Links to pics being used without permission
ckaspar
Registered Users Posts: 154 Major grins
So, I had a question for everyone here.
I have been shooting a lot of R/C Racing the last couple of months. I have uploaded the pics to my SmugMug account in different galleries. I offer the pics for sale, print or digital download. I was looking at the statistics and noticed that I have a bunch of referrers from a bunch of R/C blog sites. I went to the pages and it looks like some folks are using the links to the pics to post on their blogs or forums showing their cars or an Album cover of the event I designed.
What is your guys take on that. I don't mind the free promotion but I am not too cool with people using my shots without purchasing them either. Should I consider the free promotion payment enough or should I expect something back from them?
Any thoughts would be helpful. I am kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.
Thanks in advance.
I have been shooting a lot of R/C Racing the last couple of months. I have uploaded the pics to my SmugMug account in different galleries. I offer the pics for sale, print or digital download. I was looking at the statistics and noticed that I have a bunch of referrers from a bunch of R/C blog sites. I went to the pages and it looks like some folks are using the links to the pics to post on their blogs or forums showing their cars or an Album cover of the event I designed.
What is your guys take on that. I don't mind the free promotion but I am not too cool with people using my shots without purchasing them either. Should I consider the free promotion payment enough or should I expect something back from them?
Any thoughts would be helpful. I am kind of ambivalent about the whole thing.
Thanks in advance.
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Comments
On hobby blogs or sites where someone isn't making money from the site and it really is just a hobby for them, I'd just chalk it up to free exposure as long as you're getting photo credit.
You could also increase the size of your watermark so it's clear that the photo is from you and is copyrighted thereby discouraging the commercial site from using it.
Doug
My B&W Photos
Motorcycles in B&W
Moderator of: Location, Location, Location , Mind Your Own Business & Other Cool Shots
That's what I was wondering too... whether or not it was a "Hotlinking" kind of thing...
Film/TV Stills Photography
"When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt." ~ Henry J. Kaiser
Do they at least display information where people can find the rest of the photos? A link to your site somewhere on yours (other than people just clicking on the pics in the blog)?
Just my $.02
Lance.
That makes sense about the advertising sites. I will have to go see who charging for advertising and who is not. Good point
They are using the "Share" button on the top of the gallery to get a link to the picture then posting the link, which in turn shows the picture, on their site.
Thank you for taking the time to look at my gallery. I went through the R/C Gallery and the only one I could find that was not right click protected was the "Memorial Race" gallery but I intended to do that. it was a Charity event for a 3 year old boy who recently lost his life. All of the proceeds from the event went to the family for pay for services, etc. I left that one open so people could grab photos if they wanted them.. I did not feel right charging for them. I will look at making the watermark bigger, which raises a bigger question. I use Mogrify to embed the watermarks and I was curious as to etiquette with watermarks and people purchasing prints. Obviously a big one in the middle of the shot is not good. How big is too big? How appropriate is it to have a "decent" sized watermark on the print?
I am new to actually selling photos so I am sure there is a lot of learning I need to do.
I am aware of that too but was more concerned about how I should be looking at the use of my images. I don't mind the links as it does push some people to my site but I am not to excited about news sites using my pics without permission.
In summary, I thank you all for your feedback and I hope to hear more.
I use a big colorful watermark (my web address) and have gotten a lot of gruff about it on here and other forums and no it does not stop the thieves ........and it has not stopped me from having photos
purchased by publishers either nor has it hurt me in getting work from publishers..........my watermark is I believe the largest size that I can upload to my SM watermark gallery....and I make them in photoshop....then upload the .png to my sm watermark gallery....................
Please don't take this the wrong way but why are you even bothering selling your pics?
$6 for an 8x10 cannot possibly worth your time of even uploading let alone when you pay fees etc.
Perhaps I am missing something and your selling heaps and getting a fat cheque every month but I'm afraid I can only see such prices as very damaging and undermining to people who are trying to earn a quid out of selling their work.
