First Time Shooting LL Baseball as Semi Pro

[sawyer1206]

I am officially staring to build my sports portfolio in hope of some day generating enough revenue that I can quit my other second job. I shot a couple of little league Baseball games and one softball tournament this weekend. Here are a couple from the first LL game. If you were #2's parent would you purchase these photos?

#1


#2


#3

[Matt_G]

Well your asking people that do this already if they would buy the photos...in short No I wouldnt. Given the right parent you can always sell images some of the time. But producing to where you sell most of the time is the goal. These images just are not there.

The colors are flat and not exposd perfect. Its a GREAT start so dont let me burst your bubble. But you will have to produce much better results to get sales in outdoor sports.

[sawyer1206]

Originally Posted by Matt_G

Well your asking people that do this already if they would buy the photos...in short No I wouldnt. Given the right parent you can always sell images some of the time. But producing to where you sell most of the time is the goal. These images just are not there.

The colors are flat and not exposd perfect. Its a GREAT start so dont let me burst your bubble. But you will have to produce much better results to get sales in outdoor sports.

Matt,

Thanks for your input it is greatly appreciated. I gotta say that I have been shooting outdoor sports for a couple of years( youth football for the last three years) and I must say it is very difficult to get that perfect shot. The exif data for these images are intact. Would you mind taking a look and maybe give me some pointers as to how I could improve the images.

[Matt_G]

ISO 400
1/4000
f/5.6
AV
400mm

The main issue I see is with the colors. They look very washed out..like they were over exposed originally or something. The first one is cropped way too tight and the second is too loose. The second is the best of the bunch, good timing, partial face, nice action. The third would more than likely be in the trash bin for me

Lastly, action is nice but FACES sell in youth sports.

[ldelacruz]

One thing I have seen is that you have to market yourself and your photos. One of your obstacles will be convincing your parents to pay what the photo is worth when Walgreens/Walmart charge .79 for a 5x7.

[dmcantrell]

The one with the face is the keeper. Parents want to see their kid's face.

The speculative photo biz is a tough one. I once saw a guy who was sitting outside a volleyball tournament with a little table. He had a couple of printers and was selling the photos from the day's matches to the parents before they left the venue. I guess he was taking the photos during the matches then having his assistant print them and put them on display immediately.

These comments, of course, are just my opinion.

[Tom]

If you want to make money at spec shooting of kid sports, you have to have a system for on-site printing.

Check this out:
SportsShooter.com - Classified Item

Someone with a setup like that is going to be hard to compete with. They can sell their pics on location, and not have to hope that the parents will check out the website of some creeper taking pics of their precious little snowflake. You may be cheaper than them, but they are able to take advantage of impulse buying.

And again, cameras and lenses are cheap and prints are cheaper, so you are going to have a really tough time convincing parents to buy your prints for 100s of dollars when they could buy a 20D and a 70-300 for under $500 and take a decent pic themselves.

[dmcantrell]

I know a guy who does the speculative kids' sports thing, but sells the prints very cheap. He does this in an effort to get them interested in portraits and senior photos whcih is where he plans to make his revenue. I don't know how well that is working out for him though.

[Matt_G]

I do pretty well in youth sports and performances and have NEVER sold a print on site. 100% online...however I dont show up at random to sporting events either

[sawyer1206]

I agree with everyone here that said faces sells photos. I try to get the eyes when I can and they seem to be the more popular photos. Here are a couple examples of last years more popular football photos.

[sawyer1206]

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

One thing I have seen is that you have to market yourself and your photos. One of your obstacles will be convincing your parents to pay what the photo is worth when Walgreens/Walmart charge .79 for a 5x7.

Lonnie,

I could not agree more. It's my opinion that no matter how good your photos are they are no substitute for a professional and courteous attitude and a neat professional appearance.

I am a parent of two young children myself and if a photographer were to show up in cuts and flip flops chewing tobacco toting a XT with a 75-300mm at one of their games. Good luck getting me to check out his website!!

[webtech]

Spec shooting is just a money loser, period. Most of the parents just want to look at the photos, but never buy anything. They will always come up to you and say" Will you please get pictures of so-and-so", and you do, and then nothing happens. Or they say they want to wait until the end of the season and look at them all at once. Either way, spec shooting will never pay enough to be a full time job. If it's just a hobby, great.

Your baseball pics are shot from the wrong vantage point. These kids are little so you need to be on your knees. Your shutter speed is way too high which is what is making the faces go dark under the caps. Don't sacrifice the face for the background blur.

[LSCSN.com]

I have to agree with Matt about your opening question. Pretty tough question to ask a group of photographers, some of which are VERY good. There's a LOT of circumstances that would have to be weighed into your question as well to even answer. Is the venue closed off to all other photographers. If I can shoot my own photos can I shoot from the field like you or do I have to shoot from behind the fence, etc. etc. etc.

As already been said the exposures and cropping need some work. Not sure one is cropped too tight until we see the rest of the image. If you cropped out the catcher putting the tag on the runner or getting ready to with the ball in the air I would say it's cropped too tight. If not then that crop might be okay.

Would have been better if you could see more of his face, but hey sometimes we are not in the right spot at the right time. We can't be in five different angles unless you have four different remote cameras :-).

As someone that has made a decent living for the last seven-plus years in action photography I would disagree with some of the statements made in this thread. You can make a living and you can make a good living. You just have to know how to play the game!

Bottom line is all of those images are sellable to the right parent. Does that mean they will buy them? Depends on if that "right parent" belongs to those kids in the picture :-).

[Tom]

As someone that has made a decent living for the last seven-plus years in action photography I would disagree with some of the statements made in this thread. You can make a living and you can make a good living. You just have to know how to play the game!

But you also have a team of photographers working free on spec for you. Lot easier to make a living wage at it when you make 50% of the sales from dozens of games with the photographers working for free.

[LSCSN.com]

Oh that that were true Thomas but you aren't even close to accurate.