No appreciation for what I feel are decent photos

[MetroRuss]

Hello all,

Im brand new to the hockey family culture. I offered to take the photos of a minor hockey association for their marketing and web presence in my city. Since it is a youth program, it is expected that parents volunteer. The director of marketing accepted my offer and gave me a wish list of about a dozen different action shot, locker room shots, and other various happy faced kids.

I am taking a lot of shots and vids of the team my child is on, not just of him but of the whole team, coaches included. Trying to capture a theme of team feeling of hard work and practicing hard will lead to more success.

Ive got about 56 GB (1800 photos) of jpg/raw after 5 weeks of practices and 6 games. It is a lot of OOF and bad composition shots to weed through.

So I went through a file that had 750 shots in it of 2 games and found many keepers of almost everyone on the team. The lighting was nice at this arena. Then they were PP resized to 1250 X 833 and watermarked.

2 days ago I posted 36 photos up in the team app that we use where everyone gets notified when the team chat is used.

So far I have not gotten a single online reply about them. However this morning at a hockey practice 1 father said he liked them.

So it comes down to this, yes, I would like to be appreciated for taking the time to shoot, sort, PP and post photos of their kids. I dont want their money. I just wanted to be a nice guy and make some people around me happy.

Does anyone have any experience with this reaction that I find strange?

Example photos below. BTW I am not a sports photographer.

 

[The_Traveler]

Ime, this is a common phenomenon. I did very extensive pro bono photography for a local non-profit in MD and was rarely thanked.
I think that there are three contributing factors: people don't realize the effort it takes to produce good work, people can't 'see' the difference between good and mediocre work, people don't value what they don't pay for.
Do this because you can and want to help. Do this because you enjoy it. If you do this shooting expecting thanks, ime you will be disappointed.

 

[Overread]

Remember:
1) Nearly everyone today owns a camera in some form - it might be a DSLR, a point and shoot, a mirrorless or even the camera in their phone (which are not that bad today). So the act of taking a photograph isn't alien to most; and they are generally happy with point-shoot-auto mode results.
This takes some of the mystery out of photography for them - to them its easy and when they hear a DSLR go clikcliclickclick they thing every click is a great shot (its a DSLR its a REALLY good camera!)

Basically its ignorance of the process and the time involved.

2) People are lazy - commenting takes time and this is why many forums have seen huge drops in member uptake since facebook became mainstream - people just go there. Same for comments on photos - evne if it takes 5 seconds to register to comment many won't bother. They'll look and say "nice photo" to themselves and then move on.

3) Bombardment. We are bombarded by so much media all day long that its overwhelming to most people. So they get very blasé about it.

4) Targeted - your photos are just a mish mash of everyone. If you were to go through and put tags/names on each person perhaps even put each one in a folder it would have a very different effect. Of course that takes even more time and organisation - fine if you're being paid for it and not if you're not.

5) It's free - yeah sometimes slapping on some watermarks and a professional website and a £20 price per photo and suddenly people can treat you totally differently than a flickr page with open access.




In the end I agree with Traveller - do it because you like and enjoy doing it and don't bother if you don't want to. You're not under obligation and its your free time.

 

[Designer]

Overread is spot on with his reply. Read it over several times.

As to getting better shots; make sure you have the focus and exposure where they need to be, and then learn to crop down to the essence of each shot. Yes, you're not always going to see/shoot/frame an ideal shot every time, but just a little bit of editing can make a worthwhile difference.

 

[tirediron]

In addition to the excellent advice above, some improvement in technique might help. First and foremost: Learn how to shoot 'two-eyed' that is: Your dominant eye is glued to the view-finder and doesn't come away from it. Your non-dominant eye tracks and anticipates the action so you can anticipate where the play is going to go. Single-point, continuous AF and centre-weighted metering are likely your friends here.

There are two types of images you're going after. One is the documentary image; the play, the action, etc. In general, this should have at least two players (whose face you can see) and the puck. You want to avoid, to the greatest extent possible, "bits" of other players, sticks, etc in the shot. The second type is the 'hero' shot; that is, the image which shows (usually) a single player in action. Designer's re-work of your last image is a good example of that.

This is something that takes a lot of time and practice to get good at. It's also an area where equipment makes a real difference. A couple of mid-range or better bodies coupled to fast (2.8 or better) pro-level zooms will allow you capture far more of the action.

