leewoolery
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 p.3 #9 · Sports Photographer Needs Advice | |
dwerther wrote:
Wow... I feel like the salmon swimming upstream... this post is going to be REAL unpopular!
In the interest of full disclosure I am a father of two teenage sons, both of whom played football and basketball. In an effort to get a few shots of my boys I started with an Olympus P&S I already had and shot a few pictures. That evolved into a Canon 30D which then evolved into a 1Dmk3... a classic case of the slippery slope of incrementalism!
I started by putting photos on Flickr (here) so that my boys and family could enjoy them. Of coursed that evolved into shots of other kids and sharing them with the team.
One thing led to another and I was asked by all the teams and coaches to shoot from the sidelines and courtside. As my skills and equipment improved so did the shots.
When I could not keep up with the demand for prints from other parents that evolved into a SmugMug account about three months ago (here). Before Smugmug I made roughly $1500 - Half of it paid by the school booster club for images used in school publications and activities and the other half from parents. But I also gave LOTS of photos away. Every computer in the school football department has my images all over it!
Only in the last 10 months have I transitioned from giving away photos to selling them.
Since I DO sell them and many of you say I am a pro, then here is this pro's opinion.
If a school, club team, or league has a pro hired to shoot you should stay out of his way. HOWEVER, that does not preclude you from taking photos of your son and his teamates. If a league, school, or school district official does not come up to you and specifically tell you NOT to take pictures then you have no legal or moral obligation not to shoot.
You DO NOT need to approach the hired pro and ask permission. Why would you when you have no idea what his arrangement is? Whatever it is it doesn't matter. If his contract says he is the exclusive shooter then it is up to the league to tell you not to shoot. If the hired pro tells you not to that means nothing. If a League Official tells you that you cannot shoot then you must stop, and it is up to you to challenge it or move your kid.
Those who say if a pro has a contract then you have no right to shoot your own kid - consider this. You live on a street with 12 houses. Eleven of those houses contract with a professional landscaper. You want to do your own landscaping. Are you barred from doing so? I don't think so. Does it matter what the pro landscaper thinks? Not to me.
So you say he has the right to shoot his own kid, but not others or to sell to others? I say - wrong. On so many levels.
The pro is hired to shoot one game per team per season? If a pro shoots one game and shoots even 300 shots of 12 players, assuming that is evenly distributed, that is 25 shots per player. In a 10-game season, assuming the photographer does not miss a moment in the one game he shoots, he has a 10 percent chance of getting the best action shot of the season for one individual. Hardly decent season coverage.
Those of you who have kids as this photographer does - what is he supposed to do - let his kids grow up playing ball and hope that someone else gets a shot of them he can buy?
And on the commercial level - those who say he has to have three licenses and all that. If that is what you want to do then more power to you. Get your dog tags and be the lap dog you want to be. I am tired of begging the government for permission to live my life. I gotta tell ya folks, I want the "regulatory world" to stay out of my way and let me live my life. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
Before you go crazy, hear me out. If you bake in your home kitchen and sell sweets to a small group of friends, do you want all the licenses and inspections? If you do paintings or make sculptures or make ANY craft that you sell on a small scale, do you want the govt. in your business? If you detail two cars a weekend in your driveway (and don't have any cars there during the week) do you want the city, county, and federal government as your business partner? If you make beer in your basement and trade it to your friend who grows fresh vegetables in her garden.... etc. ad nauseum.
YES - if it is your full time business and you do some decent volume, you make it a legitimate business with all the required licenses and filings. Both my other businesses are C-corps, so I do know something about this.
On this Fourth of July stand up and be a man and a self-sufficient Patriot. The independent craftsman need be beholden to no one except God.
Only an idiot makes hard and fast rules and applies them 100 percent of the time. I am pro photographer now (my third job - I own two other companies and employ people in both) yet I sometimes give away my work. Look at my sites and look at the demographics. We have kids at our school who play sports to stay out of trouble, and who cannot afford to EAT when they need to. If one of those kids comes up to you during a game and wants a photo of his touchdown for his Facebook page (which he has to maintain from the school library computer after school because he does not have one at home) are you going to charge him for it? I don't. Think the hired "pro" is going to give one away? Without the kids you have no shot. without the shots you are not a photographer. Sometimes the right thing to do makes no business sense.
Folks - I am not very good at expressing my opinion in complete thoughts and eloquent words. The OP should shoot his kid, his kid's team, and post his images for sale and not worry about the rest of the world around him (to the extent that he harms no one else). If parents don't want to buy from you dude - they don't have to. You didn't have to spend $4000 on your equipment or spend 2 hours shooting a game or 8 hours post processing images. But you did and if others want the benefit of your labor then it comes with a price tag.
Keep shooting brother! Be humble before the Lord and it will all work out.
David...Show more →
You have some great football photos on your website but, in my opinion, you're giving out some bad advice to aspiring youth sports photographers.
If you're planning on selling or posting images of youth sports, you should first check with the school's athletic director or youth board. That's just common courtesy.
No school or league official or contracted pro photographer will tell a parent that they can't take pictures of their children. Just go by the rules and don't walk onto the field of play without credentials or block other's views while shooting.
If the school or league has an official photographer and you want to cut into their business by selling images, be prepared for some potential trouble from that professional. Also...the school or league may have an arrangement for "donated" services from this pro and could be getting a percentage of sales so why would you jeopardize that agreement.
I'm all for "standing up and being a man" and "self-sufficient patriots" and "beholden to God" but I also respect the rights of others to conduct their business and uphold agreements without interferring.
From my experience, I found it better to ask for permission...in advance...from an AD, event organizer or youth league board about anything to do with photography. It's better to be told "No we are under contract for this season but if you want to make a proposal for next year, we'd be more than happy to talk with you" or "Our league or school has nobody doing this and the parents and staff would very much like this." School and league officials will respect you for going about this the right way.
The other side of that coin is to get a call from a school athletic director or be asked to appear before a youth sports league board to explain why you were shooting , posting and selling photos without knowledge or permission. This kind of stuff can end a career before it gets started.
I've seen parent photographers and would-be pros asked to leave the field of play by being to close to the action without the proper pass, told to remove images from their website, credentials revoked and some "black-balled" for shooting and trying to sell or post images without getting the proper clearance from someone in authority.
Just my opinions and observations,
Lee Woolery
Speedshot Photo
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