Hello, I'll be shooting Multiple Young Childrens Football games tomm.
Minimum of 4-6 Games from 8AM-5PM.

My Co-Worker is a Coach and brought to my attention that they don't have a photographer.

They had one last year, and she charged $10 a cd of photos. She roughly made $3,000 cash
in one day. She wasn't a photographer, Was just taking photos of her kid and all the parents decided to pay her to take pics of all the kids. The pics werent too good.
She won't be doing this and I find this to be a great oppertunity for me to make some money
and THEY came to me.... [U]Since it's the last day of games for this year.[/U]

I shoot Canon 5D and I'll have a 400mm 5.6 and a 70-200 f/4 so I know they will be happy. Also have my canon 85 1.8 I might get quick portraits of each kid somewhere.... I'm there, Might as well. Potential profit.

My question is, With this large amount of people I need a good way to selling photos without getting lost....

I have the Pro Smugmug account. So I have that to my advantage.

my website is [url]www.periutphotography.com[/url]

They told me if I made a flyer, they would hand them out to parents.

My thinking was $10 for Unlimited Photo Downloads of Parents Child from my website if Cash Paid that day.
And $5 a photo download for those who don't pay which would be paid through smugmug.

They would Provide me with their Name, Email, Team and Jersey #
I would Email them a Coupon Code Allowing them to download the Photos of their child.

While, doing this correctly would probably take forever, I could just email them all the same coupon code and giving access to the album. But the way I worded it, sounds secure so most parents might just stick to their own kids.

As of right now it seems to be the easiest form of easily controling and taking care of this.

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Flyer would say something like this

PeriutPhotography.com | © 2012
Professional Youth Football photos

Unlimited Hi-Res Downloads of your child $10 If paid in cash today.
Paying today gives your child Photo Priority

Single Hi-Res Downloads available after event at $5 Per photo

blah blah blah.

My Wife (as of last Saturday) said she could set up a small table, and handle the people filling out the form and paying.
So Everyone would be directed to her, and I would just get the team and jersey #s to be sure to snap a few shots of.

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Now of course I thought, Well one parent will pay and the rest will share,
But the coach ( my co worker ) said he thought so too, BUT that it was oppisite and tons and tons of parents just paid cash that day.

Honestly, If I made $800 I'd be incredibly happy to the core. Hell, My two week Full Time pay check as a firefighter was $850.... Yeah....

I don't however have custom bussiness shirt to wear or anything. Wish I did....

It's Friday and I have an open weekend so I think I'll kick back, pop open an ice-cold brew, and see where this thread goes. Could be a fun one.

Well, To update since I'm getting alot of response on potn
I'm going to be in a Hi-res shirt from walmart as well as my wife.
I'm going to let her deal with the admin stuff.
Parents who pre-pay will be getting a super deal....
$10 Unlimited Hi-Res Down Load of their Child.
They will write down their name, Their Team/Jersey #

We will be doing a Pre game portrait.
If they want that, $5 cash with the $10 so $15 cash.

Anyone who doesn't pay will pay online at my website $5 per single photo digi download.

I'll have my Canon 5D Classic, 24-135 7d kit lens, 85 1.8, 400 5.6, 70-200 f/4

22GB of Cards (might buy another 8gb just in case)
2 Batteries. (Might have the wife by atleast one more on her way home)

Laptop and External HD just incase I need to dump images.
Car Converter incase I need to charge batteries, Dump pics etc...

I would say $20. We did a similar deal with a little league tournament in Alaska, and we decided $20 was the best way to go. Personally, I would not do unlimited download. I would limit it to just a few photos. Through MaxPreps, a 800x600 digital download is $11.99 and a 2166x1600 is $44.99 and they are my best sellers (Digital Downloads small and medium). That is per photo. On my personal site, I sell small, sized for facebook images for $5 each. For the football team I made larger images available for $10 because they would order them last minute for the placemats for the football banquet, but I received extra money from the boosters for the placemat images, that made those larger images about $20-25 each.

