On Photo Students Being Taken Seriously

I got an e-mail from a high school photo student I met recently. He was asking how to be taken seriously enough to make money from his good sports photos of his friends.

A few basic business things do help… acting like a business person, being professional, being on time, always delivering on time, tracking orders and payments very well, and guaranteeing that they’ll love your photos or they don’t have to pay. But it’s tricky. And I find that today, people are fine with an average snapshot for free (taken on their cell phone!), compared to an amazing photo for $10… You just have to find the niche’ where people appreciate great shots and you can give them good value.

He was a great kid and I love to see that kind of initiative and entrepreneurship (and he took nice photos to boot!). I wish him well.

Here was our conversation:

i’m the photographer

of monroe high school i dont know if you remember me.

You bet… I enjoyed looking at your photos, and it was impressive that you’ve already had photos published!

i can take any picture but i need more expirience in this jobbecause in this work is easier to find problems that take a picture.I’m taking pictures in the volleyball games in the school and i sell the photos to save money to buy the camera I want
but the people do not take me seriously and do not like pay me

Yes, that’s a big issue. Even when I sold photos to friends, they sometimes thought they should just get them all for free. Tough issue. I totally believe in being nice and giving lots away, but then you spend lots of money on the camera and lots of time taking the photos.
Maybe what you could do is offer to the parents something like this… for $20 (or whatever you think is fair & they’ll pay) you’ll take lots of photos at a few games, really focusing on their child and then you’ll just give them the photos on CD. That way they totally know up front there is a cost, but that you really are working for them, not just taking a lucky snapshot and trying to sell them something… If you have 3 or 4 parents do that per season, it could be worthwhile.

Or maybe even go further and say you’ll get one nice portrait of them in their game clothes after a game, and that’s part of the package… maybe throw in a print or something. I don’t know… but the idea is… what can you do to make it so much more than the parent can do themselves and it’s worth some money to them.
And if you are making money this way, make sure they are getting tons more than they expect, and if you just can’t get good photos of their kid… don’t charge them and give them what you take for free. Maybe that can be your guarantee.
Maybe go to the first game of the season and give away all of those shots, or share them on Facebook in smaller sizes… that’s good free advertising, and people can see you take good photos, and aren’t *just* out for the money, you are willing to share.
So that’s one idea. After you get enough money, you can use online labs like Smugmug.com and sell prints for more than they cost you… but there’s usually a yearly cost to do that. Also check out Printroom.com… see if either of them have smaller yearly plans for free.
Or maybe you could try this… print all the nice shots from a few games… post them for free on facebook, Flickr, etc and tell your friends they can grab them for free… but that you’ll have prints in school for $1 per 4×6 (or whatever)… or you print them up ahead of time, and just have all the 4×6’s. That’s what I did. Had them all with me… sold them pretty cheap per print. At the end of the season you can give the extras to the coach or yearbook.

and I do not like that because nobody in that school can take picture as
which I take. i think – I do not think myself better than anyone thats whay

I need advice about working in this business.

thanks    

It’s good you know you do a good job. Look at lots of photos and what good photographers do and keep improving. But deep inside, knowing you are good will help a lot in tough times.
I’ll post this question to my blog (without your name of course) so other students can learn as well.

Keep it up and shout with any more questions…

YMCA Invest in Youth Victory Dinner…70’s Style

You can’t deny it… the YMCA is outa sight man:

The Y celebrated shattering all previous goals for their ‘Invest in Youth’ campaign (Helps families afford Y services and so many kids to go to camp). I had an amazing time and they even gave me one stylin’ shirt to wear

   

With my Y groovy gals: Karen, Katie, Heather and Mary Kay (who thinks these things up!)

See More:

Slideshow

Gallery & Prints

URMC A Toast to Your Health Wine Auction: A really amazing night!

I’ve been fortunate to be involved in this event for over 5 years and it just keeps getting better. It is hosted by Danny and Stenci Wegman and each year the money donated goes to fun two things… one is specific department at the Med Center, and the other project is a community-wide health need. This year’s URMC department was the burn and trauma center, and the community project was to fund special emergency room beds. What a great time for a good cause.

A Christmas Story at Geva Theatre Wrapup

Better than the movie… but you expect that from Geva It was a great run and Colin and Lydia got to go see the show with me too, which was a blast.

Remi Sandri is fantastic as ‘the old man’

This is what Geva adds to this version… some really nice heart with the young romance and the parents love…

Brigitt Markusfeld gets two thumbs up from me too as Miss Shields… she’s wonderful in all of the teacher dream sequences too.

Dream sequence…
too many LIfe Buoy
mouth washings…

The dangers of a ‘double-dog dare’

BW Laser Printer?

Q: A friend asked if I had any thoughts on getting a good BW laser printer to use with his Macs.

A: Ken Said

I liked my old HP… I did have issues with it sucking in speciality stuff properly over time (like envelopes going in double, etc). But it was a nice unit. At this point, you really might want to just go for a color laser and choose BW option (we have a ‘BW cheaper’ preset made on all our Macs… to save the money. But the color units are so common and reasonable in price. I LOVE the output quality of my OKI C5500 and I compared lots of units and really liked it better than the color HPs in the same price range for graphic arts stuff. BUT their Mac support is dismal (I’m actually the one who had to come up with a Kludge for using it without drivers under Leopard… and I told them what to recommend!) And they still don’t have a decent, easy driver out (since Tiger!)… So my next unit will be a Xerox Phaser I think, although it’ll double my per page cost. I do use generic toner in the OKI and that’s gone pretty well. After 2 years, I have needed to replace drums which wasn’t cheap… If you only want BW, do check out the HPs. I was always buying the smallest ones meant for small business/home office… not the ‘consumer’ units… so maybe that’s part of the issue as well, I usually was paying a fair amount for my model and then did like the output. I think they all come with Ethernet at that level too.

Hope that helps some.

More on this topic HERE

Shoots Potpourri

I just redid my main web site…

BTW, check it out HERE.

And that means that I’m moving a bunch of shoots off of the home page to their client page… So here’s the list of them in case you’d like a peek at the events & many have slide shows:

• Harley Commencement 2009. I posted some fun shots on Facebook HERE

• For JPMorgan Chase: 3 views of the wet and wonderful Corporate Challenge 2009. ••Photos from Rochester & Buffalo HERE

• ‘Fences’ @ Geva Theatre. • Slide show HERE • All Photos HERE

• Wilmot Cancer Center’s Discovery Ball. Slideshow of great shots HERE

• The Harley School BLAST   was a blast back to the 50’s with Sky Sands MCing the Auction. •• Coolest shots HERE

• Everyone got the Red Carpet Paparazzi treatment at the Eastman House Oscars Party •• Great slideshow HERE

• Sweeney Todd at Geva is a dark comedy/tragedy and amazinly well crafted. Favorite Images • HERE

• RIT’s Father-Daughter Dance was wonderful. All Photos • HERE

• FIRST Robotics Rochester Regional Rolls on. Gallery HERE or see my FaceBook.

• For the George Eastman House opening of TruthBeauty. • • Event Slideshow HERE