Your pics look nice enough to me so I'm wondering why you aren't charging prices more inline with what they are worth?
Fair Enough!
Firstly, DO NOT think that putting your prices up to a reasonable level commensurate to what others are charging will necessarily effect sales. Over pricing your work certainly will but you may find that increasing your prices can also possibly increase sales. The other thing peole fail to realise is that if you are charging say 4 times the amount you were previously, you probably only have to sell 1/5th of the amount of prints you were before especially when you consider your time and all the incidentals like stationary, addressing envelopes, accounting, handling customer enquiries/ complaints/ redo's etc. which will happen no matter what.
I find that the amounts charged for prints are pretty much ballpark here and in the US although the pricing question will open up a can of worms with disagreements based on other peoples POV but here is mine FWIW anyway.
I think $30 Is a good average price for this type of work and many other sports/ event type genre's.
I don't sell anything else for this type of work myself but i am aware that scrap booking etc is big there and this is why people may want and have a need for smaller prints.
That allowed for, there is no need to make the prints all that much cheaper in smaller sizes because it's the image they are buying not the size of the paper. Many people have trouble with this concept so I like to make an analogy. ....
If I say to you I will sell you next weeks winning lottery numbers and print them in a very elegant and expensive piece of parchment and I'm going to charge you $100K, you will buy them because they are worth $5m.
If I then say, sorry, all out of Parchment, I'll have to scribble them on this old meat pie wrapper I found blowing down the street, are you at all concerned or going to give me any less money for those numbers?
Of course not, it's the numbers ( Image/memories) you are concerned with not how they are delivered ( size).
Now obviously some allowance needs to be made just for peoples perception BUT, you can use this to boost sales of the larger prints by making them appear better value.
You have to believe people pay for what they want, not what is proportional priced. I don't know beans about RC car racing but I bet there are things like battery's and motors and speed controllers that are only say 10% better than something costing maybe half as much yet there are still heaps of people that buy the most expensive parts. They are not buying they 10% better performance, they are buying what they hope to be an advantage ( or eliminate a disadvantage) over the competitors that will put them in the winners podium and bring them a bit of recognition and bragging rights.
This is the same as you should look at print sizing. Don't even try to justify or make it proportional. It's the image your selling, not the size of the paper it's on.
If you base your prices on $30 for a 10x8, then make a 5x7 disproportional and put it at $25. Similarly, make a 6x4 $20 .
Personally I hate 6x4's because they instantly put your work on the same footing as an amateur minilab print so I don't offer them at all in any work I do and haven't done so in 15 years. Never been a problem yet.
You also need to remember, there is exactly the same effort in making a 6x4 as there is an 8x10 bar maybe a few seconds on the computer. all the other things in delivering the pic is the same amount of effort.
Put your prices up and at the same time, try to pomote your work and get more people to see it. If you are selling through the net, get some cards and flyers and cards and put them for instance under everyone's car window ( And before others chime in with obvious warnings and recommendations, please give us credit for common sense) or take them round the pits or whatever. Get your wife of GF to do it if you can because every guy prefers to chat to a new girl rather than another bloke.
Better still, ask for email addresses so you can tell them when the pics are up and offer an incentive if they give it to you when they buy and or have a sign up sheet at the track on a signboard near where they all go such as office or canteen, toilets etc.
If you push and market yourself, the price will be incidental to the sales you make because it is the traffic to the site that will make the diff not what you charge.
Now is the time to get your pricing right so you are not locked into making nothing for your work for the rest of the time you are shooting.
Good luck with it!
As I raised my prices (got away from the w-mart and k-mart pricing of my work), I started getting
more and more inquiries, which led to more and more clients.......then the next January I would raise prices
and again I saw more client and better clients......so my 4th year I dang near triple my pricing and the
phone was ringing off the hook compared to the past and the clients were of a much higher caliber......
the cheap set would call and ask if I could give them a total of 40 pics for $5.99 and I would decline nicely
explaining that pro work will not allow that and that the -Marts were not pro in any way shape or form....
that their photos would color shift in les than a year that is why they are so cheap and I had photos to prove it.
now I am in the bracket that I do not give discounts for the people still living with a -- mart mentality but I have
payment plans as long as the work is paid for 30days prior to the appointed shoot date we are great.....
