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 05/22/2006 09:09:14 PM · #1
Fellow dpc'ers,

I have just finished my junior year of high school, and would like to be hired as the school's athletic photographer next year. Each year the athletic department purchases several (8 this year) 20x30's of the high school athletes in action. I believe this year's files were free (as advertisement for local businesses), and the school paid some place to print the 20x30's. Here is my dilemma: I need new equipment (the plan is 20d and 70-200 2.8, accessories), which I would like to purchase with money earned solely from this job, but the athletic department can't pay me $2k. I have considered sales to parents of athletes and to newspapers, but don't know if these are good ideas or if there are other opportunities.

I would be elated if I could just pay for the equipment with this job (suppose I would get a little bit for my drebel, too), but before I get the equipment I need to be sure I can earn $2k. HOW CAN I GET THIS MONEY FROM THE SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY? Any questions, comments, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thank you,
Luke
 05/22/2006 09:13:30 PM · #2
from one teenager to another,

is it possible for you to get the money from somewhere else?

if so, the best way i would think to do this is by selling your prints to local restaurants and stores. I know that many store owners like supporting the youth of towns. Also selling prints to the parents is a great idea.

-Dan
 05/22/2006 09:15:48 PM · #3
If you will be able to photograph games you could easily make big money from the parents. Think of this, you get a photo of a wide reciever laid out 6 inches from the ground or dragging his toes as he stays in bounds for a catch. you tell the parents they could get an 8x10 for $15. I bet that you would sell 4 or five to the family. start adding that up over all the baseball, basketball and football and you have a good business going. please be sure to pay your taxes!
 05/22/2006 09:16:33 PM · #4
i enjoy ham,
I could probably get money from other sources (and thank you for your advice), but I would really like for this job to be self-funded. Even so, how would I go about selling to local restaurants and stores?

edit: should've quoted, and thank you elvis

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 21:18:47.
 05/22/2006 09:24:25 PM · #5
Originally posted by dunnewold:


thank you elvis


no problem, and an idea for maximizing. don't just focus on the star players. the kid that rarely ever plays could be a gold mine. those parents may not have many pictures and would go crazy over a great picture.

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 21:24:49.
 05/22/2006 09:26:34 PM · #6
What about pre-sales, say, offer to do the football team's portraits, but require a deposit up front. Most teams start practicing in the Summer before school starts, so it would be a good time to do things in a hurry.

Might be worthwhile to work out a loan deal with Mom and Dad if they have a decent credit limit.

And there are always carwashes with the cheerleading squad.
05/22/2006 09:30:10 PM · #7
get involved with the yearbook, thats what i do at my school
next year they are using me as the yearbook main yearbook photographer, and ive had a parent ask me for pictures this year, i sure if you shot sports games often enough, parents woudl support you, go for it man, you have nice shots
 05/22/2006 09:35:25 PM · #8
Originally posted by karmabreeze:
What about pre-sales, say, offer to do the football team's portraits, but require a deposit up front.

Oh yes, I forgot. Michael's Photography usually does team and individual sports portraits, and, if I may say so, they were pretty awful this year. Perhaps I could take over... I'm not sure if I could manage school-wide athletic portraits, though.
 05/22/2006 09:46:46 PM · #9
do you have a friend that likes to take photos? or someone that wants to learn, maybe they could help you out
or just figrue a way out to not be in charge of it ALL

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 21:46:51.
 05/22/2006 09:48:00 PM · #10
Don't forget to buy a flash for friday night football games.
 05/22/2006 09:52:35 PM · #11
Originally posted by Elmakias:
do you have a friend that likes to take photos? or someone that wants to learn, maybe they could help you out
or just figrue a way out to not be in charge of it ALL

That's a good idea. A friend from school is probably getting a d50 this summer...

Thank you all for your comments, please keep'm comin'!
 05/22/2006 09:57:04 PM · #12
i know around here that if you call a store/ resturant and ask to talk to the owner you most likely can, manager or "person in charge" works also. The best way to do it is to make an apointment and bring in a portfolio, they usually respond better to shots of local places.

Also setting up a booth at your towns fairs, and such events (even farmers markets) to sell your photos at, is a good idea, you would be surprised at how many people are willing to buy a photo from a student.

-Dan
 05/22/2006 10:33:49 PM · #13
for printing, school pictutes, what do plan to use?
(dpc prints..own printer...etc.)

05/22/2006 10:35:06 PM · #14
What about offering to cover the games for the local paper?

You might even be allowed to use the paper's cameras?

It's worth checking into.
 05/22/2006 10:37:57 PM · #15
Originally posted by Elmakias:
for printing, school pictutes, what do plan to use?
(dpc prints..own printer...etc.)

Not really sure. What do you suggest? I know shutterfly has some sort of professional plan where they print and ship, sounds similar to dpc.
 05/22/2006 10:43:21 PM · #16
Use Mpix for prints. They are cheap and the prints are of very high quality.

I recently got the idea to do the same thing you are trying to do. I went and photographed the last JV Baseball game of the season and I charged next to nothing for prints and sold about $250 worth of prints to just a total of 6 kids. My expenses (pay for the printing) has to come out of that 250 so i really didnt make much of a profit (about $60) but it was a good practice and a portfolio building experience. I plan to start doing this more often and marketing to parents.

Charles

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 22:45:14.
 05/22/2006 11:12:10 PM · #17
You better just stop thinking about this and just go get a job. No way the school's athletic department is going to loan you some money or put a down payment or anything like that.

Go bus tables, go cut grass, do something
 05/22/2006 11:20:32 PM · #18
you get paid to work, you don't get paid not to... well in america you might. but that's a whole different thread...

