Advice To My First Job Please

[darklord]

Just got my first job shooting a local charity triathlon event. I won't get paid for this but the organizer says they will post my pictures on their website and direct people to buy prints form me. Honestly, I would be lucky to earn my gas money from selling prints. However, I want to do this because this could legitimize my tax deduction on my gears, however small my earning will be, and give me exposure to the participants if they should ever need a photog to do birthdays or whatever.


My question is how should price my prints? I will be using the commercial printing service like Costco/Walmart.


Would it be reasonable to charge like $2 for a 4X6 print with shipping? Do people usually want the prints to be paper framed?


And how do you collect the money if someone just buy one print for like $2? Paypal would be the obviously choice but for $2 the paypal fee would be too much to me. Any advice is appreciated for this rookie, thanks!

[Ralph III]

Hello and congrats on getting your first job. I do quite a bit of tennis events, have my own site however, but use Backprint.com for fullfillment. They are free and have a nice e-commerce store which you can create as your own. They give you a free homepage which you can designas well. You can select from a large choice of products to sell, from prints to coffee mugs etc., and set your own prices.


You are given asuggested price list which is entirely too high but Icharge $3.99 for 4x6's and $5.99 for 5 x 7's, $9.99 for 8 x 10's, etc. You can offer couponsfor incentives as well.


Good luck.


P.S. Create an account there and have the sponsors link to it as well. Also, print somebusiness cards to hand out and possibly flyers.If you want to offer poster printsconsiderSam's Club as they do a great job for me so mail those outyourself.Some pro's may scoff but they have sophisticated equipment and many photographers use them.They do an excellent job on all my posters and arevery affordable.

[darklord]

Thanks, Ralph. Would you suggest shooting jpeg or raw for events like this? I will bring two bodies, a FF with the 24-70 for some wide to medium wide shots and a crop body with the 70-200 f2.8 is for reach. This way, I don't think I will need to change lenses outdoor.

[Ralph III]

Well again you may get different input from different people, however, you willbe perfectly fine shooting jpeg for such an event. I shoot all my tennis events in that mode only at highest setting which is 8.2 mp on my 30d. BTW, it renders great 20 x 30 poster size prints with those settings.





The issues to consider with RAW


1) You would have to edit all RAW images and then convert to jpeg which is a lot if youhave a thousand shots or more. Otherwise you could shoot RAW/jpeg format, depending on camera. That requires even more memory thanRAW only however,which brings the second point.


2) RAW images require a lot of memory so unless you have several largecards you will run out fast. A 4 gig cardgets me 400 pics on my 30d which is 8.2 megapixelcamera usingRAW. The same card gets menear 900 shots at the highest 8.2 settingusingjpeg.





If you were shooting a wedding, portraits or scenic shots RAW or RAW/jpeg is the way to go.You have more time to edit and adjust colors etc, as well as some of thosebeing the mostimportant events you could ever cover! However, shooting a sporting event where getting the pics online as fast as possible is better to shoot jpeg in my opinion.


Sounds like you have the lenses and camera's covered. I don't know how your event will work but if you could print/framesome pictures at the eventfor participants to see at the finish line, couldgenerate some interest. Otherwise, if you have Photoshop, consider creating some sort of uniqueposter of the event afterward to offer participants as well as sponsors.


Good luck and God Bless, Ralph

[Richard Lane]

Hi Darklord,


Two dollars is definitely too little to charge. Two dollars, won't even buy you one dollar these days. Ralph's prices are more in line with what I would recommend. I would go with the higher prices and use paypal. Eventually, as your business grows you will need a website, and then there are many choices for that.


One other thing to consider, would be to donate a portion of your proceeds back to the charity. If you agree, you could have the charity post information on their website that would inform people, that a portion of the profits of all the photos sold will be donated to the charity. You could donate 20% and you may sell more photos that way. You could also raise your prices by 25% to cover this additional expense plus the paypal fee. Either way, the charity gets more donations and you look like a genius, and guess who they're going to call the next time they have an event.


Since you're donating your time and probably going to shoot over 1000 pictures, I would shoot in jpeg so you won't have to, edit, process and then convert to jpeg, which will be a lot of work after you're done with the shoot.


Good Luck,


Rich

[Jonathan Huyer]

I know the question pertained to pricing of photos, but I thought it might be of interest to post this link:


http://www.bornskinny.com/tips.htm


It has very good advice on taking photos for races. Have fun!

[scalesusa]

Selling $10.00 worth of photos (or $500 worth)is not going to convince IRS that you have a serious business and let you deduct thousands of dollars.


Two dollars for a 4X6 print including shipping is too low. Cost of printing, proper protective envelope, sleeve, and cardboard inserts to keep the envelope from bending will eat up most of the $2.00.


You will have todepreciate your capital equipment over a fixed number of years according to their requirements, and, of course keep proper books. If you are not making money, your accountant will not certify you as a going concern.

[darklord]

I know the question pertained to pricing of photos, but I thought it might be of interest to post this link:


http://www.bornskinny.com/tips.htm


It has very good advice on taking photos for races. Have fun!

Wow, that's a great site, thanks a lot.

[darklord]

<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]You will have todepreciate your capital equipment over a fixed number of years according to their requirements, and, of course keep proper books. If you are not making money, your accountant will not certify you as a going concern.


<span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"]

Beg to differ. I'm in the oil and gas business and whenever and wherever we drill we have only 10% to 30% chance of finding a production well. And we set up all these different companies drilling in different regions and basically, 8 times out of 10, they lose money and we are relying on the other 2 winners to cover the 8 dry holes and then some to turn a profit. That's the nature of the O&amp;G business.


The morale story is that just because you lose money, doesn't mean it is not a legitimate business for tax deduction purposes.

[Iguide]

DarkLord said


The morale story is that just because you lose money, doesn't mean it is not a legitimate business for tax deduction purposes.


Iguide


While I understand your reasoning it is not quite accurate. Even you say that the lesser amount of producing holes making a profit are what are relied on to cover all the loss of dry holes. Over the long run the business turns a profit. Anyone that has had a business needs to eventually turn a profit to remain in business and to justify the expenditures. If they do not they are not in business very long. It is natural for a small business to possible show a loss for a couple of years in addition to some bad economic times to be supported buy outside income. However if you are continually infusing outside money not earned by the business, then by definition it is not a business ( ask anyone that has a successful business ) and more important the IRS WILL NOT consider it a going concern or a real business and will disavow deductions for that business which if it continues operating at a loss most likely will result in an audit from the IRS.


If you doubt this you call and ask your accountant and the IRS and see what they say, ok. Oh just to let you know I have run my own business for 29 yrs. &amp; have had to deal with this exact issue myself, so I say this with personal experience to back me up..


Other than that I will gladly answer more question to help you from a business point of view as best I can. I am not going to argue over something that is fact of business life and that is why I humble suggest if you beg to differ on this then you call the IRS and ask them. They are after all the ultimate authority on this subject.





Godspeed


Wayne





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