My non youth event download prices are between $20 and $100 depending on the event. So $10 for unlimited is way too low in my opinion.

Have a beer for me Scott, I am out to shoot an Elite Eight football game tonight.....

I have nothing to add but let us know how it works out.

Actually... I do have a question. Who said she made 3 grand? The league organizer, another random parent, the photographer herself, or just a rumor. Anyone that makes three grand in one day shooting local league action would sacrifice their first born to the league organizer to make sure they get the gig the following year. That amount of success with no real plans, marketing, product line, or exposure is unheard of. Something is fishy.

Thought I was kidding around? I don't joke about enjoying a brew on a night off!!

This one's for you, Carl!!

P Alesse wrote:
Actually... I do have a question. Who said she made 3 grand? The league organizer, another random parent, the photographer herself, or just a rumor. Anyone that makes three grand in one day shooting local league action would sacrifice their first born to the league organizer to make sure they get the gig the following year. That amount of success with no real plans, marketing, product line, or exposure is unheard of. Something is fishy.


That's what I thought also Paul...
Cheers Scott...

Yeah, After going over everything I'm making this way too complicated with such a short amount of time.

So, Here's my plan.

There are 4 Games, (8 Teams)

If they want a CD they can pay cash at the game. $10.
Write their Name, Email and Game 1 2 3 or 4 so I know which game photos to send.

Done. I'll email them, and they will reply with their address.
Or I can have them right their address down and skip the email process.

For those who don't pay the cash the same day, (Away teams who may know nothing about the photos)
The Games will be in galleries online where they can purchase photos if they so choose
at $5 a Photo.

I don't see a simpler way to do this.

Future, Yeah I'm going to do a T&I where I charge for the game, for the team and
be done with it.

For a CD with all the photos, I would not charge less than $250. How many people are going to say "Oh, you bought a CD? I will just copy yours. So for 4 games you are risking only getting $80. $80 I would not even show up for.

Others will have a better plan, but instead of offering a CD to each parent, offer one to the team for somewhere between $250 and $500. The team can collect $10-$20 from the parents to purchase the CD. Shoot, for $500 a team, I might actually burn a disc for each player. With 8 teams you are looking at $4000 at $500 a team disc.

I just dont see myself being able to convince each team to gather up 500 bucks. at 25 kids a team thats $20 a kid.

While I agree with you 100%


So, Lets say I did that because I agree 100% for me to make what I want that's the only option.
I would give each team a flyer stating that a Team CD is available for purchase at a price of
$250 Or $500. whatever it is. at 25 kids avg per team that $10 / $20.


Upon payment, A CD will be mailed to each individual players address of all photos.

So, Basically this information would be given to the coach's and then for them to hand out to the parents.

I upload the photos, Low Res and Watermarked Like hell and then wait for them to contact me correct?

$10 per CD sounds too cheap, but this sounds like some found money for you either way.

I have found that unless people buy it on site, your sales drop dramatically. They say they will go to your site and buy pics, but they don't.

Shoot a half of each game and move on. Make sure to focus on the linemen, defensive backs who might be doing nothing (younger kids on teams that can't pass much), kids on special teams, etc. The parents of the kids who don't do a lot tend to be the better purchasers.

Shoot at or close to wide open and get that blurred background.

Offer to take numbers from parents who want to make sure their kids are shot. The vendor I shoot for shoots only requests now.

Good luck.

Paul hit the nail on the head and Scott is drinking something I can't even pronounce...but anyway....if you are the only shooter....did you consider there are 22 kids on the field? How many shots do you plan on getting for each kid to guarantee a parent they will be getting ample....quality shots of their kids? Then there are the cheerleaders....and usually there are about 20+ for each team. When you are shooting them means you aren't getting the players which means parents may not be getting a lot for their $$$.