Lay away for your wedding or portrait setting that way even the poor senior working part time at BK can get
senior pics done that they can be real proud of............I will work with people just not lower my standards......
At your current pricing I cannot even get a print made for what you charge.......
Good Luck......
Good morning,
Chris and I work together on the stuff on www.rncfoto.com and i cant tell you how much we appreciate your experience and insight on pricing. This is an area we have struggled with the most. How to price stuff fairly, get a little out of it, and not seem like we are gouging folks. Sorry for jumping in the middle of the thread, just had to thank everyone
www.rncfoto.com
x2 As I've stuck to my guns about the sizes of prints and increased my prices, I've found the same thing.
For example, now that my BASIC sitting fee is $250 (which includes a $50 credit toward a print) I'm getting more work. Just booked a wonderful family shoot for the end of the month that I KNOW will result in excellent print sales: 9 grandchildren at the grandparents' cottage on a lake - you know each set of parents will want some and of course the grandparents who are paying for the shoot.
I know plenty of people who are run ragged doing shoots for $100 each (or, god forbid, even LESS) AND then handing everything over on a CD so people can run to their local Wally World and get them printed. OK. There's a market for that - but it's not my market.
I want to work smarter, not harder - she said smiling as she cashes a recent cheque for a dog shoot. Doting doggy mommas LOVE their pooches. MUCH less work than sports shooting I admit - and MUCh more profitable. I may dump doing horse shows except on request and with a retainer.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
Once again, I thank you all for your input and advice and I can see where you are coming from. It makes total sense. If you think our prices were low before, you would flip at what they were priced at before.
Anyway, Rob and I are going to sit down tonight to discuss the pricing we have in place now and take into consideration the comments you guys have made and see what we can do to bring our prices in line with something more appropriate.
I had one more question for you guys, and this is just for clarification on my part. It seems like you guys are being commissioned to take photos for a specific client when you are charging the pricing decisions you have laid out. Let me explain the situation we are currently in and see if you guys would still have the same opinion or if, based on the circumstances, you would take a different approach than you suggested.
We were contacted by a race promoter to be his "photo guys" for the race series. He pays us $100 per event. It is his intention for us to post the pics online in an attempt to promote his series. We agreed to do the events with a "lets see where this goes" attitude. We did not intend on this being a professional venture but based on the results we decided we should offer the photos up for sale to try to recoup some costs that the $100 stipend did not cover. Since the photos we shoot are not commissioned by/for anybody does that make the pricing situation different or does the fact that we took the picture and deemed it a "keeper" simply mean that we charge as you guys are suggesting? I am envisioning you all sitting down with clients, discussing the types of photos they would like and using your artists mind and camera gear you kind of produce a vision you both can be happy with and feel confident charging $30 for an 8x10 print. for us we sit on the track or in the pits and if something is happening we try to snap a pic of it. Our only direction for photos was, "Show up and take some pictures so I can put a link on my website to your photos so I can get other people excited about the series." Should/would that type of instruction alter the prices we are charging?
We have done little to no promotion at the events. I just picked up business cards from the printer yesterday and Rob is going to an event on Father's Day to shoot for the series. I am interested to see what happens when we actually promote that "We are the ones taking the photos for the event and you can find images of you and your car at this site."
I want to have the pricing figured out before we post the images from this weekend so that we can have everything sorted out.
Again, I thank you guys all for your input and look forward to your response to see how we should handle the pricing given the further details provided as to our situation. If you guys say that the prices need to go up to be inline with a typical print then Rob and I will sit down and discuss where we want to put them. If you guy think we should keep the pricing as is then we will do that.
I leave it up to you all.
Once again, Thank you!
No Not at all.
