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Archive 2016 · T&I Style and Lighting.

glort
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · T&I Style and Lighting.

After not doing this for a while, a T&I job has fallen in my lap which I am quite happy about but also a bit nervous about due to personal rather than professional reasons.
I have done this plenty of times before so it's getting back on the old horse but overly worried about falling off.

I have seen that the American shooters are far more Modern and advanced than what I see the local shooters are. Here the parents tend to like the same traditional pics they had as a kid and maybe even their parents had.
I'd like to do something more modern as far as posing and lighting goes. I don't really want to get into the graphics which although look great, I simply don't have the artistic skill or vision for let alone technical ability.

I am wondering what sort of setups shooters are using for their T&I work?
Do you use a mobile studio, off camera lighting, traditional or more modern and "cool" type poses
And what do you find sells the best?

I mentioned to the co-ordinator yesterday about some of the ideas I have and she loved them but I'm pretty worried how th parents will go when they see them. I want to make their kids look cool and do something a bit off beat and different but I don't want that to cause problems.

We don't seem nearly as progressive in the styles we do here as what seems common in the US.

May 22, 2016 at 09:57 AM

glort
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · T&I Style and Lighting.

No one here do T&I anymore?

May 23, 2016 at 08:22 AM

guitardirky
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · T&I Style and Lighting.

glort wrote:
No one here do T&I anymore?

What is T&I? Team and Individual?

May 23, 2016 at 08:46 AM

glort
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · T&I Style and Lighting.

yes.
Yearly club/ team pics.

May 23, 2016 at 08:57 AM

guitardirky
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · T&I Style and Lighting.

Truly, I would think the execution would be left up to your discretion. You are the content creator and the creative mind to come up with the ideas to showcase. I do individuals for our guys on a variety of sets each year. One is a posed yearbook style portrait, the other a creative portrait for us in editorial. For the team photo, its 4 Einsteins shooting at the team to fill the shadows, and of course with the sun to their back.

May 23, 2016 at 09:06 AM

leewoolery
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · T&I Style and Lighting.

glort wrote:
No one here do T&I anymore?

Lots of folks still do team and individuals but that part of the business is so competitive in parts of the United States that many may not feel comfortable giving out too much information.

When I take the team and individual photos I always use, at least, 2 strobes, even outdoors and as many as 5 for indoor set-ups.

You can try dramatic lighting effects for some age groups but sometimes a "tough look" for smaller athletes comes across as they weren't smiling and look mad and that will get you in trouble with some parents.

Poses can vary but it all depends on the sport in question and age of athletes.

I tend to be traditional with poses but will take up to 10 different ones per athlete ( if time allows ) so we have options for buttons, statuettes, wallets or different size prints.

Consider adding muslin or other backdrop materials for indoor events or choose a natural setting such as a basketball gym, ice skating arena, gymnastics facility, volleyball court or wrestling room.

For outdoor sessions you must really pay attention to what's in the background as far as buildings, cars, other players, trees or field condition and inconsistent lighting can be very problematic.

For my company, the team photos are very profitable and second only to school pictures and nearly all parents purchase photo packages but hardly any will buy action photos so it's one of those for sure parts of the business as opposed to very much speculative youth sports action photography.

Good luck with your venture.

May 23, 2016 at 03:43 PM

P Alesse
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · T&I Style and Lighting.

What Lee said and adding...

... it's less about photography and more about organization, logistics, and flow. I don't need to tell you that with your cheer sales background. It's essentially the same ideas. You want to get teams in and out as possible or it doesn't matter how good the photos are. You'll want to overstaff it to be safe the first time around. I would really need to have more info to guide you further answering the following questions...

What sport/gender?
How many teams and within what time frame?
Indoors or outdoors?
Online or prepay?
Product line being offered?
Pre-pay order form? Three part carbonless or attached envelope
Methods of payment?
Marketing? Samples?
Setup area? Commitment from league? What kind of help being offered by league?
Are they asking for a commission?
What are you using to fulfill orders, editing/workflow, method of delivery?

Note... these are the essential questions that would have to be answered and considered BEFORE even accepting the job or even starting to think about how to shoot it.

May 23, 2016 at 04:44 PM

glort
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · T&I Style and Lighting.

leewoolery wrote:
Lots of folks still do team and individuals but that part of the business is so competitive in parts of the United States that many may not feel comfortable giving out too much information.

Fair enough.
Certainly the Standard in the US is miles above what it is here. I could do 1/4 of what I see being done there and be lightyears ahead of the competition here and I do like to push the envelope. I usually just need the inspiration and an idea of how things can be pushed.

When I take the team and individual photos I always use, at least, 2 strobes, even outdoors and as many as 5 for indoor set-ups.

I want to use 3 lights, 2 front and a backlight. What I'm doing will be 99% outdoors.
No one seems to use studio lighting here, on camera flash is about as good as it gets.

I have done T&I before and set up a gazebo as a portable studio. The clubs were blown away because they had never seen anything like it. I'm a bit nervous to shoot any other way now really because It gives me control of the lighting instead of having lord only knows what to deal with at certain places.

