was thinking about getting into the school sports to supplement some slow time. This thread has me second guessing if it's worth my time.
What frustrates the CRAP out of me is the people that think they "made" $50 (at whatever... game / event... just using it as an example), but in reality they don't take into account, the travel time to, time at the game, and travel from the game, editing time, loading time, cost of computer, cot of lens', cost of bodies, cost of external drives, cost of camera bag, cost of tripod, cost of ball head, the cost SM takes, taxes, insurance... You get my point... The cost of doing biz! In reality, at the end of the day they "made" $4.00.
As another poster stated, and based on my wedding experience, the parent that is going to purchase a print, is going to purchase a great pic of their kid regardless of whether it will cost them $4.00 or $15.00! Who the hell would price their print at $4??? Think about it, and put yourself the parent's shoes. Your kid is breaking a tackle to score the game winning touchdown, and a photographer caught that moment. Would you NOT buy the print because it was $15?
Again, I've never shot kids sports, but i would imaging that you can't keep shooting the same team, game after game, and expect parents to buy from you game after game, UNLESS you are getting the most insane shots, right? After awhile, I would image that it would be like getting water from a stone... Your going to get old to them. Please let me know how sales look at the end of the seasons vs at the start. Probably the same reason you'll see WAY less snap shots, or videos of the second child. They've already "been there / done that"!
My bread and butter are weddings, but the winters are slow for me, so I was thinking about getting into the school sports to supplement some slow time. This thread has me second guessing if it's worth my time.
What frustrates the CRAP out of me is the people that think they "made" $50 (at whatever... game / event... just using it as an example), but in reality they don't take into account, the travel time to, time at the game, and travel from the game, editing time, loading time, cost of computer, cot of lens', cost of bodies, cost of external drives, cost of camera bag, cost of tripod, cost of ball head, the cost SM takes, taxes, insurance... You get my point... The cost of doing biz! In reality, at the end of the day they "made" $4.00.
As another poster stated, and based on my wedding experience, the parent that is going to purchase a print, is going to purchase a great pic of their kid regardless of whether it will cost them $4.00 or $15.00! Who the hell would price their print at $4??? Think about it, and put yourself the parent's shoes. Your kid is breaking a tackle to score the game winning touchdown, and a photographer caught that moment. Would you NOT buy the print because it was $15?
Again, I've never shot kids sports, but i would imaging that you can't keep shooting the same team, game after game, and expect parents to buy from you game after game, UNLESS you are getting the most insane shots, right? After awhile, I would image that it would be like getting water from a stone... Your going to get old to them. Please let me know how sales look at the end of the seasons vs at the start. Probably the same reason you'll see WAY less snap shots, or videos of the second child. They've already "been there / done that"!
first time you see 40 kids lined up with $20 in their hand for an hour shoot it may change your mind about t&I shooting.
first time you see 40 kids lined up with $20 in their hand for an hour shoot it may change your mind about t&I shooting.
Josh,
I'm not ruling out, or saying it can't be lucrative. I'm just trying to vent... that there's photographers out there that are shooting themselves in the foot, in the long run, because they are under pricing their work. Not just in sports, but in all types of photography (ie. Craigslisters shooting weddings for $400). I think it's the "I have a nice camera... therefore I can shoot nice pictures" phenomenon with digital.
AND I'm trying to figure out the whole process and mindset of parents. Are you shooting the "formal" team shots, when your talking about 40 kid lined up?
Josh,
I'm not ruling out, or saying it can't be lucrative. I'm just trying to vent... that there's photographers out there that are shooting themselves in the foot, in the long run, because they are under pricing their work. Not just in sports, but in all types of photography (ie. Craigslisters shooting weddings for $400). I think it's the "I have a nice camera... therefore I can shoot nice pictures" phenomenon with digital.
AND I'm trying to figure out the whole process and mindset of parents. Are you shooting the "formal" team shots, when your talking about 40 kid lined up?
yeah, formal group shots.
as I see it so far, the downside of this work, compared to weddings, is it is, from a photography perspective BORING. You are not looking at creative expressions of beauty. You are lining up 40 kids for pics.
As far as price, others may disagree, but what makes sense to me is to start low, get some experience, then raise your prices as my skill increase and my calendar fill up.
To clear some of the muddied waters a bit. Without question, T&I shooting is more lucrative than action sports shooting. BUT, you'll still find the vast majority are doing that with packages including memory mates, trading cards etc. Doing T&I with sales from a web site isn't going to be as big a bread winner. So, for anyone that can land T&I contracts I say GO FOR IT. IF you can meet the commitment you'll get a LOT more return on investment than you will for action sports shooting.