I don't get a dime for covering the events I do, we sell purely on spec and at our own risk. When -I- contact an organizer, very rarely the price of our work comes up except if they offer to post that we will be covering the event on their website or something similar. We actually give them a kick back inthe form of 3 vouchers for free prints they can use as prizes for competitors or as they more often do, for their raffle.
If anything, I would say that is all the more reason to up your prices... To make the gig worthwhile for you.
The prices I'm suggesting are not pie in the sky, they are the lower end of what myself and many others get every weekend. They are not high, to my knowledge they are in fact very average.
As above, I never talk to the organisers about pricing or services other than to tell them we can do prints on site or burn CD's. Sometimes the organisers ask us for some shots to put on the website so I will do some crowd and behind the scenes type shots or more likley, tell my 13 yo daughter to grab whatever camera is left lying around and go do some which she seems to have a knack for and the organisers compliment me on.
We try and get every competitor at least once and usually don't bother with the promo stuff because the shots we get are good for that anyway. I imagine you would be a little different but it would still be real easy to get the promo stuff and shots to sell. Just keep the 2 in mind and work them to the end use your thinking of.
Sounds like a great start!
I would also suggest knocking up a couple of sign boards and have posters printed to put on them with an exciting pic ( maybe a college with some Photoshopped added in graphics to really get attention) on them and something that says you are covering the event and if anyone would like pics of their car or special requests, come see you.
Put these where everyone goes such as the registration office/ tent, canteen, Toilets etc.
You may also like to get those safety fluro vests with " Official Photographer" on them or your biz name and website. I have vests for my shooters and I and I think they are one of our best forms of promo because EVERYONE at the event sees them and then knows we are there and comes looking for us if they haven't fallen over our trailer already. The vests stand you out from the crowd and people know who they are talking to to request shots rather than potentialy embarrassing themselves by asking another parent with a camera by mistake
Go with the pricing I told you, you won't go wrong.
You have to get over this fear that putting your prices up will kill sales.
Lets be blunt, your selling jack now so really what have you got to loose, 20 bucks in sales that you would normally get?
Why not put 1 or 2 events worth of takings on the line and try an experiment so you will know if it's a good idea or not. Myself and others here know it is, you just have to see it for yourself.
Up till now, I have been offering 3 products, an A4 print for $30, an A4 mag cover for $35 and a disk with nominally, 5 images for $50. Often if people selected 10 images, I would give them to them anyway. The best sellers were the straight print and the disk.
My wife has been talking about offering different things and because she and my son run the trailer, I said do what you want. She got the young bloke to template up a print with an oval insert/ cameo for $40, a border around the print with the name and date of the event which she priced at $35. Mag covers went up to $40 and CD's with over 5 images went up to $75.
Looking through our receipt book, the best sellers of the weekend by far were the insert prints and the over 5 image CD's. My wife has been rubbing my nose in it all week that NO ONE even questioned the prices but she had heaps of compliments about the new offerings.
Looking over the numbers, we took at least $200 extra over and above what we would have at the old pricing but we didn't do a thing different in the actually taking of the pics, it was all in the way we presented and packaged them.
What this demonstrates is that contrary to the way our brains seem to shift when we go from customer to seller, people WILL buy what they want first and foremost and pricing is not the issue we put too much emphasis on as merchants that we disregard as customers.
In this case, people had a real option to get the very same size print at a lower cost put took the option to spend MORE to get something they LIKED better, even though it was essentially the same thing that was offered at a lower price.
Same with the CD's. They could have culled the images down to 5 but looking over the book I see we sold 3 more $75 Cd's than we did $50, 5 image disks.
IT"S NOT ABOUT PRICE!!!
Now, the mistake people make when they put up prices is that they then feel embarrassed or uneasy or whatever when they do it and let that come though to the clients and that puts them off and they then turn around and say " I knew putting the prices up wouldn't work" and with that attitude, it's a guarantee it won't!