You can try dramatic lighting effects for some age groups but sometimes a "tough look" for smaller athletes comes across as they weren't smiling and look mad and that will get you in trouble with some parents.

Yes, I distinctly noticed the no smile look of shots I googled and was really wondering about that. I used to do a lot of underwater work with kids at swimschool and the parents constantly bitched when their 5 yo wasn't smiling underwater. I think they were too busy trying not to drown at that age.

I don't mind the look myself, In fact I wondered where the whole expectation of having to smile for a photo came from. OTOH, I did notice some of the kids who weren't smiling looked like they had the shits so I could see the parents having a spit over that!

Poses can vary but it all depends on the sport in question and age of athletes.

On thing I saw was some shooters using posters with various poses on them. I thought that was a great idea as I can put it where they line up, tell them to choose what they want to do and it will give them the ideas rather than have every kid doing the same thing.
I'm going to put my daughter in her soccer gear and take her to the park tomorrow to shoot the various poses to make up a poster with.
This is exactly the little ideas and refinements I'm looking for.

Consider adding muslin or other backdrop materials for indoor events or choose a natural setting such as a basketball gym, ice skating arena, gymnastics facility, volleyball court or wrestling room.

I'm doing soccer and here no local club has a field with a stand or very few I have seen. It's usually a flat paddock with some goal posts. I have been seriously thinking of green screening things. I have done that a lot for corporates so getting my head round this in how to market it.
I'd like to offer a choice of backgrounds for each kid but I can see that being a logistical nightmare. I'll work on the idea more and see what I come up with and where the advantage to me is. It would certainly be stand out from what 99% of T&I shooters do here.

For outdoor sessions you must really pay attention to what's in the background as far as buildings, cars, other players, trees or field condition and inconsistent lighting can be very problematic.

Couldn't agree more. I recced the field I'm going to be shooting and it's not good. The only place I could find is a long way from teh fields so not great like that but otherwise, it would be exactly as you say, cars, people, playgrounds, blotchy lighting..... You name it. The light I can control, the backgrounds are where the GS would be very handy.

For my company, the team photos are very profitable and second only to school pictures and nearly all parents purchase photo packages but hardly any will buy action photos so it's one of those for sure parts of the business as opposed to very much speculative youth sports action photography.

I'm going to look at just the T&I. I did action for horses for years and car racing and not keen to go back into speculative shooting again. Here getting prepaid is near impossible. I worked all my marketing magic on it before and got zip. The population here just isn't familiar or trusting of it. The money I make from every T&I team I spend 10 Min shooting could not ever be equaled by what I could pull from one or 3 players in a game anyway.

Thanks very much for your input and help!

May 23, 2016 at 07:38 PM

glort
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · T&I Style and Lighting.

P Alesse wrote:
Note... these are the essential questions that would have to be answered and considered BEFORE even accepting the job or even starting to think about how to shoot it.

I have done this many times before and I'm pretty happy with the formula I have come up with the business side. Haven't changed it in a long time and pretty happy with it.

I also haven't done T&I for a while and I'm mainly looking/ wondering about the style side of the pics. It's very old hat here compared to the stuff being done in the US and I'd like to do something more modern and up to date. It would give me a huge marketing edge on teh competition and I would be able to charge a higher price for the work I did.

At this stage I'm not looking to do the 10 pose thing like in the states, it has to still be fast and simple but there is still a lot that can be done with lighting, poses, settings and effects.
Just seems silly to me that everyone here is still shooting the same old boring thing that not only we had as kids but our parents probably did too!

I did see a BTS shot of yours from 2013 with you using a couple of lights and that's the sort of thing I'm looking for inspiration on.
I'm also a bit wary about getting away from what everyone is used to seeing here.
I'd love to shoot everything in the locker room and have the kids sitting round looking " realistic" if you like but not sure if the parents are going to have a dummy spit about it.
Perhaps I just have to bite the bullet. I'm sure the majority will be OK but some will have a whinge, then again, someone always has a whinge so what the hell am I worried about?? :0)

Might go drag my daughter out today as I'm feeling inspired and see what we can come up with...

I have learned a lot from seeing what shooters in the states do. For one thing I do printed envelopes. The front has the pricing and pictures of exactly what is in the package and a size list. The first time I did this years ago our average sale went up about 50%. Didn't change anything else, just that. I print the envelopes myself and it's more than with the bit of time and effort. The back of the envelope has the normal order form. They put the cash in the envelope or put on CC details which is about 80% of payments these days. Can take an hour to key them all in but what better way to spend your time, putting money in the bank? :0)

I thought about doing envelopes with bar codes but I think that would be a flop. there dosent seem to be anyway to ensure the kids bring the envelopes. Give them out a week or a fortnight and 25% of them ( or the parents more precisely) will leave them at home and want another.
Have them fill them out on the field and they have left their wallet at home or mum has dropped them off and gone or...... Painful.

All my marketing/ shooting/ selling etc I'm happy with and don't have any problems. When I was doing this before I was getting well above the average sales my competitors were but there is always room for improvement to keep bumping that average spend and getting a better ROI.
I'd just like to tweak the actual style of shots I do and bring them more up to date with something that is different and improved on the 100 yo traditional look but not so different the parents totally freak.

