Amature sports photography
Hello - virgin poster here. For quite some time Ive been contemplating the concept of small photo business arranged around the idea of photographing amature people playing sports (mostly of sports I enjoy - as in tennis) and dropping a them a business card with a referenced album number, which they can punch in later that evening and view some hopefully awesome photos of themselves playing tennis or whatever. Hopefully they would be interested in purchasing a pic or two of themselves in action. Something that I think they would be interested in. I know I would (being a weekend jock).
As I see it, each album would be for there eyes only, unless they wanted to make it public. The could delete it if they wished. Would be hosted through Smugmug.
Any thoughts on this? Does it sound doable? Could also apply to random moments of parents with kids.. was walking a parking lot and happened to see a dad sitting on the tailgate of his minivan, with his daughter sharing a little lunch while waiting for mom.. very cute. Snap a pic, hand a card, and so it goes.
Thoughts? I assume model license agreements aren't necessary because the photos arent public?
Dave in New Bern, NC
As I see it, each album would be for there eyes only, unless they wanted to make it public. The could delete it if they wished. Would be hosted through Smugmug.
Any thoughts on this? Does it sound doable? Could also apply to random moments of parents with kids.. was walking a parking lot and happened to see a dad sitting on the tailgate of his minivan, with his daughter sharing a little lunch while waiting for mom.. very cute. Snap a pic, hand a card, and so it goes.
Thoughts? I assume model license agreements aren't necessary because the photos arent public?
Dave in New Bern, NC
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Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
www.acecootephotography.com
As a side note, I also ride motorcycles. Theres a place in NC where ALLOT of enthusiasts like to ride (Deals Gap), and there are several long lens camera stations setup along the route, snapping photos and selling pics after the day is done on a web site.. I bought one. Must be my excessive vanity ;-)
Anyways, thanks for commenting.
Dave in New Bern, NC
Those guys/gals shooting riders on the Dragon have an established system. People riding the Dragon know about the photos, and know they're going to get "shot" on their ride, so they're conditioned to look themselves up. The Dragon is a really special case and you'll set yourself up for a lot of disappointment if you try to model after those guys/gals.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
At any other event if you want to make any significant amount of money you need to be selling on the spot - either by selling prints right there or by taking orders at special "today-only" prices. Otherwise, the vast majority of people will simply see your photos online, send the link around for their friends and family to enjoy, share it on facebook with a link or a screenshot (watermark and all), and then they are done with it. They don't need to buy the photo then.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Be prepared to market yourself aggresively. The shoot and place on web model and hope they come is very difficult. The first step is making all of your potential customers aware of the photos. Tihs means you will be talking to everyone on the tennis courts that you shoot.
Find profitable niches and think about demographics. I have two models that work for me: youth ski racing and prepaid soccer game coverage. Ski racing has everything going for me. A wealthy demographic and a sport that is hard to photograph well. This is a sport where good photos really stand out from the Moms and Pops PLUS they are willing to pay for them (they have the means). I use a combination model here. I offer prepaid services (digital season passes) and orders after the fact. The bulk of my revenue here comes from the digital season passes. 2nd highest are sales of digital downloads. Prints are a distant 3rd. I spend a far amount of time making it easy for folks to find the photos they want. Check out the Find Your Photo function at: http://www.mikejulianaphotography.com/SkiRacing/2012-Season No one wants to look through lots of photos of other people to find the ones they are intereted in. This is a HUGE competitive advantage for me and my customers have told me this. It takes time to keyword all of these photos. You may come up with a different solution but make it easy to find the photos they want.
The 2nd model is my prepaid soccer game coverage. I've worked with a league the last couple of years that pays me to shoot every team in their league. I know I make money going to the games, parents get the image free to them (my fee is covered by their registration fee). Plus I skim a little more with custom product sales after the fact (these are things that the average parent could not do on their own). I'm still debating if this approach is better than a standard T&I contract though... Is a prepaid model something that could work for you?
Invest in your business - get your own domain name and your own email address. Nothing turns me off faster than seeing a business email with gmail or hotmail in it. Invest in your website. Look professional in everythinig you do.
Invest in your gear - there are lots of cameras out there but fewer 2.8 lenses. Proper positioning and the ability to get a shallow DOF can make a difference and let your photos stand out a little bit from the Mom's and Pop's. Is it good enough? That will depend on your demographics....
Look at lots of photos of the sports you intend to shoot - learn from others. Look at lots of things. Where are folks positioning themselves, what angles, etc.
Sorry for the diatribe. We all wish you luck. Be prepared to work hard and build it over a couple years. Please keep us up-to-date on how things are going. Post photos as well.