You MUST be confident in your pricing and believe in it yourself. TO help this, every time you are asked price, raise the tone of your voice and in an excited tone, tell people that an A4 print is " ONLY" $30 and carry on with something like " they look so great and you can see every detail " or Look how the colors jump right out or.... whatever.
I believe a lot in hidden " vibes" body language and tone of voice in sales and if you are telling people prices like you are embarrassed your ripping them off, they are going to get the same feeling.
You must be excited, up beat and above all, confident in what your doing.
I remember trying to assist a local wedding shooter many years ago who was a really nice guy and did very nice work in a style that was different to mine. He charged silly low prices and over months I convinced him to put them up. Although his booking rate didn't change ( still poor) he was convinced the prices I talked him into were too high. He was doing a bridal fair and I convinced him to have no printed price lists and he could sell the coverages at what he liked and to give me 3 hours to run his stand and I would do them at my pricing.
Of course I sold 4 coverages at roughly 3 times what he was putting on them in 4 hours and he sold 1 all weekend.
It was about price this time, the fact his too low prices made people suspect of why they were so low for the quality of work offered and what hidden traps there were that they hadn't discovered.
If you want to make some money out of this, you must get serious about it and set the whole thing up along the lines of making money as a business.
If you are happy to go and take pics for the sheer enjoyment of it and make enough money to almost cover food and fuel, that is more than fine too and the best enjoyment of photography there is, BUT you have to decide which way it is you want to jump and commit to it rather than sit on the fence.
http://www.imagesbyceci.com
http://www.facebook.com/ImagesByCeci
Picadilly, NB, Canada
Clarification on the watermark issue --
If you embed the watermarks yourself using Lightroom, etc., SmugMug cannot remove them prior to printing. Use SmugMug's watermarking tool -- all your display images in SmugMug and all images linked to outside blogs through SmugMug will have the watermark follow them. The watermark will not appear, however, on any prints.
The Railroad Photographer
www.railroadphotographer.com
I would turn this back on them and use them as a a "validation" of your quality - recommended by ...
Business wise Glort is giving lots of very good advice. When people go to an event they do not generally intend to buy a photo. They have a vague budget for a good day out. This generally includes a souvenir, food and drink, etc. You need to price your goods according to the amount of money the typical punter at your event is prepared to spend on stuff which is not strictly necessary - discretionary spending in the marketing jargon. They might spend a bit more with you when then they think you are a renowned photographer - hence the value of endorsements.
My buddy and me are going to raise our prices for the next few events and market heavily at the events. We are even considering getting an Eye-Fi SD card and setting it up so when we take a shot on the track the images will show up at a station we have setup that will have a desktop, a printer and some quality paper so maybe we can sell some prints directly to the racers.
I thank everyone for the tips and advice. Once we get the prices figured I will post a link to the gallery that we adjusted the prices too and I hope one or two of you guys will take a look and give your impression on the increase.
Hope I haven't put you too much off your initial intentions!
Personally I reckon shooting just for the sheer fun of it is the ultimate. Once you start shooting as work, it's work and I often cringe when people start photo businesses because they like taking pics. To me that's a good way of fast turning enjoyment into another chore!
If you can make some extra money on the side though and it isn't something you hate getting out of bed to go do, well there are certainly benefits in that.
Looking at your pics, I think you do a brilliant job. Shooting tiny ( Well compared to the full size cars and 500Kg horses I shoot) little cars wizzing around at 100 mph and getting the images you do strikes me as being far from the easiest subject matter.
The fact you can do it is great because the harder something is, the less competition your likley to have either from other shooters or the people taking their own pics. A good guideline to selling pics is to take what people can't take themselves and I imagine the cars would put the amateurs to the test quite a bit.
I was going to mention onsite printing but I thought I'd not hit you up with too many suggestions of change all at once. I think it is the way to go but you have to really be sorted with it yourself as far as the technicals go. It isn't hard but you have to keep it simple and have a backup plan.
