People wonder why I am so cynical at times. I'm that way because people have shown me that I need to be. In the past two days some things have happened that convince me that I really do need to be the way I am. What happened you say?
Many know my position on posting photos for sale on the web and as time has gone on I have stopped selling or even showing images to customers after an event. Why? Because I am in the business of selling/licensing images not being a dang library. My attitude is that you can look all you want at an event but if you can't make up your mind on what to buy at the event you aren't going to be any more effective a week later. Why should I support your procrastination?
Wednesday I covered an event and the last viewer of the day pretty much capped off the event. It was one of those days where you are the bug, not the windshield. This young lady came in and wanted to see the photos of her boyfriends car and we certainly showed them to her. Her boyfriend had come in about 30 minutes earlier and really didn't want to buy the photos because we captured his 720 degree spin and he felt embarassed. He did, of course, take away a free contact sheet showing all the photos. She asked for a contact sheet and then did the "We can contact you later, right? Your contact info is on this sheet, isn't it?" When we told her that the photos would not be available after the event and that a purchase decision would need to be made here at the event, she threw back her head and stomped out of the trailer. We could hear her tell her friends that "They suck! They expect us to buy stuff right now!"
When I got home I received an email from a company that wanted to use one of our photos. Here's the text of the message.
"Norm,
Dave W of Good XXXXX (my ad agency) forwarded to me some photos that you had sent to him. The first photo (see attached) is of our car, the yellow #91 Mustang, taken at Infineon.
I am interested in purchasing the rights for this photo. The intended use would be for our marketing purposes, including brochures, catalogs, our website, etc.
Would $100 for a high resolution version of this photo be in the ballpark?
Thanks,
Chuck, CEO"
This guy manufactures high end suspension components for racing Mustangs and has no qualms about asking for hundreds of dollars for each piece. I was sorely tempted to reply and just say "No" but I thought better of it. Instead I sent back a message reminding him that we were both business people and I knew that he didn't give his work away and would understand when I didn't as well. I then asked for a detailed use requirements so I could work up a quote. No reply as of yet. I wonder why? [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
Then yesterday I get a call from a guy who owns a historic stock car. These things are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was interested in buying some photos but needed to look at them to figure out what he wanted. I hustled and put together a web gallery for him to look at and let him know where to find the gallery.
This evening I get an email that says "Norm...thanks a ton..see you in October.."
Why am I cynical?
Robert J. Ringer was right, they really do want to take all your chips.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Makes me glad I just take 'em (pics) and don't have to worry about selling 'em.
Besides, I'm much, much better at my "day" job than I am at taking pictures. If I were in your line of work to making a living, I'd probably starve to death.
Or become a cynic, like you, Norm.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
I don't think there's anything cynical about expecting people to purchase professionally taken photographs. If it's worth having it is worth paying for! I have to say that I completely empathize with Norm's position on this.
Although I don't normally shoot events, other than weddings, at the request of the principal of my daughters school, I recently photographed the graduation commencement ceremony and presentation of diplomas, I posted the images on the web and within 14 days they have broken all previous records for site visitors 1,650 visitor in the past two weeks astonishing, since there were only 110 students graduated.
It's also broken the record for the worst orders ever, just two parents have ordered thus far, perhaps they think I shot the images so my daughter could have a nice record of her friends getting their diplomas too, or maybe so that I could make an album up for her.
The reality is that professional photographers are not in business to provide a service, photographers are not in business to give images away we're in business to make money and for no other reason!
On a technical note: I measured the ambient lighting, set the white balance to the tungsten ambiance, used a fill in flash corrected with a daylight to tungsten filter and captured some pretty amazing images as each child collected his/her diploma on stage.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
A triathlon I shot on 6/17 had 900 athletes. Through today the site has had 62,219 hits.....and 76 orders. Less than 1 person in 10 has ordered. And that is double last year's sales!
When I took the site down after 60 days last year, several people emailed me asking what had happened and could they continue to 'view' their images. When I replied that I would be happy to sell them prints, I never heard from them again.
Ken
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
Your experiences illustrate EXACTLY why I stopped posting images on the web and why I am now rethinking how I do things. BTW, your numbers pretty much mirror what I used to see. I found that I would have a three day spike in activity when I posted new images but I never really saw a big spike in sales.