Now, as to Camera Photography's take - I can ASSURE you that shooting action sports on spec is very, very different than wedding work. People do NOT place the same value on an action shot as they do on wedding work. You talk about parents not having a problem shelling out $15 for a great shot. Here's the reality of sports shooting - only a couple players on a team are going to have GREAT action shots - and maybe only a few times a game. The reality is - as another poster mentioned, parents want photos where their kid looks good not necessarily where the action is good. Give it a try - price your lowest priced print at $15 and shoot a team for one game and see how your sales are.
The problem isn't that photographers are underpricing the problem is - the service they're providing - action sports photography isn't a highly valued service. It just isn't. Not in many instances. Certainly not in rec-league and HS sports. Especiallly not when there are plenty of free photographs from other parents/shooters that are "good enough". In action sports photography it's tough to overcome "good enough".
Especiallly not when there are plenty of free photographs from other parents/shooters that are "good enough". In action sports photography it's tough to overcome "good enough".
Or "not good enough, but FREE". Uggh!!! I hated that beyond belief and the people who did that never understood that even though they acknowledge their photo's "aren't nearly as good as yours"......you still can't beat FREE!
Or "not good enough, but FREE". Uggh!!! I hated that beyond belief and the people who did that never understood that even though they acknowledge their photo's "aren't nearly as good as yours"......you still can't beat FREE!
Here's another way to look at parent photographers: My kids' soccer coaches are volunteers, so is the team manager, and the mom who organizes the team party; another player's mom was my daughter's volunteer Girl Scout leader for years, and another is her volunteer softball coach . . . You get the idea. If I can contribute a few decent photos of their kids playing soccer, I am just trying to do something nice for people who do something nice for me.
I think the best statement to go with that is that if you tell people your time is worthless they'll believe you. even if you don't do it for a living, as soon as you start handing stuff out for free your pictures are worth nothing, and when you suddenly realize that you're putting 4+ hours a day in to giving these things away and decide you should charge you're stuck with the fact that you were giving them away, and people have grown accustomed to the fact that your pictures have no assigned value. So your pictures haven't changed, and you will have to explain to people why the exact same product you were giving away for free is now worth something...the average person isn't going to be satisfied with the "well I realized I was spending a lot of time on it" answer.
Just something to think about.
Let the digital dad and the team mom give away their stuff...that's fine...but if you're showing up as a "photographer" then be a photographer. Politely explain to people that you have precious little free time, and have chosen to occupy some of it by shooting sports. And since you value your free time, you aren't willing to do it for free. Even fudge the numbers a little bit, say usually I charge X, but since my child is here and I'm trying to give something back to the league I'm only charging Y.
Another thing to keep in mind in this business plan is that you aren't offering the parents anything to look at other than yourself. It's a complete head game, and ends up being all about the image you project. You get one chance to convince them of the fact that you're a photographer, if you don't have the answer they're looking for to that one question they may ask you then they won't believe you, and your business card will be filed away in the bottom of their pocket and promptly forgotten. Make your cards look as professional as possible, dress the part, even wear a photo vest, it's all part of the game you're playing...the MOST important part is convincing the parents that they should look at your site in that 30 seconds that you've got their attention. If they check your site you've already made it 75% of the way to your goal...the last 25% is what your pictures actually look like. Anything that doesn't look like it was taken by a professional should be scrapped immediately, and that means that even if someone contacts you after the game looking for pictures of their kid you don't go back in to the scrap pile looking for more...scrap is scrap. I try to make this point to everyone that asks me about this business model. Because if you sell your scrap to someone thinking well great, I made an extra $10 you're thinking far to short term...that person will most likely be friends with some of the other parents of the teammates...and she just may show them the picture...if it's crap and that other parent hadn't looked at your site yet, she's never going to look at it now.
Just things to think about...but what do I know :P
Hmm, I've got some things to think about over the next two days. On Saturday, my room-mates son is swimming in the city swim meet on his High School team. This is the first meet I've been able to attend due to my "real" job. My room-mate's away at work for the next six weeks, so I promised her I'd get as many pictures of her son as I can.
The team coach also inquired about me shooting team photos, but I know already that there's no money there. He told me that he bought several of the swimsuits and goggles from his own checkbook. There is no booster club for the swimmers, and some of the families are on the lower end of the income scale .
I've never shot swimmers, but I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. The college campus pool where they're swimming has a bridge that divides a 50 meter pool into two 25 meter pools and I'll be able to shoot from the bridge .
swimming will be quite the change from the stuff on your site, lighting challenges and what not...I would say go ahead and post them on your site watermarked, and offer them for sale...you're offering your photography service for free...but if they actually want the photos for themselves they would have to pay for them...