I'm in the process of setting something similar up and sending the images back to my trailer wirelessly. I bought a Canon wireless transmitter but I can see that isn't going to cut the mustard so I'm Playing with wiring it up to a Yagi directional antenna for more range and/or tethering to a cheap laptop running an N series adapter and then connecting that to the high output antenna. I think people are going to assume I'm doing a live TV broadcast when they see me!
As I can often be 200M away, I'm getting into rarely explored territory it seems but there are plenty of people doing good speed wireless connections over 1KM so it can't be that hard to do what I want despite the rubbishing of the idea I have got from some people.
I have just come up to doing onsite event printing for a year and have gone from running 3 v stations on our first outing to 14 a couple of weeks ago at the event we started with so If I can give you any tips and info on that, just PM me. I think there are a lot of little tricks that make a big difference and there is a definite basic formula to it.
I was lucky enough to get a lot of good advise from people when I got started so I'll be happy to pass that and what I have learned on if you are at all interested.
No, not at all. The business thing started before your comments. I suppose it is just my nature. If I can see where a buck can be made by me then I will try to earn it. Despite it being a sort of a business I am still enjoying it so...
I ain't gonna lie, it is pretty tough but now that I have done it a bunch it has gotten easier. Fortunately they aren't traveling 100 MPH. More like 35-40 tops but still...trying to catch one in the air and in focus it tough. Fortunately, we are the official photogs for the events we shoot so we can pretty much go anywhere and do anything we want to get shots. That makes it much easier. Makes my nifty fifty gold! I can get on the track just feet away from the cars and snap them quickly. My buddy has his 70-200 IS so he can get the parts of the track I can't. We make a good team!
I appreciate your help in this and everything else we have discussed. I love coming to this forum because everyone is willing to take time and help everyone out.
I am going to send you a PM in the next day or so kind of outlining our idea for onsite printing.
Here is the event we shot last weekend with the adjusted prices. Are these better?
Here's where my comments get direct...
Looking at your pics, and from someone that knows beans about the RC car scene, I'm wondering how many of your shots people would in fact take money out of their pocket to buy?
There are a lot of great jurno type shots that would be excellent for promoting the event but I'm looking thinking "Whom would buy that shot?
The car ones are great with the action stuff and I think the ones with the guys with their cars and trophy's are also and you should make sure you all you can of those because I think they are something people would want.
I also think that you need to be getting more of these people type shots rather than just the candids.
Out of interest, how many people ( drivers) usually attend these events as a ballpark figure?
People like to have a shot of themselves looking cool or something with bragging rights and I think the test is to ask yourself, Would someone buy this pic and have I sold pics like it in the past?
I know I used to take a lot of shots simply because I knew I could make a good pic out of it but they weren't saleable shots and that's what we really need to be aiming for.
Like I said, I don't know beans about the mentality of the RC car scene and I'm probably too old ever to get my head around it but you understand it so look at your shots from the POV I suggested and tailor your shots accordingly.
I would also suggest you template up some graphic layouts like borders and maybe some backgrounds like the pic you have above and insert some car/ people shots into it. I have just started offering this and to say it has been a huge success is an understatement. From the very first event we offered them they outsold what I was doing before and people are more than happy to pay a premium for them. I suppose I really forgot what I already knew and that was to keep testing the market. I'll come up with some other products now and promote them and see what happens. If they don't sell we'll dream up something else and if they do we'll drop whatever sells the least till he have a variety of products that all sell well but still are easy and fast for us to create.
Even a simple border just with the event name, date and something stating that the person came first, 3rd or whatever is basically a souvenir and we know how anything like memorabilia sells. We ask if they would like the border graphic or writing in a certain color which of course is nothing to do but people are blown away at the customization we offer! Takes them a hell of a lot longer to make up their minds than us to do make the changes but the PR value and good will is enormous. When people get more than they bargained for, they go from being customers to advocates and will give you good promotion by expressing their satisfaction to other people.