May 23, 2016 at 07:47 PM

guitardirky
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · T&I Style and Lighting.

I'm not doing any sort of package stuff I guess. I'm shooting for a team so mine needs and deliverables are considerably different than yours.

May 23, 2016 at 09:04 PM

Ralph Thompson
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · T&I Style and Lighting.

I have a small T&I business (around 7-10K subjects a year). I do 90% outdoors. Paul & Lee hit it on the head. Organization is the key. I let the board pick the pose and keep it to that. It really speeds things up. You can have the best looking products on the planet but if your photo day is unorganized or your shoot goes over, you'll get voted off the island in no time!

May 23, 2016 at 11:21 PM

P Alesse
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · T&I Style and Lighting.

Are you on FB? If so, give me your username. I will send you an invite to the FB group I'm in for T&I. Some absolutely stunning stuff being done by some pretty amazing people that will be sure to inspire you. If you get a chance, take a look at this guy's work. Do a mouseover on each template to see the individual. Pretty amazing stuff, if you really want to go over the top like this.

http://shirkphotography.com/photographers-arena/product-category/layered-photoshop-sports-templates/

Edited on May 24, 2016 at 06:36 PM · View previous versions

May 24, 2016 at 06:31 PM

glort
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · T&I Style and Lighting.

Ralph Thompson wrote:
I have a small T&I business (around 7-10K subjects a year).

That does not seem small to me!
The numbers in other parts of the world are just so different to what they are here. I had aspirations years ago of becoming the Oz version of Hammy or Paul or Luke in the event world but soon figured out that wasn't going to happen.
What they would call a small local event eclipsed the biggest events I could find here by a factor of 4 or more. The population difference really shows up in this mass market type work.

I used to shoot what I thought was some pretty amazing numbers when I did swim school, up to 5000 kids a week but most were around 2000. the first pool I did was 600 and even a few days into that I was thinking it was small. 2500-3000 a week was what I liked. Enough to keep you busy but not too much to get over whelmed with the sales and production.

If you wouldn't mind sharing here or by PM Ralph, I'd love to know what your average spend per works out at?
Last time I did this mine was around $32 per kid which as far as I could tell from the people I spoke to and what I could find online, was above average for here.

You can have the best looking products on the planet but if your photo day is unorganized or your shoot goes over, you'll get voted off the island in no time!

Couldn't agree more.
One thing I have prided myself on and been a huge assett in getting the teams next year is the fact I not only run to time, but I almost always run early. One thing I built for my first time out was a small posing bench about 250mm High. I traced the outline of my daughters 8 Yo feet at the time on the thing at about a 45o Angle.
For the individuals I tell the kids to put their feet on the feet on the bench, turn and look at me and smile and it's over in 10 Sec. Next!

I agree, everything has to be pre organised like a production line and just feed them through.

Before I was allowing 15 Min per team. Way too long so I have shortened it to 10 and still have a couple of minutes window.
When someone runs late, I do all the individual pics then stand them aside while I shoot the next team. I have had up to 4 teams waiting for stragglers but I managed to still get all of them done miles inside their collective time allowance and was starting on the 5th team early.

Over the years I have seen some shocking stuffups with people doing this work.
I have put in for the work with my own kids clubs and missed out. The pelicans that got the deal turned up an hour late to start with,. were kids that had no clue literally what they were doing and thought the club would organise the groups and tell the kids how to stand etc. and shooters that were over an hour behind schedule by the 4th team they were shooting. Mind Boggling!

I'll have my wife running the " mobile office", dealing with the orders, getting the names off the coaches and managers and dealing with parent questions. My Daughter will be kid wrangler, customer service and I might get her shooting as well.
I'll try to do as little as possible....
Apart from everything else. :0)

May 24, 2016 at 06:34 PM

clindsey
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · T&I Style and Lighting.

We offer a variety of T&I from Traditional to Full Composite. Pricing varies depending on the "Tier" they choose. Most of our work is shot outside, even the composite shots (shot under a tent with a backdrop). All our T&I's are lit with strobes and light modifiers to control the lighting. 2-3 light set up for individual/buddy - 2 lights for traditional, main and fill with modifiers. 3 light set up for Composite, - main and 2 strip lights. All teams are shot with a minimum of 2 lights and since we are always fighting the sun we use 5' or 7' parabolic umbrellas. What we have found here is most "recreational" leagues want traditional type shots. Travel ball leagues want a more gritty composite type shot. You can see samples of what we offer here:

http://www.cskphotography.net/league_samples

P Alesse wrote:
Are you on FB? If so, give me your username. I will send you an invite to the FB group I'm in for T&I. Some absolutely stunning stuff being done by some pretty amazing people that will be sure to inspire you. If you get a chance, take a look at this guy's work. Do a mouseover on each template to see the individual. Pretty amazing stuff, if you really want to go over the top like this.

Paul, can I get an invite to that group? I'd love to see what everyone is doing! If so, I'll PM you my FB info

Jun 13, 2016 at 01:58 AM


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