 Thomas J. Alphenaar |
Sports photography question This summer I shot quite a few baseball pictures, and am currently shooting volleyball inside gyms. I've tried to sell my pictures internet-based as opposed to printing them on site. For baseball, I marketed to the parents with a contact sheet and emailed them about 30 days before the pictures were removed from the website. I did sell a few, but not much. 1 parent from each of 2 baseball teams purchased a collection of pictures. I'm specifically shooting action shots that most parents don't usually capture. Has anyone done any of this work? Is there more success if the pictures are printed at the ball diamond instead of trying to get them to visit the website? I was trying to keep the "busyness" to a minimum at the ballpark. Almost all the parents visited the website and viewed the pictures,(they have to log in, so I can view the report)and 3-5 other parents told me they were going to order them, but never did. I was thinking there would be a little better market than this, but I'm wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or the market is not there. These were baseball all-star teams with a lot of parental support. If anybody has any information or experience in this area, I would appreciate some help.
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Mark Feldstein |
I don't know if this is a sports photo question, or one that concerns marketing or whether it's one involving image theft. First, it's kind of significant change shooting sports over landscape work although I like your St. Jo lighthouse shot. And it's a difference between shooting sports outdoors vs. indoors. So, it may be your sales are down first, because one parent from each team is buying them and duplicating them without your permission. It wouldn't be the first time. You can reduce the odds of that happening in a number of ways I guess. Or if it's an image quality problem, post them or tell us where your website is so we can offer some suggestions on how to improve. Insofar as marketing is concerned, marketing involves a lot of different techniques and aspects. It's not quite as simple as it may seem. Maybe you need to fine tune that procedure too. And perhaps before we can lend you expertise you can help clarify the situation for us so we can be more specific in our responses. What do YOU think may be happening between the time they look at at the site vs. the time for ordering??
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Thomas J. Alphenaar |
I appreciate the input. The website is: alphenaarphotography.lifepics.com and to view 1 of the teams baseball pictures the event code is "12". You will have to enter an email address to continue, but if you want to check the website and respond to any quality issues, that may help. I'm wondering is there's too many pictures for the parents to work through, or they get busy and forget about them. I think I have somewhere around 364 pictures of that team in that event. I have a problem dumping any picture that I think a parent may want (how do you know?).I also wondered about theft, but the parents who purchased, only purchased pictures of their son. I'm sure they could duplicate the ones they bought, if someone in the family wanted them, but other parents would probably only want pictures of their own child. I guess it's a marketing question at this point, unless somebody views the pictures and sees some quality issues. Thanks for any input anyone might have.
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Debbie Del Tejo |
Thomas, You have also to figure that a child does not only play one game....how many pictures of the child do I need of him/her playing baseball or any other sport. The official team and individual photograph (one a year) is sufficient for most parents...because they also have to buy school photos, birthday etc etc....so most parents take action shots with their own digital cameras or an aunt or uncle or grandparent may have brought their camera to a game...I think lots of photographers think that there would be a great market for this, but think about it...how many photos does one need to ACTUALLY PURCHASE in one spors season.
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Mark Feldstein |
Wellllllllllll Tom, after getting your instructions, I can think of a number of issues that may be impacting your sales. But first Debbie has made an excellent point: How many photos does a parent need of a kid in one sport during a year? Which brings me to the second point. Your gallery has a lot of nearly identical shots in it. If I were you, I'd edit them before putting them up for sale. This is a problem when you use a motor drive, winder, or auto advance system. If you look closely at your shots, you'll see what I mean. Afterall, you're selling still photos not making a motion picture. So, your images have to stand on their own and evoke some kind of a feeling in the viewer without music and additional shots. Seewhatimeanhuh? And...looking at the quality of your work, remember the purpose of baseball caps is to shade the eyes from direct sun which in turn, shades the eyes and makes the kids somewhat hard to recognzize without their team name or number showing. Just a thought. Great sports action shots are tough to get, especially in mid-day sunlight because the faces, particularly the eyes go into dark shadows. In indoor volleyball, you've got the same problem but it stays the same beause the angle of the lighting (the ceiling lights instead of sunlight) never changes. Fill flash, but that raises a whole different set of problems. Also, I noticed technical problems accessing your photos at that web site. I kept getting error messages to the point I was going to just give up. Finally, I gained access but it's a somewhat complicated process which may be turning people off. And a website name should be short enough for people to remember without necessarily using business cards or cheat sheets to find it. That's a marketing issue, I guess. Here's two suggestions: #1, shoot sports portraits as the official team photographer and offer packages because this onesy-twosey deal can't provide you with enough in sales to make a viable income. And/OR #2, get a portfolio of good action shots and go to the local newspaper to get assignments to shoot games at a flat fee per game or per hour, etc., but learn how to use daylight fill flash or wait until the player's face isn't in such deep shadow. And yes, that depends on the time the games starts but sometimes you just gotta wait.
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Manny Valencia |
Parents love action shots. Everyone has a portrait, but action shots are hard to come by. One of the biggest comments I receive is that they (parents) cannot get close to the action or that the timing is off. I would suggest shooting a team and then printing some 4x6 of that game. Then you can go to the next game and sell the pictures for a small fee and take orders for enlargements. Make sure you have most if not all of the kids because parents want to see their kids. Make sure you take your camera because you may get business at that time. If you have ever been to a tournament you may have noticed a photographer taking pictures, printing them, and selling them on the same day. I think this is a convenience for the parents because many times, the pictures are not really action shots, but they sell. Parents that attend sporting events don't really have much free time. You may have to make it as convenient as you can if you want these as clients. Hope this helps.
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Raymond H. Kemp |
I took a look at your website and noticed a few things that may steer some business away. Your images will need to take a little more “professional” look to get some of your possible sales to say “yes”. One, the backgrounds are very distracting! Take a look a pro sports photos and you will see the player pop right out of the images while the background falls into a nice soft blur. Chain link fences, telephone poles and even spectators are taking away the nice action of the players. So open your lens aperture wider (smaller f-stop number) to help achieve a shallower depth of field. You may want to shoot at aperture priority. Two, the color is flat. The grass for instance should green up better. Use Photoshop curves to boost contrast. Kick up the saturation to punch up the colors as well. You’ll be surprised what a couple of minor post editing touches will do to your images. Don’t worry too much about the shadow on the faces from the ball caps. Pros have the same problem but as in your images there is still enough detail in the shadow without it going completely black. Anyhow there is enough detail that Photoshop can lighten the shadow and expose more detail of the players face if need be. Forget fill flash, a lot of your images are of outfielders and at that distance fill flash is useless. Again you have enough detail in the shadows to pull out with Photoshop. I’m not sure you will find this a very lucrative business on its own. There are a lot of people at games with digital cameras and I think that alone will give you a tough run for your money. You’re on the right track getting images that normal PS cameras can’t get. Now try to get your images to take on a look that they’ve been shot by an SI photographer. Good luck! Ray
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