Jonathan Knight
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Jason EmKay wrote:
Thanks, JW.
Here's my take on giving away MMA photography:
Often times I was unhappy with it because I felt it undercut my bottom line, but realistically speaking, most aspiring hobbiest photogs just won't have the drive to learn the craft to the extent I have, and in the end, won't make much of a difference regarding my business- they're taking snapshots; I'm creating iconography.
When I started, I foolishly gave away everything in hopes of getting recognition, and maybe some donations. Needless to say, people love free stuff. Well, my "free stuff" was popping up everywhere, and I wasn't getting credit. So, down the evolutionary path, I created large, intrusive logos, so there were no questions as to where the work was coming from. That was a wiser move, because now I've got name recognition, and that got me hired on a few occasions. But, this in of itself wasn't enough. See, my problem was that I was only producing the most recognized work, but not the best work. A better photographer was closing in on me, and was giving away work in hopes of overshadowing me. It work in a limited way, but he eventually gave up, because he wasn't coming up with the quantity of shots that would make potential customers want to buy his work. But he did inspire me to improve my quality, which I did dramatically.
So, as it stands, giving away work is a catch 22: if you don't, in all likelihood you won't be invited to shoot, and you won't gain the experience necessary to become good. And it's quite difficult to make money at something you're not very good at. So, it could be thought of as an apprenticeship of sorts, though one should not strictly giving away work without representation; get your name attached to your work, because if it's good enough, it may lead to future sales and gigs.
BTW, all of my advice can be taken with a grain of salt, because I really haven't "made it", nor is there a real one-size-fits-all approach to conducting business... I've shot 27 events in the past 20 months. Of those, I've only officially been recognized by four of the eight promotions I've shot at for a grand total of six occasions: once by way of having my logo added to a website, twice by being considered a "sponsor" (a fancy way of saying working for free in exchange for having my company logo added to event literature), and on three occasions I was actually hired. But, it should also be noted that my refusal to give away work has also gotten me black-balled from two promotions, and one venue.
Now I know why I am leaving a career in this industry.........
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i agree with Jason on this. i have only six events under my belt and there are only three promotions in my local area. the two smaller events are locked up they have someone taking snapshots for the website and that's all that they want. there isn't any money to pay a photog 75 150 an hour to shoot for the website no need. but the selling of pics to the camps and or the fighters is there. so how does one get in to the event you cant just buy a ticket and walk up to the cage and start shooting you need to be invited either by the promoter or the camp and if the promoter wants some pics for his website fine my name will be on it and the file size will be small "don't sell yourself short and make people pay for your photos" sound good but doesnt work with MMA. Now Jason is an awesome MMA photog and shouldn't have any problems selling but he still needs to be invited. I also started shooting little league and i DONT give anything away i havent sold anything but that's were Jonathan's quote come in. 
