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09/04/2007 09:05:56 AM · #1 |
to shoot a 3 day soccer tourney with 50 teams and 14 fields (all in the same complex and all within "walking distance")
Im thinking 5 shooters, and 2 people to handle the "booth" and uploads.
I figure the average game is an 1-1.5 hours (including halftime) so if you devoted 20 minutes to each game game, you could cover 3-4 games per hour. Yes 20 minutes might not give you the time to catch that "front page" shot.
My moms company was offered an awesome opportunity, and potentially long term one (the place has multipe tourneys throughout the year with 50-150 teams at each one) but I think it might be too much for us to handle, since we would have to rent a lot of equipment, as well get some additional photogs. Such a bummer when you get something that good and have to turn it down cause it probably isn't feasible. |
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09/04/2007 09:15:04 AM · #2 |
Speculate to accumulate. If you can't get what you need, send a signal for other photogs to come along and say you'll give them a share of whatever money earned if their pics are taken.
Or, if this is a long-term thing, buy the equipment on finance and pay it off a bit at a time.
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09/04/2007 09:44:30 AM · #3 |
| Yeah, shes gonna tell them we aren't equipped to handle something of that size right now. Maybe next year. |
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09/04/2007 09:56:22 AM · #4 |
| What kind of final product are you producing and what timeline are you working on? Is this a print on site job? |
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09/04/2007 10:07:06 AM · #5 |
| Don't have all the fine details of it, but its just not a feasible thing for us at this point. Maybe next year. |
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09/04/2007 10:11:39 AM · #6 |
Two news photographers walked into an embassy to photograph some dignitaries. One said "Did you see that poor beggar at the gate shaking his tin? He looked terrible with suppurating scabs and matted hair, and he stank badly. Poor fellow - did you give him anything?".
The other one smiled and replied "Yes, I gave him F5.6 at 1/60". |
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09/04/2007 10:16:54 AM · #7 |
Event photography of this nature can be very rewarding or it can bea lot of work for very little. You have to do some homework and determine what the potential was for making money. Would it be from the teams, from the organizations putting on each event, from the players or from the spectators? All the above, some of the above or none of the above? It might not be as lucurtive as it appears at first glance.
I've not worked something this big but I have done a number of large dog shows where I mostly concentrated on a few breeds and large Dragon Boat racing events. One thing I've found is that the losers are not all that interested in pictures of them losing (unless they are looking for individual action shots showing how well they played regardless of how their team actualy did). The winners want pictures but you have a very short window of oppurtunity to sell to them because once they leave the field and head home, they are already looking at the next game. They may say they will check out the pictures on your web site and buy them, but most of the time, few do. So you have to be set up to process, print and sell images at the events while they are still pumped up and excited... or at least be able to show them the images and take their money right then and there and send them to them with in a set time period. But you have to get their money before they leave. And one thing, a lot of teams will have their own photographers or people taking pictures from the spectators of the teams. They do it for free or very cheaply. That is going to eat into a lot of your sells. And you can't stop it either (I've seen shows where the organization tried to keep the parents and family members from taking pictures of their kids while they played so that only the "show" photographer had pictures available. It wasn't pretty. :D)
Taking thousands or even 10's of thousands (I took over 9,000 raw images during one 7 day event I was at) of images is the easy part... you have to also consider the processing, handling, paperwork, selling, printing and mailing of those as well. It's not just a group of photographers you will need. You will need people to do the post processing from one show while you are back out shooting the next one. If you get behind one time during a busy streach, you will never catch up.
It's a lot of work... even more than what most weddings are. And you can probably make more money doing weddings. It sounds exciting and very tempting when you look at the potential numbers... but you really need to do your homework before you get i nto something like this... unless you already have the experience and infastructure to pull it off.
Mike
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09/04/2007 10:31:07 AM · #8 |
Depends on what you're trying to do:
1) Document the games
2) Sell photos to the parents
If you're trying to sell photos to the parents, then you don't need to shoot every game! You only need to shoot every game that has a team playing that you haven't yet shot. Ideally, that would mean 50 games (because you have 50 teams to shoot). But it'll probably end up being more than that with some overlap.
When we shoot soccer and Lacrosse, we typically only shoot "halves". We'll shoot the first half of one game, and switch fields and shoot the second half of another game.