For pre-paid downloads how are you going to control that....meaning passwords.....meaning they can pass it around like the flu.

If it were that easy....and profitable.....just saying.....I think someone might be blowing smoke you way.

Better think out all of the "what if's" before you jump into this.

Exactly Frank. I did the math. 3 grand at $10 per head is 300 kids. Divide that by six games and that's 50 kids per game. That means two things... This lady has to shoot 25 kids per team per game from the stands or sidelines while at the same time accepting 10 dollars from each parent while also shooting with amateur equipment. She also has to keep track of who paid, offer a receipt and maybe even give change all while shooting? It doesn't add up and I'm gonna have to throw down the bs flag on this one.

The major problem with team cds where everyone contributes is that it's tough for one person to coordinate and organize it. Unless it's a premiere tournament where you are shooting a large volume of teams, it will not work. And when I say large volume... I mean 250 teams and up. A well experienced, well marketed company shoots for a 20 percent buy rate in large volume tournaments and this is with on site sales and a hundred view stations. If it's strictly online... The model fails miserably. And this is with major premiere tournaments. When it comes to youth events... We have run the gamut with every sales model there is. No matter what... It's a grind. No one and I mean no one has just thrown money at us.

We're seeing why I kicked back and had a few brews last night...because the BS flag dropped for me from the very first post. Not much of what was explained in that original post added up.

Having said that, Paul is also spot-on when he says the key is having that ONE PERSON that represents the TEAM, who can sell the team CD concept to the other parents for smaller situations like this. Without that key contact it's an uphill battle and one that, frankly, isn't really worth pursuing (for me, anyway). Almost 100% of action images I sell these days are via pre-paid CDs. And it's very specific, targeted sales to parents who understand what they're getting and how it all works. But it still takes that one parent who can coordinate everything and it takes very specific marketing and sales work on my part to find people who want those CDs.

I try to keep it simple. The parent makes one payment to me for a CD of images--before I shoot their event(s). I offer them suggestions about how they can get the money from the other parents on the team but, frankly, I don't care how they get the money. I'm pretty sure there are some teams where that one parent just pays for everything and doesn't care if the other parents kick in or not. There are other teams who might pay me $400 for a CD yet make $500 or $600 from all the other parents. Again, I don't really care how they do it. If I get what I need from the project and the team wants to use it as a fund raiser, more power to them.

Online sales suck, and for me the CD model is about the only way I shoot youth and high school sports nowadays. I try to keep it simple and straight-forward but, even then, it takes a lot of work and selling to make it happen. Like many of us have said time and again, this stuff is more about marketing and having a good business model in place than it is photography. It should be a given that the photography part of it is going to take care of itself once all the business and marketing pieces have been put in place.

Good luck.

Haha, I'm back. Yeah You'll have to excuse my enthusiasm?
It was okay, Sold a couple hundred in cds from the first game and some from the 2nd but that was about it.

With no notice, no one having any idea who I was or why I was there I got a lot of
"you here from the newspaper" They ended up taking a huge stack of my business cards and handing them out at the gate.

Def learned alot, and don't know how to put this but it was a lil bit ghetto.
Even had a fight between two teams parents where parents were holding each other back.
I mean, Really? their peewee teams...

Took about 1,000 photos. Now now that a 100-400 or a 300 would have been better than the 400 and 70-200. Since I only had one body.

Can't expect much from a 5d classic. Wasn't meant for sports.

I know you sports guys are going to get a great laugh out of this all.

I had fun, Made a lil bit of money and had a chance at something I haven't shot before
so overall I'm ok with it. Not sure why he told me this lady made 2500-3000.

Maybe to get me to show up?

Anyway, I'll post up a few shots tonight. Going to run the dog to the dog park for a couple of hours.

Lesson 1... League, tournament organizers are salesmen. Maybe you times they look for a commission of sales. Hope this wasn't the case.

"maybe you times they look"
I'm not understanding this correctly