More trouble than it's worth?

DJ-S1

I've been taking photos at my son's baseball games and posting them to my smugmug account. Shots like these:








Not exactly magazine worthy, but generally better than Mom and Dad can get with their p&s. The league president has put links to these galleries on the league website so people can check them out. I have a very small markup on prints, mainly so I can see who's buying what. Downloads are free. I have gotten tons of hits, but no sales. Fine with me, as I'm not trying to make money on them - I'm just sharing them.

However, the league president has asked me to crank things up for next season and do this on a larger scale. He says that I should charge more money and charge for downloads too; 10% of the proceeds could go to the league so there's no controversy or upset parents.

I'm not sure this is worth the time and effort. Anyone have any advise for me?

photodoug

I'm not doing that sort of thing for a living, so I can't advise on the business venture. But from what you told us, sounds like HE wants this to happen, but not YOU. His interest is to make more money ( the 10% ).

You're having fun at this point...ready to make it a job? ( and see alot of the fun disappear? )

Just my opinion for what it's worth.

Doug

Shay Stephens

DJ-S1 wrote:

I'm not sure this is worth the time and effort. Anyone have any advise for me?

Don't do it until you *know* it will be worth your time and effort. Otherwise, the project will crash and burn and you will likely be out a chunk of change. It has to be something you are motivated to do. The drive needs to come from within for it to work.

windoze

i have the same exact situation with my sons soccer games. I take pictures for my enjoyment and I share them with the parents online. the league president asked me to do the same and give back 10%, i offered to give back 50% (i feel its my way of contributing to team spirit and costs). I never minded taken and processing the pics when i was doing it for free, but now that I'm expected to do it - ive lost most of my interest and to be truthful, i kind of resent the amount of time I now spend doing it.

DJ-S1

Thanks guys...

JimM

I have been doing it for local youth football. I did it because I love to shoot it. I have spent 4 Saturdays and made over $650 in print profits. I give the team 10% and they help promote me.

The season is over. The end of year banquet is next week. They invited me to set up a table to help promote my work (which I am looking forward to doing). I will not be selling there, but will have an Internet connected laptop for prospects to shop right there on.

Obviously, I am not getting rich, but I like the shooting, love the kids excitement in the prints, and am helping to fund more equipment. I bought a 300mm f/4 IS for this season and with $600 in profits I paid for 2/3 of the lens in one season!

I guess it is up to you. Make sure you mark up the prints accordingly. You have some great work there, you deserve to make a couple of bucks. Feel free to see my "rates" section for my pricing.

FYI: I have noticed the only way to sell the BIG prints is to bring samples to the games and to sell them directly at the games. I have been selling the "20x30 off my back" for $60 on site.

DoctorIt

Honest opinion: If you do "crank it up", it's going to suck time out of your already busy life. Heck, you've got a 3rd on the way!! For the time it sucks out, it will never pay enough. I was involved with a similar situation a couple years back - an enthusiastic dad who wanted to turn it into a business, so he "hired" more shooters to get to more games. I made zero money, he crashed and burned and almost lost his day-job.

Keep it fun, I say.

DJ-S1

Jim, thanks for the insight. I think the difference between you and me is the selling portion. You are out there selling and doing a great job of it. I would hate that part, I just want to shoot and post them and if people like them, then great. Plus there are so many games spread around town; if they were all in one complex then I could walk around and shoot different games when I was at the fields anyway. Making time to go to games when my sons aren't playing will be tough.

Eric, you are right. All these replies have confirmed in my mind that I don't have the required time.

I'll shoot what I can and post them, and that's all.

JimM

I haven't been "selling" them really, the links from the team and the team supporting me have helped in the sales.

Multiple games at multiple locations sounds tough and too much work for me. I only did the home games for the one group of teams (8+ hours of shooting for 4 different games in the same day).

dragon300zx

Well it does boil down to what everyone says. Time. It's alot harder to spend the time on it when you have kids, than when you don't. It's also alot different doing something when you have to do it instead of when you want to do it. Right now if you have over time at work, or a sick kid at home, etc, you can skip and it isn't that big of a deal. If you make it work, try to make it produce income, you loose all of that flexibility.

3 kids, Full time job, your wife (GF, Significant Other, etc), bills, blah thats enough responsability and pressure for me.

Stormdancing

I'm not a seasoned pro, but I did this same thing.

One of my friend sons played in the 4th, 5th 6th grade football.
We took pictures of him in the yard in his uniform. No one was taking team pictures of them and she wanted one.

On a whim I made her a 11x14 collage and had it printed up by SM. We took it to the games and showed it off. I offered to do them for 25 each and include any action shots I could get.

I spent 2 Sat mornings (3 hours each) at our small town football field doing head shots before the game and shooting action shots. Couple hours PP and whipping up some collages and uploading. Did 9 collages.

The Moms and Dads loved it. Bought action shots and the collages both.
The kids loved the camera.
I loved it and had a great deal of fun.
Have been asked back and also to shoot basketball (I don't have the right fast lens - yet)
Made a little mad money for me, made a little for the kids.
Got my name out in front of the locals.
Oh and did I mention I had fun!
If it's not fun - don't do it.

Will I go back next year - yes

Here's the gallery if anyone cares to look.
http://heartsfire.smugmug.com/gallery/1994202

cornerketch

You have to enjoy taking the pictures.. I take an enormous number of pictures of Special Olympics athletes. I do it for my son and all the other athletes. they enjoy the pictures. The friends and families do also..

I make some money 50% go to Special Olympics, the other 50% goes back into buying new or repalcement camera equipment.

This is not going to be a quit your day job money maker, If and Only IF you really enjoy doing this, continue and make some money for new camera equipment.. and take pictures for all the kids..

Above all it's a lot of work, but you can have sooo much fun doing this!

Hank
www.sode.smugmug.com
( Special Olympics Delaware )

johng

My take
Well,
I do sports shooting on the side. I've found it to be a very fickle endevor. It really depends on the parents involved (those are your audience). I shot a single 7 year old soccer game for a neighbor and made $100 on it in discounted sales. Coversely I've spent several games shooting a local HS football team and made zero sales. I was asked by a parent to shoot the local girls HS soccer game earlier this year and did so. during the half time one of the parents from the opposing team came up and asked if I'd get some pictures of a couple of their seniors. I did so. I sold twice as much to those parents, a little to the parents of the home team and the mother that asked me to shoot didn't buy a thing.

Now, for your specific situation: you're practically giving away the prints and you are giving away downloads and you're not getting any sales. So either the parents don't know about your product or they just aren't interested. If you feel comfortable the word was out and parents knew about your product - and you're seeing the hits but no sales then the message is: they aren't interested in your product.

I know from my experience its very frustrating to spend 5 hours shooting and processing a game and make $0 or $20 off it. Just not worth it.

Now, having said all this. If the president is gung-ho about this the I would suggest offering up a package solution. Get some prints made of your work and let the parents see it. Then, have the president survey the parents to see if they'd be willing to pay for a package. If there's enough interest, then agree to it. Set up a shooting schedule to cover each team on a given day (up to 2 games per team if you can) and have the parents either put down a deposit or prepay for a package. The benefit there is: if no parent for a given team wants to prepay then you don't waste your time on that team.

Also, be sure you are contracted with exclusive Sales rites. That is, no other photographer will be allowed to sell to the parents. Any ethical pro out there will respect a contract if you have one.