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glort Offline [X]
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czn1111 wrote:
Hi there, I'm a sports photographer, been pro since the good ol' days of film (still miss those days...) Anyway, a few people have suggested that, rather than worrying about releasing higher-res images,
As another shooter old enough to have worked with film for a long time ( you'd be surprised how rare us "dinosaurs" as the digital only shooters call us are getting) I think you may have been brainwashed with the same stupid mindset as I was about giving negs away.
Oh no! You can't do that, they are your heart and soul and art and you might loose out on reprint sales.
Yeah? How many did you ever get? A few pissy 6x4's or 5x5's that took longer to find, frig around ordering, sending to the lab , sorting and all the rest of it than they were worth.
I kept all my negs and what happened? I got bugger all repeats, Invested in money to store the things safely and then ended up PAYING to have them carted to the tip years later because 50% of the people were now divorced and the negs were valueless.
Hmmm, That was a great idea hanging on to negs that was.
Towards the end of my film days and into digital I went to the dark side and either sold the negs for damn good money or included them in packages which allowed me to get good higher prices that I could have without them. The clients immediately after the wedding did/ do think they are valuable and that's when you can get good money for them. Even 3 years later they realize they haven't looked at the album for a year and the Negs/ Hi res files are worth NOTHING.
Yeah, I miss parts of the film days too but I sure woke up to myself and realised what a crock the negs/ hi res files thing is.
I strongly suggest you have a good think about that particular old school mentality and offer them up for whatever you can get for them. they are worthless to anyone else so you only have one potential customer so get the most you can WHILE you can and forget trying to guard them like they are gold.
Sports pictures are like wedding pics and get old and valueless fast.
Offer them for sale or value add your coverages and be happy and smart. Promote the fact you are selling hi res images and they can get more prints made for granny and everyone in the neighborhood cheap. It sounds great and they rarely do it and if you price the pics accordingly you make more from them print sales.
I offered CD's of the images straight out of the camera and did well with them. 50% of my sales were Digital files but about 80% of my profit came from them. I didn't try to keep them out of the clients hands, I did my damnedest to get them INTO thier hands and did bloody well from it.
At very least, I would strongly suggest you have a serious rethink about why you want to keep the hi res images away from them vs. the drawbacks of promoting and selling them.
The secret is there are no disadvantages to selling the hi res files and Images sure as hell don't get anymore valuable to us with age.
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May 30, 2015 at 04:12 AM |
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