Comments and constructive criticism always welcome.
www.mikejulianaphotography.com
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I'm doing exactly what your talking about doing. My son and I shoot Prep & JC sports, MX racing, surfing, saltwater fishing, boating, water skiers, etc etc. You put it online and sure you will get lots of traffic, but that doesnt equate to sales. Your now a free photo album, why buy it when they can just look at it online? So I tried putting a 2 week limited viewing time, then its a $50 dollar reposting fee in addition to the purchase. It does help to motivate the ones that are going to buy, to do it now. Everyones else is a Lookie Lou. We sell about 4-5K per year, thats for Prep/JC sports we cover.
The amount of time and effort etc divided by the revenue generated does not add up. We are still trying to find the perfect mix. I dont know if there is one. I do get to spend more time with my son who is now in college. He gets to learn how to deal with editors, sports writers, school officials, players, officials, other photographers, TV crews and anyone else I can get him in contact with.
We also shoot for one of the largest obstacles races in the country. They have gone to a "free picture for racers" which works for everyone involved. Racers get free pictures to pass around, race event gets more hits which leads to bigger sold out events, and they pay us a great day rate {its usually 2 days and hotel if we travel}.
Do you see where this is headed? Someone other then the subject of the picture is paying for pictures, so they get it for free. You have to find someone to pay you. Ive been drilling this into my sons head, who is going to pay? The old way doesnt seem to be working, figure a new creative way to get it done.
http://www.youatplay.com
If I was to get back to the amateur car racing gig, which I can't, I would have tried a sponsored package based on the "Freemium" model. This worked for me once in 2010. It can work again. Get some business to sponsor your day and let the people get some number of free water marked images. Hi res files with the sponsor's logo and stuff as a watermark. Probably in a corner. Something that doesn't offend or cover the important part of the image. People can then pay for un-watermarked images (as files or prints), collages, etc. Or have the organization pay you directly and they hide your fee in the participants entry fees.
But if you rely on the actual people to browse to your site later that day or over the next 24-72 hours to make a purchase of a print and pay shipping.... move on to another business model.
Test your idea by doing everything you originally proposed with the exception of actually talking to anyone. How much time do you spend photographing? Do you like the results? Post some here for critique BEFORE you put them for sale. How much time do you spend in post processing? In sorting and ranking and culling? In uploading? How much time PERIOD is spent without actually talking to anyone. How many pictures are you going to have to sell to make that much time worth it, and do you think that number is realistic to achieve?
Its going to be far more work than you probably envision right now.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
The key is finding people that are truly interested in the images. To find those, you have to make them commit with some sort of nominal buy in. This will keep you from wasting a lot of your time.
1. Make a portable story board or look book of really great shots you've taken of the particular sport your going to shoot. These need to stand out and have a WOW factor.
2. Introduce yourself, give them a business card and let them know what you're doing.
3. If interested in having some shots done, tell them you sitting fee for the shoot and making them available for on line viewing is X today. Make it reasonable, like 10.00. It's not so much that you're going to make a bunch of money, but it separates the people that will let you take shots for the heck of it from the ones that are truly interested.
4. Have a professional looking carbonless receipt book with your name, address, phone, website and e-mail. Have them fill out their name, number and e-mail and let them know that images will be on line for viewing in X amount of days, and that you will e-mail them with a link to their images. (This would also allow you to build an e-mail data base to use in future online marketing.)
Using the above, you still wont make a LOT of money, but you wont be wasting time and or money either.
Shooting everybody and waiting/hoping a small percentage buys to cover the time/cost of shooting everybody, dont work
Finding someone (event organizer) to pay for the photos ahead of time, eliminates subject matter remembering, seeking and paying
Finding actual prints of self quickly is key (agree - motorcycle pics @ The Dragon was terrible - thousands of photos, only filter was the date, and we all look mostly the same in a thumbnail)
Prints are old school. Downloads & custom items along with prepaid may marginally float the boat
Find your niche - know your demographics - wealthy is good. Tennis check, Sailing check
Keep it professional looking, have a website and portfolio to show off your wow shots
Get good equipment & learn the sport, where to be etc
whew.. got my work cut out for me.
Q1: Someone (Bill?) mentioned the concept of getting a sponsor to pay your fee, in exchange for logos on the photos.. something like that doesnt seem feasible..
Q2: Is Smugmug the way to go? I didnt realize in addition to the fee I pay for Prof package, they also get a cut of every print... and the shipping.
Q3: This may be where I get laughed out the virtual door, but I was going to start with a superzoom.. Which gives an incredible range, w/o lots of glass & $'s. After all, am still in 'proof of concept' stage. Originally was after the Fuji X-S1 with manual zoom, but too many tech issues. What finally convinced me was the Panasonic DMC Fz200, which somehow manages to keep a crisp image, F2.8, fairly low noise @ decent ISOs across its entire zoom range. For $600 and change, I had to try it.
Thanks for weighing in
Dave In New Bern, NC
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Phil
"You don't take a photograph, you make it." ~Ansel Adams
Phil
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
What? Maybe if you are full time and processing thousands of files a week. Otherwise a $1500 iMac will do very nicely.