 

[MetroRuss]

Ime, this is a common phenomenon. I did very extensive pro bono photography for a local non-profit in ME and was rarely thanked.
I think that there are three contributing factors: people don't realize the effort it takes to produce good work, people can't 'see' the difference between good and mediocre work, people don't value what they don't pay for.
Do this because you can and want to help. Do this because you enjoy it. If you do this shooting expecting thanks, ime you will be disappointed.

Hi Traveller,
I do enjoy taking my photos and your points are well received.

Thank you!

 

[MetroRuss]

Hi Overread,
Breaking it down the way you did, makes it easier to see and digest what our society has become with the advancement of digital devices and 12mp cameras in everyones pocket.

Thanks!

 

[MetroRuss]

Hi Designer,

Thank you for the tips. These shots were taken last year before my son started playing hockey. These guys are one level down from the NHL so I posted these shots instead of the kids shots in order to respect their right to privacy.

Since then, I have realized that over 85% of my sports shots do need the composition cropping since it is not a landscape shot from a tripod. Thus the 56 GB of shots that sit waiting for attention.

It sure does make a massive difference, and then 7pm turns into 11pm in moments.

 

[MetroRuss]

In addition to the excellent advice above, some improvement in technique might help. First and foremost: Learn how to shoot 'two-eyed' that is: Your dominant eye is glued to the view-finder and doesn't come away from it. Your non-dominant eye tracks and anticipates the action so you can anticipate where the play is going to go. Single-point, continuous AF and centre-weighted metering are likely your friends here.

There are two types of images you're going after. One is the documentary image; the play, the action, etc. In general, this should have at least two players (whose face you can see) and the puck. You want to avoid, to the greatest extent possible, "bits" of other players, sticks, etc in the shot. The second type is the 'hero' shot; that is, the image which shows (usually) a single player in action. Designer's re-work of your last image is a good example of that.

This is something that takes a lot of time and practice to get good at. It's also an area where equipment makes a real difference. A couple of mid-range or better bodies coupled to fast (2.8 or better) pro-level zooms will allow you capture far more of the action.

Great advice! Thank you tirediron!

 

[Derrel]

When it comes to free photos, people are generally ungrateful.

 

[SquarePeg]

Derrel nailed it. I take a ton of photos of our rec softball league and of my daughter's high school field hockey team. All are shared on social media (Facebook for the parents, Instagram for the kids). If I were doing it for thanks or appreciation I would have stopped a long time ago. As for sharing on the team app - that could be part of the lack of response. Maybe save up the best ones for a slide show during the end of the season banquet if there is one...

Do it because you enjoy it and/or because it helps you improve your skills and to have your scrap book that your family will cherish.

 

[Dave442]

I have found that just putting up one photo at a time is usually the best option for receiving a response on a group forum. Sure it is nice to have a record of action from the game, but posting all the images is like having your aunt start showing you every image from her last trip.

Designer did a couple nice edits and any single image similar to those that you edit and post from your kids game would have people looking forward to your image from the next game.

A few thoughts...
People don't have time to look at a bunch of images, much less comment on them.
Eliminate as much distraction from around the subject as possible to grab the viewer.
Good composition to keep the viewers attention.

 

[The_Traveler]

Since you allow editing/critique, I'd like to make a couple of points.

Make the part of the image that is the point fill as much of the frame as possible without losing the context. I cropped this so that the goalie is larger and at the thirds but kept the other players in for context.
Minimize the distracting effect of stuff that detracts from the important area. I darkened the spectators and lens-blurred the other players a bit. Then darkened everything but the goalie and puck
Maximize any stuff that adds to the photo. Added contrast to the ice and removed the overall blue cast to make it a bit more appealing and 3dimensional.

While more could be done, (sharpening the goalie and adding more contrast to give the photo some pop ) in the end, this photo lacks the real acute sharpness that one generally wants in sports shots.

 

[Derrel]

I have to agree with the above idea: you want the "essence", but leaving the other players in gives context. In many cases, cropping out other,opposing players leaves us with a larger image of one player, but the player can be isolated, stranded within a frame, without the context of the game. Context is important!

 

[DGMPhotography]

I think everyone here has given good advice so far.

I'm not a fan of The Traveler's edit, though. I agree with darkening/blurring the spectators, but it looks like the whole image was darkened, and the white balance became yellow for some reason so that the whites don't look white anymore. That might be a monitor issue.

One thing I would add is that a lot of people won't feel compelled to comment on something, especially if it's not relevant to them specifically. If you want feedback, why not ask for it?

Did you say anything when you uploaded the photos? I might have added something like, "hey everyone, the coach had me take some shots of the team. Here are some of the finished shots - what do you think?"

People are lazy, but a prompt might help.