The web is so seductive! It sounds so easy! All I need to do is take my camera and shoot a bunch of really great pictures and I'll be in business. I'll go to one of these sites and upload everything and wait for the checks to roll in, minus 15% of course. I won't need to have any printing equipment. I won't need to have any viewing stations. I won't need to hassle with employees. My expenses will be minimal and my customers will love me. It's so clean and simple. Heck, all I'll need is my camera and memory cards and a way to upload my photos. Oh, I almost forgot; I'll need a way to let everyone know where to go to see their photos so I'll make up some business cards with that info on it and I'll be in business. If I make it easy for the customers to find their photos they’ll just rush to my site and buy everything. When it doesn’t happen this way one of the first things I hear from other photographers is that “My photos must not be very good. If I take better photos, they’ll buy. I’m sure of it.” BTW, if this sounds like you, why would you think that others wouldn't be doing the same thing and thinking the same thing? Remember, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch! When I think of this I can't help but remember what they said about the gold rush. Most miners didn't get rich but the companies that sold things to the miners certainly did!
What everyone conveniently forgets or more than likely doesn't even think about, is that people will take the path of least resistance. We face the dilemma of how do we get people to buy our photos if we don’t show them? If people can see their images, even if they are not of an optimum size and clarity and even if they have watermarks, they won’t feel the need to buy them if they can look at them for free. It doesn't matter how good the images are either. People have the belief of "Why pay for something if you don’t have to?" I usually say that your customers will let you be as stupid as you want to be. With the proliferation of easy web access you can simply tell everyone you know where they can find the photos and no one has to buy anything. My friends and family think I’m great and I’m not out a dime. An obvious solution, for photographers, would be if we could force people to pay to view our images. I’m thinking along the lines of a paid club membership. Think it would work?
You guys aren’t the only ones to have this issue. Even I have this problem and I don’t post images to the web. In the case of the stock car guy, he wanted to see his photos to decide what to buy. I created a web gallery in Photoshop and put it on my web server and told him where to find the gallery. I was trying to be a helpful businessman and what I really did was give my potential customer an irresistible incentive to NOT buy from me. It’s not his fault it’s mine or rather the fault of our industry. Maybe I should have faxed a contact sheet instead.
Even in the case of our handing out contact sheets, people who don’t have a need to buy a photo look at them as being “good enough” and if I’m going to give them out freely then they will take them, freely.
The only solution to this situation that we have found is to withhold access to the images after a certain period of time. For example, we don’t post anything to the web and nothing is shown or sold after the event. Customers can view their images as much as they want in our trailer but we usually stop printing the contact sheets after 2 pm or so. The reason is that we start to get backed up and printing contact sheets slows down the turn over for the viewing stations.
My problem is that in my desire to please my customers I sometimes violate my own rules and I get screwed every time I do it.
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
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Why in the world would you go back? Unless there was absolutely nothing else to do.
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Well, last year was my first trying to make a $ shooting triathlon as an event as opposed to editorial (which has gone completely in the toilet with every fool with a P&S giving their images for free to the publications.) Anyway, last year was a learning experience. I made a little $ but the $ per hour was ridiculously low.
This year I changed fulfillment houses to one that was geared to running/triathlon events. I increased my marketing activities by putting 8x12s from last year's race in the 'Y' lobby and after the finish line. We put a postcard with montage of last year's images and our link in each competitor's race bag. Three days after the race the site went up and each competitor received an email with a link to THEIR images (if their bib # was visible) and this week we will send postcards to the 20 people who we did not have emails addresses for and to the 110 people whose emails bounced as undeliverable. So far the return on the marketing expenses has been 10X.
I've thought about printing on site. Terry Zorich, formerly of this site, and an on-site printing wizard in the sports he covers, & I tried to figure out how to do on-site at running/Tri events. We concluded that it just would not work. Too many competitors finish in a very short period of time and leave shortly thereafter. In a 5K race everyone arrives at the finish line 17-45 minutes after the start. In a 10K race it is 30-80 minutes after the start. 70% of the competitors finish in the 8-10 minute per mile range. To have 300-400-500-1000 competitors show up at the on-site printing trailer at the same time would overwhelm even the best system.
Web fulfillment is the only viable option for these events. A capture rate of 15% of the competitors is considered a very successful event.
Ken
White Balance so easy, even our 5 year old can do it.- Melissa Strickland
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