If the events have large banners that look good, use those as a backdrop to shoot people when you can ( sponsors and organisers will love you for that and if you ask, they may even make something up for you to shoot against as a background
You have a good creative eye so try some cool shots of the people with their cars from different angles but stuff they will want to buy.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with it , but I reckon the "strobist" ( outdoor flash lighting) with some effects would sell like no tomorrow in that market. Have a look at how Oat does it ( http://hangingpixels.com.au/gallery/recent_shoot/index.php/2008/MODELS/080525-MUSTANG_I )
and see what you think of that. You can run some simple filters to get the look which I can tell you about and I think it would blow people away in your market. With the filters, you don't even have strobe the pics, it works great with the right lighting and if you developed this or some similar funky style, I reckon you'd kill it and make a name for yourself.
Remember, Just being different is often enough to be very successful!
Anyway, like I said, make up some signs on sandwich boards with some cool graphics and put them around as well. You may know every person there but you have to now let them know what your capable of of and create a desire and demand for them to own it.
If you start showing a cool new style around, you'll have them lining up for your pics.
At events of this size there are typically 200+ entries which equates to about 150 or so entries. We were first hired on to take photos as a means of promoting the race series. We would put our shots online and have a link from the promoters site to ours. It was intended to be something to excite other racers to come out. We were only getting paid $100 TOTAL for the shots. What we took and how many was entirely up to us. Once we posted the photos we got a lot of good reviews and decided to offer them up for sale. Our prices have steadily increased over the last few months at the suggestions of people on dgrin and our confidence increasing that we could take some good photos. The reason we had our prices as we had them before was because we were basically selling our journo type shots as a means of recouping some of our time and making it a fun little thing for us. I suppose that is why I was hesitant to raise the prices to what they are now. I did anyway just to see what happens. We are not really taking "Artsy-fartsy" photos so charging the 10, 20 or 30 for the photos seemed too high for me considering the shots we were taking. I wouldn't mind taking those types of shots but we just don't have time. Races are 5 minutes long with a 2 minute break in between.
The cool part is that people customize their paint schemes quit a bit and they like pics of their cars as well. Especially if it is doing something cool. Jumping, crashing or sliding through a turn. Also, a persons car with their sponsors banner in the background. Sponsors and drivers both like that.
We have another race in a week and a half so I might have to look at other ways to take photos as well as the journo types of shots we have to take.
Unfortunately the drivers bitch if a flash goes off in the race. Pretty sure they wouldn't be excited about that, no matter what awesome pics I got.
Gonna have to give that a shot, more marketing at the event.
Just out of curiosity, do you have a gallery I could look at so I could see the types of pics you are taking and see if I can get ideas of how yours are different than mine. These are the only types of shots we usually see in RC and a new perspective might help my minds eye.
Thanks again for the comments. I suggest we move this conversation to PM so as not to confuse anyone else who might be straggling along on this thread.
I was thinking more of set up shots of the drivers and their cars and maybe with trophy's as well. If you could set up in front of the event or sponsors banner, so much the better as that would add a time frame/ souvenir factor to the shot.
As far as flashes go, I know what you mean.
I shot Go-Karts for a while and had the same complaint. One day this Champion bloke shows up and I happened to mention it was too dark to take pics without flash and they would bitch If I did.
He laughed.
Later when he was talking to a group of most of the drivers there, He told them they had to concentrate on their lines etc and if they even were aware of anything that wasn't on that track like someone taking a flash pic, they had lost before they began. One guy chimed up that the flash put him off. The Champion guy said if blokes racings V8supercars, top fuel dragsters and rally cars have dozens of flashes going off every time they race and they can handle it at the speeds they do, maybe you need to toughen up and put more concentration into your driving instead of worrying about things like that?
I really liked that guy!
I shoot mainly horses so I doubt you'd get much idea from the photos themselves but I'll put up some of the layouts we have been doing and PM you a link as well as to some shots I have online.
Yeah, I'm surprised somebody hasn't had a whinge about something I have said already and some that whine about being helpful to others have been highly noticeable by their lack of input.
Hopefully though there are more people than just you and I learning from the Discussion.