We've shot 50 teams with either two or three shooters and one person on the back end handling the computers (copying CF cards, running the display laptops, handling the sales).
Now... if you're trying to document the games, you have a lot more work ahead of you. You'll need to try to shoot every single game and probably the whole game (not just halves).
Good luck!
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09/04/2007 10:32:27 AM · #9 |
Yeah, thats pretty much what I was thinking.
The idea in my head would play out like this:
4-5 shooters covering assigned fields all day (with lunches and stuff taken care of as well.) Shoot 20 minutes or so of each game (using their judgement on when to move, as long as they get a reasonable amount of shots of each team - if one game is more exciting and has more action, I would say spend a little extra time on that one) Have a couple of memory cards each, and have an additional person (an extra sales person maybe) go out every hour and swap out the cards - so after a period of time, say maybe every 2 hours or every game (depending on how the sched is set up.) Run them back for post processing - very minimal here, really nothing more then cropping.
Now tihs is where im not sure which route I would take.
Do I have a few computers set up with monitors displaying the images, or do I send out to costco for 4x6's and have albums put together for each time slot. The 2nd option at least would help encourage sales right there because the parents get at least a 4x6 right on the spot, with the option of ordering more, but the cost is then higher because of people who don't by anything, youve printed the shot. I guess I could take orders either way. And then do I also run the additional option (which I think I would do anyway) of uploading them online and allowing people to order from home.
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09/04/2007 10:36:26 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by dwterry:
Depends on what you're trying to do:
1) Document the games
2) Sell photos to the parents
If you're trying to sell photos to the parents, then you don't need to shoot every game! You only need to shoot every game that has a team playing that you haven't yet shot. Ideally, that would mean 50 games (because you have 50 teams to shoot). But it'll probably end up being more than that with some overlap.
When we shoot soccer and Lacrosse, we typically only shoot "halves". We'll shoot the first half of one game, and switch fields and shoot the second half of another game.
Good luck! |
Wow, Im slow, I didn't even think of that, you only need to really shoot each team once, and then maybe go and shoot the finals/championship bracket as well. So really depending on how the bracket is set up, you shoot 25 games covering 50 teams. That is not nearly as overwhelming sounding haha. |
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09/04/2007 11:00:38 AM · #11 |
Oops, yeah, I meant to type 25 games. But you saw thru the typo. :-)
And yes, we tend to shoot more on the finals. Sometimes they sell more (the parents are more excited). But then, it's just plain fun ... I get caught up in the excitement myself! :-)
We've never tried printing on site. If we had more people on the backend maybe it would work.
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09/04/2007 11:04:20 AM · #12 |
| I think I am going to stick to some smaller scale stuff now to work out all the kinks and then see what happens this time next year. |
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09/04/2007 11:16:04 AM · #13 |
You could do this, even alone it would be possible. Take 2 cameras, wide angle and tele lens. Make a bunch of flyers with prices for photos, pick 3 sizes and put prices for those. Make sure it says other sizes available and how to get in touch with you. Spend all day shooting. Get rosters from each team and a bracket of the tournament. This way you will know who is who and what game is which. Or write on a paper XYZ vs. 123 and take a photo of that. Now you know what teams and where in the tourney you are. Be quick for the early games and get a bit of each. Focus on the semi and championship games.
From there, see what the demand is. Don't print anything until people start getting in touch with you. You won't get the masses ordering like if you printed on site, but who cares, any order is profit. At this point all you did was spend a day outside shooting photos, could be worse. Print from an online lab that will ship for you and youre done. that would be the most minimalistic work flow I could think of for this event. Next year you will have the kinks worked out and can really go for the throat.
I did a convention with 400 people by myself. It was chaos, but I sold prints to around 30% so it worked out in the end. I probably lost a lot of business due to not being able to cover everything and talk to everyone, but it was just me so I called it a success. |
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09/04/2007 11:27:00 AM · #14 |
Thats what I would do if it was a less formal scenario, most definitely In fact, thats what I have done when just going out and shooting on my own - just show up with my gear and start snapping shots off and handing out business cards with the URL to find the images for ordering.
Thanks for all the advice guys, Ill pass it along and see if we can work something out for the next season. |
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