Comments
Parents buy portraits of their children who happen to be playing soccer. Portrait orientation with well exposed faces and sharp eyes are what parents want. No eyes? Don't bother. Most parents are less concerned with your great action shot than with how their child looks in the photo.
They are buying a sportrait.
http://clearwaterphotography.smugmug.com/
Perhaps I'm missing something, but I could not find a way to purchase individual prints on your site, so I didn't see what you're charging.
As far as the idea, i think it's great and should work, although you may spend a lot of time processing a lot of photos that you may never sell.
www.tangojulietphotography.com
Simply go into any album that isn't NCAA football, select a picture and hit the "BUY" tab. It's really that easy.
http://www.RussErbePhotography.com :thumb
http://www.sportsshooter.com/erbeman
D700, D300, Nikkor 35-70 F/2.8, Nikkor 50mm F/1.8, Nikkor 70-200 AF-S VR F/2.8, Nikkor AF-S 1.7 teleconverter II,(2) Profoto D1 500 Air,SB-900, SB-600, (2)MB-D10, MacBook Pro
I think it's worth it to pay SmugMug for their services. I love being totally hands off when it comes to sales. However, I'm not really worried about selling pics. I shoot sports for the love of it, not to pay my bills. If I'm able to be compensated while I shoot, great, if not, I don't care. I'm still having fun. I've had my site for about 1.5 years now and I've made $2575 in profit just from my site and probably a little over $2000 in cash payments for CD's and from being a paid event shooter. SmugMug allows me to only worry about shooting and putting pics on the site, which is really all I care about. The only drawback that I see with using SM is when pics are shipped to my customer, they have a smugmug label not Erbeman Photos. I don't like that at all.
If you are looking to be the most profitable, then no, SM is not the way to go. If you like not having to do all of the business type stuff that is involved with selling, then SM is the way to go. It's that simple. You just have to decide what is more important to you and base your decision from there.
http://www.RussErbePhotography.com :thumb
http://www.sportsshooter.com/erbeman
D700, D300, Nikkor 35-70 F/2.8, Nikkor 50mm F/1.8, Nikkor 70-200 AF-S VR F/2.8, Nikkor AF-S 1.7 teleconverter II,(2) Profoto D1 500 Air,SB-900, SB-600, (2)MB-D10, MacBook Pro
Agree 100%
http://andygriffinphoto.com/
http://andygriffin.smugmug.com/
Canon 7D, 70-200mm L, 50 and 85 primes, Tamron 17-50, 28-135
I guess the other thing I want to learn is what folks think the value of their time vs. the cost of a service. And to get folks thinking about the true cost of doing business. Which is to say if you spend a few hours a week doing bookkeeping and fulfilling orders (printing & shipping plus the odd warranty claim), then that time needs to be accounted for so that your $50 of sales doesn't turn into a loss for shooting the game in the first place.
thanks for the complement and for letting me know - but some galleries, the parents bought all the jpegs and are free to down load them off of smugmug (it's easier for me than burning them a CD); other galleries should have prices for online purchase. I usually price about $5 for a print/image and you should see downloads comparable to print prices for those galleries. No one I know of in my market would pay more for the file, so I don't sweat it.
C.
***********************************
check out my (sports) pics: ColleenBonney.smugmug.com
*Thanks to Boolsacho for the avatar photo (from the dgrin portrait project)
What frustrates the CRAP out of me is the people that think they "made" $50 (at whatever... game / event... just using it as an example), but in reality they don't take into account, the travel time to, time at the game, and travel from the game, editing time, loading time, cost of computer, cot of lens', cost of bodies, cost of external drives, cost of camera bag, cost of tripod, cost of ball head, the cost SM takes, taxes, insurance... You get my point... The cost of doing biz! In reality, at the end of the day they "made" $4.00.
As another poster stated, and based on my wedding experience, the parent that is going to purchase a print, is going to purchase a great pic of their kid regardless of whether it will cost them $4.00 or $15.00! Who the hell would price their print at $4??? Think about it, and put yourself the parent's shoes. Your kid is breaking a tackle to score the game winning touchdown, and a photographer caught that moment. Would you NOT buy the print because it was $15?
Again, I've never shot kids sports, but i would imaging that you can't keep shooting the same team, game after game, and expect parents to buy from you game after game, UNLESS you are getting the most insane shots, right? After awhile, I would image that it would be like getting water from a stone... Your going to get old to them. Please let me know how sales look at the end of the seasons vs at the start. Probably the same reason you'll see WAY less snap shots, or videos of the second child. They've already "been there / done that"!
first time you see 40 kids lined up with $20 in their hand for an hour shoot it may change your mind about t&I shooting.