Originally posted by :
Oh yes, I forgot. Michael's Photography usually does team and individual sports portraits, and, if I may say so, they were pretty awful this year. Perhaps I could take over... I'm not sure if I could manage school-wide athletic portraits, though.


Message edited by author 2006-05-22 23:21:26.
 05/22/2006 11:31:45 PM · #19
Originally posted by deapee:
You better just stop thinking about this and just go get a job. No way the school's athletic department is going to loan you some money or put a down payment or anything like that.

Go bus tables, go cut grass, do something


Actually i'm going to apply at wolf camera soon. The issue here is not as much how I'll get the money initially as it is how I can remake that money through the sports photography itself. Right now it's looking like sales to parents is the best option. Does it seem reasonable to sell $2k in photos in one school year? There are about 15-20 teams in MS and HS combined. Also, any tips for indoor sports? The lighting in our gym is morbid (even w/ f2.8), and I don't know if there's any way around massive iso boosts, which I hate.

Again, thanks to all for the very helpful posts. I'm about to log out, but please keep going, I'll be on tomorrow.
-Luke
 05/22/2006 11:35:57 PM · #20
if you're going to provide prints to parents - you have to consider the cost of printing them. so 2K profit in a year seems a bit much to expect. not mention making it to all the events.

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 23:36:42.
 05/22/2006 11:36:14 PM · #21
Put all the pictures on a web site. Offer them for sale of say $20-$30 for an 8x10.

Print out some fliers that tell parents and students where to get the pictures. Pass these out at the games. Give them to the coach. Print in your school paper.

They look online and buy whatever they want. You only print what was purchased.

Use the tools you have and once you start selling, get your parents to give you a loan. Then get your new gear.

Hey, it's a plan.

Message edited by author 2006-05-22 23:38:14.
 05/22/2006 11:39:30 PM · #22
Originally posted by I Enjoy Ham:

if so, the best way i would think to do this is by selling your prints to local restaurants and stores. I know that many store owners like supporting the youth of towns. Also selling prints to the parents is a great idea.

-Dan


What he said.
Local restaurants often love local sports photos. Also, check local sports bars, check with any locally published magazines, your local newspaper. AND definitely the parents.

$2,000 isn't a lot of money to make in a single sports season, so I think you will not only make the $2G if you try, but possibly a LOT more.
 05/23/2006 12:32:37 AM · #23
Originally posted by lepidus:
Put all the pictures on a web site. Offer them for sale of say $20-$30 for an 8x10.

Print out some fliers that tell parents and students where to get the pictures. Pass these out at the games. Give them to the coach. Print in your school paper.

They look online and buy whatever they want. You only print what was purchased.

Use the tools you have and once you start selling, get your parents to give you a loan. Then get your new gear.

Hey, it's a plan.


This is exactly what I had in mind and hopefully will be able to set up next year. I'm going to be cheif photographer at my college paper and through out my past year I had numerous different requests from parents for pictures of their kids. In my consideration, it certainly occured that there is no way I'll get pictures of all of them but I would still get a good amount and I'm sure they would blow away any picture the parents already have. Working for a local paper would certainly be a good idea if you can get access to their equipment. Also, you're going to have to deal with bumping up your ISO as high as it goes. I shoot at 1600 constantly in sports and rarely find it able to go any lower unless in strong sunlight, I might use 800. Thats ok though the pictures will still be good and a little noise on an 8x10 isn't even noticable from more than a few feet away. If you do manage to get this setup, the most important part is getting your website out there so people know who to go to in hopes that you have a picture of them. Good luck with it and hopefully it all works out.
 05/27/2006 01:38:35 PM · #24
First, thanks again for all the helpful posts.

Second, it doesn't look like I'll be getting the aforementioned job at wolf camera, and some of these posts have sparked my thinking as far as starting a sort of business this summer- separate from the sports thing. From what I read here, it sounds like selling to local businesses is a good way to go, but I really have no idea where to start.

So here's the topic shift (start new thread?) - How do I make money (through photography) this summer?

-Luke
 05/27/2006 02:02:41 PM · #25
luke, i admire your initiative. there are few things more rewarding than being able to persue your dreams, and i wish you the best of luck.

that said, please take the following with a grain of salt. if photography is something you are really interested in, at your age, you should be concentrating on mastering the fundamentals of photography rather than starting a business. the key to longterm business success is being recognized for reliability and competence. this requires building a track record and building a portfolio. people aren't going to throw money at you just because you have a camera. you have to be able to give them reason to believe that you can deliver.

you might consider finding a more traditional summer job, then spend every non-working hour shooting and processing or studying photography and/or post-processing. or maybe find an established pro who would take on a unpaid intern (or maybe paid, if you're lucky). or maybe find a photography-related job.

the trick is to be shooting as much as possible, and then learning from what you've shot so that you can get better results the next time you're in a similar shooting situation.

if you're interested in sports photography, you should spend a lot of time at the library, pouring through back issues of sports illustrated and espn magazine, as well as the sports sections of as many large daily papers as you can find. analyze the photos as to which ones are stunning and which ones suck. try to figure how how the best ones were captured. then, go out and try to replicate the shots yourself. if you want to do this, shoot LOTS of little league action. practice makes perfect. you might find you can sell some of your shots, but that shouldn't be the goal. the goal should be teaching yourself to be a GREAT sports shooter--and that will only come through practice. sure, equipment, access to the field, and experience all help, but in the end, the best shots come from instinct, vision, and reflexes.

sorry if this sounds like raining on your parade, it's not meant that way. yes, there are a lot of young people who have the drive, desire, and ability to start successful small businesses, and maybe you're one of them. on the other hand, there is no substitute for being recognized as someone who can step up and get the job done--and that recognition is only earned by paying your dues. some people get lucky, but most overnight successes are really years in the making...

anyways, good luck, and have a great summer!
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