Sooo, I tagged along with my sister to her soccer game. She's 13 but plays with the 15 year old girls since there was no room for her on any U13 teams (we just moved from Chicago to San Diego). This is the first time I've ever shot one of her games, and one of the first times I've ever shot a field sport. Shot the game, went home, did some quick processing, threw the photos on my facebook page and told my mom that she can link the photos to the rest of the parents through email. My mom requested that I upload the photo's to the team's shutter-fly so all the parents could view them. I told her that I prefer to host the photo's on my own site rather than somewhere else and my mom got really upset. This is something I've never experienced before.. Clients can often have odd demands, but this is my mom. I don't understand why she refuses to share the photo's with the other parents just because it's hosted on my facebook page. Is it wrong of me to want to host the photo's on my facebook/flickr rather than somewhere else? It's simply to gather a bit more reach on my facebook page and market my portfolio to these parents. If the soccer pictures are hosted somewhere else, I won't be able to do so. Give in and give my photos away for free, or explain to my mom why I want to host the photo's on my site?

Advice would be appreciated.. Pardon the flickr sharpening.


Soccer 9-8 by CHRIS.LOH, on Flickr

Soccer 9-8 by CHRIS.LOH, on Flickr

Soccer 9-8 by CHRIS.LOH, on Flickr

Soccer 9-8 by CHRIS.LOH, on Flickr

Soccer 9-8 by CHRIS.LOH, on Flickr

These pictures aren't anything to brag about, but go ahead and share honest critique if you'd like! They were all shot with a 1d mk2 and a 70-200 2.8

You pictures are pretty good for a first try: good action, shooting low to the ground, sharp, well cropped, clean backgrounds. Congratulation.

Regarding the Facebook vs. Shutter-Fly, I am not sure what the issue is with your Mom, but one thing I would encourage you to consider is the privacy of the players.

You are taking pictures of minors and some parents might object to you posting pictures of their kids on publicly accessible web sites (including - and some would say especially - Facebook).

When I shoot a kids event, all the pictures are stored in a password protected gallery and the team manager is responsible for sending out the password to the parents (Call me old fashion, but I am surprised that people post kids pictures - of kids other than theirs - on this forum...)

If you want to promote your portfolio and service, you are probably better off having a photography web site that you use as main destination you want to send people to.

For example, here is what I do:

- When I am done processing and uploading the pictures to my photo hosting service, I send the parent an "event Code" for the game I was hired to shoot (for example 111022-32) and tell them to go to my website (www.widgic.com) and enter the event code in the appropriate box in the landing page.

- The landing page has a big slideshow of my portfolio as well as a menu to get more information about my services / contact me / etc... This way the first thing they see is my portfolio and if they are interested, they can learn more about me, and contact me directly from there.

- Then they can enter the event code in the box, click on "Go!" and it takes them to their event gallery (again, password protected for kids events).

Implementation is pretty easy (you can grab the code of my landing page). Basically it's a little bit of HTML (to create an input form) and some Javascript (to create the target URL and sent them to the right page). It helps that I use Zenfolio as a hosting service, as I can create custom URL's for my galleries (basically the "event code" is the address of the gallery).

Hope this helps.

Denis
www.widgic.com

Widgic wrote:
You pictures are pretty good for a first try: good action, shooting low to the ground, sharp, well cropped, clean backgrounds. Congratulation.

Regarding the Facebook vs. Shutter-Fly, I am not sure what the issue is with your Mom, but one thing I would encourage you to consider is the privacy of the players.

You are taking pictures of minors and some parents might object to you posting pictures of their kids on publicly accessible web sites (including - and some would say especially - Facebook).

When I shoot a kids event, all the pictures are stored in a password protected gallery and the team manager is responsible for sending out the password to the parents (Call me old fashion, but I am surprised that people post kids pictures - of kids other than theirs - on this forum...)

If you want to promote your portfolio and service, you are probably better off having a photography web site that you use as main destination you want to send people to.



I appreciate your in put! I did not take into account the privacy of these girls as they are all minors. I'm used to shooting grown men dodging flying projectiles of paint, so that's never really been an issue. the controversy between me and my mom was more so defiance towards one another, this issue did not cross her mind either.

I believe the shutter fly for the team is password protected, so I will host the images there for the parents to view/download.

thanks!

I don't understand your mothers concern at all.. I have been posting kids sports (grand daughters teams, High School sports etc.) on pbase.com for 5-6 years and have never gotten a complaint nor has anybody ever voiced any concern about them being on a public site. Of course just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you..

Ed Peters wrote:
I don't understand your mothers concern at all.. I have been posting kids sports (grand daughters teams, High School sports etc.) on pbase.com for 5-6 years and have never gotten a complaint nor has anybody ever voiced any concern about them being on a public site. Of course just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you..

haha, I don't even think my mother has a legitimate concern. She's just being a mother just like I'm being a son. Senselessly arguing just because...

Although, for my own good, I don't think these photo's should be hosted on my facebook page at least. As mentioned on POTN, there are a lot of immature things posted there and I don't necessarily want the parents of 14-15 year olds seeing all of the shenanigans that I do.

GOD I wish I could take these type of sharp pictures. I use Shutterfly for 2 reasons. Our soccer organization recomends it and you can make it private where registration is needed. That is why our organization recommends it. Just my suggestion and what I use

morenoar wrote:
GOD I wish I could take these type of sharp pictures. I use Shutterfly for 2 reasons. Our soccer organization recomends it and you can make it private where registration is needed. That is why our organization recommends it. Just my suggestion and what I use


thanks and thanks.. my mom has yet to give me the shutter fly info, so for right now, there are only 5 images sitting in my flickr. the other 200 or so have yet to be seen by any of the parents/players.

How old are you?

Skwirnmn wrote:


Pardon the flickr sharpening.



These pictures aren't anything to brag about, but go ahead and share honest critique if you'd like! They were all shot with a 1d mk2 and a 70-200 2.8

they look good to me, also check out Zenfolio.com for photo hosting