T3i kit + 70-200/4L = $1280. It can do it. I did it with a 30D and a 70-200/4LIS. But you have to be good and shoot a lot and delete a lot. No amount of equipment can make up for the common mistakes like shooting while standing, shooting into the sun, etc.
But I'm afraid, Dave, if your level of understanding leads you to think a point-n-shoot can do it, then you are probably lacking in technique. Get a real camera and practice for yourself before you try to sell anything to anybody and embarrass yourself. (not trying to be mean, just trying to look out for you.)
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Additionally, with shooting on spec (stands for shooting on speculation - shoot first, hope for sales later) like you want to do, you need great shots of EVERY competitor because you don't know who will buy. Which means every shot has to count. You won't have the luxury of 2 out of 100 shots being useful like the friends/family do.
They're going to have similar quality gear to what you want to use and the luxury of taking a lot more photos than you. So, your potential market is people competing who have no friends/family that watch them and take photos. That's a very small target market. The ones that DO have friends/family are very likely going to look at your photos and say: gee, I'm not in the gallery or those are nice but my friend took like a dozen photos that are pretty much the same quality - they're already on my facebook page so I'm good.
To start with, I advertised heavily beforehand: emails to the coaches with some of my shots in SI and other media; shameless self-promotion (an ability I don't come by naturally); hard copies of fliers--again with pix from SI and Stanford soccer--with links to a website and galleries, which were passed out to parents by volunteers at every game. I covered 49 of the 52 teams that played over two days, thanks to a very precise schedule my wife figured out that maximized coverage. I shot with two cameras, a 400mm f/2.8 and a 70-200mm f/2.8. I shot for 12 hours each day, then was up most of the night editing and posting. Each photo was individually edited, just like my take for a pro game. I then sent follow up links to the individual coaches and managers--another day of work--which directed them to their team's gallery.
This probably took 4-5 days of my time in total, a few days of my wife's time to get the schedule set up and create a list of all the email addresses of the coaches and teams (some not so easy to find). It also took 2-3 volunteers working all day Saturday and Sunday, passing out fliers and shamelessly promoting my photos. All in all, about 12-14 person/days of work.
My take? About $3K net sales. I would have rather just written a personal check for that amount...
Dang. You did well.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
I am going to try something different next time - pre-selling print coupons. Say $30 worth of prints for $20. Only in advance or at the game, and I will only do individual portraits for those who buy these. After the game, it's a la carte, no portrait, no discount.
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
'Zactly! $60/team is pretty piss poor. Funny thing though...at our team manager's suggestion, I put up two galleries for all the regular games: one for the team (and free) and one for the opposing team (for sale). I am averaging about $150 per game, all donated to the team fund. Perhaps I am just getting more shots when I shoot the entire game, so that accounts for the difference. In any case, sales account for more than half of the contributions to the team fund.
It's my observation that the money is made from those who are willing to print shots right at the field--even if they are really mediocre to bad. I have no interest in doing this, but I hear that one can do reasonably well.
Again, with limited experience, I think shooting specific games on assignment for specific teams is the way to go. Because I shoot a lot of high school and club games, I routinely get asked to shoot events and games for other high schools and club team. There are some very well-to-do schools where I live, and $500 assignment fees are perfectly fine. If I did have any interest in making money in this area of photography, this is certainly how I'd do it.
Ah well, it certainly could be an anomaly... I actually have not taken any assignments like this; this is just what a couple of schools have offered (and I declined). I'm not sure how sustainable it is. I do know that there are some pretty wealthy private schools in the San Francisco Bay Area, which may explain the offers.
All in all, this seems like a really hard way to make money as a photographer. I do have some photographer friends that do quite well--I'd guess well into the six digits in annual income, based on how they live--but these guys do product photography or fashion/studio work. Not my cup of tea...
I am including software, monitor calibrator, a far amount of hard drive space with backup, website... It all adds up.
PHil
"You don't take a photograph, you make it." ~Ansel Adams
Phil
Well, being a really quantitative type, I'll take a crack at this.
Camera: Let's say a used Canon 50d as a minimum. $500
Lens: Need a decent lens...maybe an old 70-200mm f/2.8 non IS @$1000
Peripherals: cards and readers, calibrator, stuff, $300??
Computer: Most people have a computer already, so this doesn't really factor in.
Software: LR, PS, or something similar: $0 for freeware to $500 for the real thing.
That's a pretty basic kit coming in around $2K (and I haven't even counted the computer). It would take a bit of sales to even recover these costs.
All that said, I suspect a person who markets well would do better than I do with a much more expensive kit!
This isn't wedding photography. Its spec sports shooting. You COULD do this with iPhoto. Or spend $79 or so on Aperture (what I use). Nearly zero need for Photoshop. Used 40D (I used that for motorsports) or 50D. Used 70-200/2.8. $150 in hard disk space. No need at all for monitor calibration. Backup? Those photos for spec shooting lose value fast.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu