Sports Photography Business Advice

[bishaj]

I apologize in advance but I'm asking a lot here. All your feedback and advice is appreciated.

My philosophy for my sports photography is to offer something different than the typical picture day (no offense meant to those who do this at all) by putting in more time and work to do action photography at a reasonably competitive price for what the customer is getting now.

1. My business is still very new so one thing I have been doing this past winter/fall is shooting wrestling meets and soccer matches and handing out information on my website for people to review the images and purchase if they are interested. Don't get me wrong there have been sales, but not nearly what I thought they would be and certainly not enough to justify the time and effort. It hasn't really resulted in any additional work, but there have been a lot of great compliments. I'm just not sure where the disconnect comes in between compliments and actual sales. I'm curious if others do similar work with better results? At this point I make 1 sale for about every 10-15 hits on my site. While I am sanctioned by the clubs I think I'm working against the fact that there is still a normal 'picture day' where another photographer is coming to do the team photos and posed indiviuals. I'm in the middle of preparing a proposal to try and take over this part of the business for the club but incorporate my action photography focus into it by giving folks the option of selecting action photos. I'm still working through the logistics but my big hangup is weather have people order in advance and I select the images for their package or to do the shoot and have them review the site and submit their orders. I'm not sure if the urgency of 'this is your chance to order' would result in more sales or whether I'm leaving a lot on the table in terms of orders from those who didn't thing they wanted it at first or even repeat business from those who did. I feel like I'm reinventing the wheel!

The other peice of my business is when a team (such as a travel team) hires me to do their pictures. For a minimum fee of $300 I go to their game, shoot warmups and and whole game and do team photos. I've only done one of these so far but the feedback was really really good and one of the parents tried to have me do their swim club but they (the team administration) felt obligated (their words) to their current photog who does the picture day pictures but no action.

2. Expiring galleries, to do or not to do? I've been doing them and I do tend to see a couple extra orders before a gallery expires, but once again I wonder if I'm leaving business on the table.

3. I realize that maybe the issue is image quality. I'm working to improve everyday, but that doesn't mean I have arrived yet. I'd love it if people wanted to review some of my work. My website is Elite Action Photography. Passwords for the images in the U10 Team Area (under all my photos and soccer) is odsl. My most recent work is there. Password for the crossover team (the job I was direct hired for is hammond).

Thanks for any feedback you ahve and thanks for looking!

In case it comes up I'm using a Canon 40D with the 70-200L IS USM Mk II

[Jim Poor]

1. If you can show images on site, sales will go up. Even better if you can actually sell them too, but at least let folks see their images on the day of the event and sales will go up.

2. Yes. Create some sense of urgency. I do it three ways. % off for the first 10 days of the gallery; Gallery expires in 45 days (I've done 30 and 60, but 45 seems to be the sweet spot); charge a fee or require a minimum order to reactivate a gallery.
Do you send a "gallery about to expire" email?

3. No time for that at the moment, but I'm sure someone else will take a peak.

[bishaj]

Thanks Jim! I don't currently send the gallery expiration reminders because I was afraid that by requiring people to input their email when they check the galleries I would lose people.

I checked out your site and your work is terrific!

[Jim Poor]

I don't require an email address to view the galleries, so I only get the emails of those who register. I do encourage registration by talking about what it does for the client. Yes, I miss a few who just browse without registering, but I don't think they are the buyers anyway for the most part.

[Jim Bryant]

I've done the same here for the past two years. All I get is, "Great shots!" but not too many sales to make it worth my while to go out and waste my time shooting, editing and processing.

With all those moms and pops with their digital camera and lens kits are basically killing the market by providing parents the photos on a CD at the end of the season during the team awards dinner.

So, why should they spend money for top quality sports pictures, when they they are free?

I've found the money goes towards super sizing their fast food meals.

What I'm doing now is contacting the various team parents group and offer to take pixs of five players per game for $50.00 each. I pick six images, put them on CD and upload the rest to my website for future sales. Seems to work thus far. I'm getting more reservations a game from the other parents.

[Jim Bryant]

bishaj --
1. - One thing I noticed is the horizon is crooked in some of your photos. You need to straighten while shooting.
2. - Shoot from the ground level by kneeling or sitting on your butt. I've also attended events, sit in a fold up chair with either my 300 or 400mm (on a monopod) and capture those action pics of players coming right at me. A mono pod will also give support to camera and lens while shooting in dimly lite conditions.
3. - While most photographers just take T & I shots, offer a sports action business. That way you are stepping on their business and they aren't yours. When parents start noticing your pictures and then ask about T & I, tell them to voice their concerts to the team administration.
4. Keep the ball in the frame and in focus. There's nothing that will kill your business more is by posting soft photographs.
Good luck!

[savannahphilo]

I am trying to think of a name for a small sports photography business. We will also do some portrait work, photo DVDs, and possibly other things down the road so the name can't be too photography specific (in other words - no ABC Photography).Our names are very unusual and difficult to say so we can't go that route.

[Walkere]

As for business advice, Jim and Jim seem to have that covered. I'm in a bit of an odd situation; I'm in charge of the yearbook for the high school at which I teach. In terms of selling both yearbooks and pictures of sporting events, I find that people are more likely to buy things when they can talk to you and hand over cash (or a credit card) in person. Send them to a website after the fact, and you start losing people. To that end, Jim's idea of contracting with specific parents seems to be a good one...

As for the quality of the photography, I generally like the soccer stuff. It's one of my least favorite sports to photograph. The wrestling pictures, on the other hand, have a lot of noise in them. Trust me, I know what a pain the lighting can be in these venues... but you've got a good lens and a good camera. Are you cropping in tightly after the fact (that would exacerbate the noise)? Are you doing noise reduction in photoshop or lightroom (Lightroom 2/3 does some great noise reduction now)? They just seem grainier than they should be.

I've seen other photographers set up wireless speedlites at wrestling matches before. If your venue/league allows that, it might help eliminate the noise and create a crisper image.

- Brian

[bishaj]

Thanks so much for the feedback guys!

Jim, I'm curious, when you do the shoots where you do five players do you include prints in the price or is that extra? Regarding keeping the ball in frame and in focus do you think I should be using a deeper depth of field? I've been trying go for the bokeh as much as possible so I was shooting at 2.8 all the time, but I've recently opened up to 4 and been getting better results. You absolutly called on my horizons, I try to make sure I catch them all, but I'm still working on it.

Walkere; Thanks. You are right on the wrestling stuff, the noise has been killing me since I tend to have to shoot at at least 1600. Some gyms I luck out and do 800 but that is getting really lucky. One knock I have on my 40d is that things do get noisy quick above 1250 or so, but since I can't upgrade just yet, it will have to do. I don't really have the equipment to do the off camera flash, but even if I did, I disagree with the practice as I think it's distracting to the athletes. Just my opinion, doesn't make me right. It was late in wrestling season when I got my 70-200 and that helped a lot because I was using the 85 1.8 and doing some pretty heavy cropping as you correctly called. I'm also looking to get lightroom in the fall as I'm really excited about the possiblities there.

[Jim Bryant]

I offer just 5 5x7 size prints, if they want anything larger, they can be ordered on my website.
To capture the ball in the frame with the pitcher, just get either to the right, left or center of catcher behind the backstop. With the 40D, I believe it's not as fast an image capture as my MKII's (8.5 frames per second), so you'll have to anticipate the action in throwing, pitching, hitting and fielding to get the ball in the frame. Just takes practice and a lot of patience as well as knowledge of the sporting event you are covering.