Las Cruces Photographer / Las Cruces Wedding Photographer
Other site
I'm not ruling out, or saying it can't be lucrative. I'm just trying to vent... that there's photographers out there that are shooting themselves in the foot, in the long run, because they are under pricing their work. Not just in sports, but in all types of photography (ie. Craigslisters shooting weddings for $400). I think it's the "I have a nice camera... therefore I can shoot nice pictures" phenomenon with digital.
AND I'm trying to figure out the whole process and mindset of parents. Are you shooting the "formal" team shots, when your talking about 40 kid lined up?
yeah, formal group shots.
as I see it so far, the downside of this work, compared to weddings, is it is, from a photography perspective BORING. You are not looking at creative expressions of beauty. You are lining up 40 kids for pics.
As far as price, others may disagree, but what makes sense to me is to start low, get some experience, then raise your prices as my skill increase and my calendar fill up.
Las Cruces Photographer / Las Cruces Wedding Photographer
Other site
Now, as to Camera Photography's take - I can ASSURE you that shooting action sports on spec is very, very different than wedding work. People do NOT place the same value on an action shot as they do on wedding work. You talk about parents not having a problem shelling out $15 for a great shot. Here's the reality of sports shooting - only a couple players on a team are going to have GREAT action shots - and maybe only a few times a game. The reality is - as another poster mentioned, parents want photos where their kid looks good not necessarily where the action is good. Give it a try - price your lowest priced print at $15 and shoot a team for one game and see how your sales are.
The problem isn't that photographers are underpricing the problem is - the service they're providing - action sports photography isn't a highly valued service. It just isn't. Not in many instances. Certainly not in rec-league and HS sports. Especiallly not when there are plenty of free photographs from other parents/shooters that are "good enough". In action sports photography it's tough to overcome "good enough".
Or "not good enough, but FREE". Uggh!!! I hated that beyond belief and the people who did that never understood that even though they acknowledge their photo's "aren't nearly as good as yours"......you still can't beat FREE!
Here's another way to look at parent photographers: My kids' soccer coaches are volunteers, so is the team manager, and the mom who organizes the team party; another player's mom was my daughter's volunteer Girl Scout leader for years, and another is her volunteer softball coach . . . You get the idea. If I can contribute a few decent photos of their kids playing soccer, I am just trying to do something nice for people who do something nice for me.
http://shphotos.smugmug.com/
Just something to think about.
Let the digital dad and the team mom give away their stuff...that's fine...but if you're showing up as a "photographer" then be a photographer. Politely explain to people that you have precious little free time, and have chosen to occupy some of it by shooting sports. And since you value your free time, you aren't willing to do it for free. Even fudge the numbers a little bit, say usually I charge X, but since my child is here and I'm trying to give something back to the league I'm only charging Y.
Another thing to keep in mind in this business plan is that you aren't offering the parents anything to look at other than yourself. It's a complete head game, and ends up being all about the image you project. You get one chance to convince them of the fact that you're a photographer, if you don't have the answer they're looking for to that one question they may ask you then they won't believe you, and your business card will be filed away in the bottom of their pocket and promptly forgotten. Make your cards look as professional as possible, dress the part, even wear a photo vest, it's all part of the game you're playing...the MOST important part is convincing the parents that they should look at your site in that 30 seconds that you've got their attention. If they check your site you've already made it 75% of the way to your goal...the last 25% is what your pictures actually look like. Anything that doesn't look like it was taken by a professional should be scrapped immediately, and that means that even if someone contacts you after the game looking for pictures of their kid you don't go back in to the scrap pile looking for more...scrap is scrap. I try to make this point to everyone that asks me about this business model. Because if you sell your scrap to someone thinking well great, I made an extra $10 you're thinking far to short term...that person will most likely be friends with some of the other parents of the teammates...and she just may show them the picture...if it's crap and that other parent hadn't looked at your site yet, she's never going to look at it now.
Just things to think about...but what do I know :P
The team coach also inquired about me shooting team photos, but I know already that there's no money there. He told me that he bought several of the swimsuits and goggles from his own checkbook. There is no booster club for the swimmers, and some of the families are on the lower end of the income scale
I've never shot swimmers, but I'm really looking forward to the opportunity. The college campus pool where they're swimming has a bridge that divides a 50 meter pool into two 25 meter pools and I'll be able to shoot from the bridge
www.tangojulietphotography.com