selling pics...

[V.Alonso]

ok i know this question has been asked about a million times, but i relly have a dilema

my little cousin plays football for a park locally, i went today, because my aunt wanted me to take pic of him and the team during practice. so i was there shooting away when my aunt mentions to me that the other parents were asking if i was just taking pics of my cousin or if i was taking pics of everyone... on my way home my aunt tells me that there was a father last year that would take pics, develop them and sell them to the parents at $8 for an 8x10

now i was thinking and doing the math...
it costs me $3 to develop an 8x10 , if i sell it for 5 or 6 bucks im making like 2 bucks a print i think that $8 a print is kinda expensive, but people would buy it

so i guess my question is this

is it worth it to sell the pics for like 5 dollars and make a profit of $2 or do you think it wouldent sell....

thanks for input:thumbup:

 

[AprilRamone]

Hmm...I think that really depends. I probably wouldn't want to deal with the hassle of taking a bunch of different parent's orders only to make $2 off of them unless I already had a really organized system and was planning to do it often. I guess you just have to figure out a way to do it that's easy for you, otherwise you might be spending more time on this endeavor than you like.
Or maybe it would be a good way to get your foot in the door with a sports photography business.
Good luck!

 

[V.Alonso]

thanks

i was thinking that i would have them pre printed, and whoever wanted to buy a print would just buy it

 

[markc]

Don't forget to factor your time into the equation.

 

[Peanuts]

Now I have no experience or knowledge on the subject, but I would doubt that pre-printing would be overly profitable. The risk of people not buying the images with only their child in it (which no one else will want to purchase) or more then one person wanting a copy of a single image would be too high (in my opinion). Just a quick thought (which has obviously not been combed for the numerous errors) is that if you want to pursue this, a possible idea is to set up a public account (perhaps on flickr or pbase) with the images. At the game or on the internet you can provide an order form, which the parents can fill out and send back with the ID number of the photo(s) and desired size. Give a week for people to respond, then order these all at once. When you retrieve the order, you might want to have your cousin take the printed images to their next game to distribute and collect the money (which you have confirmed to each individual upon receiving your order)

Whoah, lots of work. But it can be done (somehow) good luck

 

[V.Alonso]

thanks for the ideas guys

as of now, its just a concept, im not doing anything just yet

 

[ksmattfish]

now i was thinking and doing the math...
it costs me $3 to develop an 8x10 , if i sell it for 5 or 6 bucks im making like 2 bucks a print i think that $8 a print is kinda expensive, but people would buy it

$8 for an 8"x10" is cheap. I would double your costs, and then add what you wanted to make. $12 for an 8"x10" print is still very reasonable.

 

[DOR-a]

With the photos that I've sold to the local fire dept and just people in general, I post it online with a watermark on it. People either via email, phone, or in person then tell me the file name and size of the photo that they want. This way seems to be the easiest. It serves as a portfolio as well as a more convenient way for people to order photos from you. You can go the more tech like way and make your own website or using something like http://www.flickr.com

=) Whitney

 

[Luke]

thats not a dilema you know, look it up. And only you can solve your problem, are you willing to take on extra work for a meagre sum?

 

[wjastrow]

People really have no sense of the >size< of a print nor what it costs.

It's not clear to me if you're working in film or digital, although, I suspect film in this instance.

Either way, the best compromise I would suggest is getting a set of 4x6 prints (very affordable) and bring those to the next game. Let parents (and this is a bit of a sticky wicket, because I'm not sure how you regulate who is purchasing what; a parent may not appreciate images of their child being made available to an admiring public) place orders from you for the larger size of print. You could charge a premium for a framed version as well.

Good luck with this venture.

 

[markc]

One thing that should probably be mentioned is that you might get into trouble doing this. A lot of parents would like the idea, but since you really should have releases from all of them for their kids, someone who know's this might stir things up. It's using someone's likeness for commercial purposes.

From http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2006-08-11-photography-rights_x.htm

For example, if you shoot individual kids playing in a school football game, you can't try to sell those shots to the parents; the kids have a right to the use of their likeness. You can sell photos of the game in general, though, and any shots where what's happening ("A player celebrates a goal") is more important than who's doing it ("Star running back John Doe takes a momentary rest").

 

[srobb]

Hopefully, you don't mind info from a newbie to the board here. Going by your equipment listed, looks like you shoot digital; not that it matters. Something you could look into besides a place like flickr are other sites where you can have your own site. You can upload pics you take there and have people look at them there. The hosting site takes care of everything else having to do with ordering/printing prints for your customers.

I have a friend that does the same type thing for his local school teams. After the games he has cards he passes out to all the parents with his name and the website on them. It does cost like $99 a year, but he is very happy with it. Here is the link to the site if you want to check it out. www.printroom.com

 

[kulakova]

woo! 8x10?? is it in santimeters or inches??? or what??
what it will be in sm???

 

[V.Alonso]

it is in inches

 

[JIP]

Whatever you do, do not undersell your pictures if people purchase your work cheap they may percieve it as cheap. I agree with ksmatt, at least double your expenses unless you plan on selling a ton of pics why spend a day shooting and hustling around to get prints made to make peanuts? when you finish this look back and try to calculate what you made per hour on this project and then figure out how much an 8x10 is really worth. Remember you are not just selling a sheet of paper you are selling your talent and skill, your time and, especially the wear and tear on your valuable camera equipment.