deano87
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Registered: 21st Oct 06
Location: Bedfordshire Drives: Ford Fiesta
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Whilst I don't feel I'm jumping on the photography bandwagon, I feel I have found a niche in the market.
At my local riding spot, there are a number of pro-photographers that come down. Now they charge minimum, £5 for a digital photo. I'm thinking of the photo's I take, I could sell them for £1 or £2, only available digitally.
Now I don't have any budget to set up a website to sell my photos however know there are a number of sites where you can do this very quickly - some a more professional than others.
Has anyone done this? Can anyone recommend a site? I've found these so far.
http://www.photoboxgallery.com - no set up costs, just 10% from every sale.
http://www.fotki.com - with Premium you can sell, but I don't know how freely.
http://www.ifp3.com - American site with $20/month costs + $45 URL set up.
https://www.photoreflect.com/ - I've just found this and they seem to win with their honesty. $9/month & 18% fees, but this includes ecommerce and payment security.
What do you guys think? Is this an amazingly bad idea or something that could work and potentially develop? Are these sites actually worth it?
[Edited on 31-03-2010 by deano87]
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Matt L
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Registered: 17th Apr 06
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Never tried it tbh so cant really offer much advice on it, who has control of the image use though once you put in on one of those sites? just incase they expect the picture to be theres to do with as they please if that makes sense.
If it was me i would just let the people know your taking the photos and possibly put them on somewhere like a facebook page so that they are dyer quality but still so people can see them or flickr, and then get people to pay you through paypal or something for them and email them etc, although saying that once its on there people can obviouslt right click and save etc.
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Whittie
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Registered: 11th Aug 06
Location: North Wales Drives: BMW, Corsa & Fiat
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Alamy
Istockphoto.
I've sold on Alamy before, and regularly buy images on Alamy & Istockphoto.
Images i've sold to/on Alamy have appeard in Radio Times magazine btw 
[Edited on 01-04-2010 by Whittie]
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AndyKent
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Registered: 3rd Sep 05
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Whilst the idea isn't a bad one, I wouldn't expect you to sell many at all.
Fact is that if people really want a photo £5 isn't a bad price at the moment, and I'm guessing those pro togs are out there all day making sure they get photos of everyone.
If you start offering a 'service' but miss half the riders who is going to bother to come back to your site? If thats the case you'll have to spend a lot of time taking photos (all day basically) and if you only sell, say, 5 pictures per day (and thats optimistic) you've only made £10 max, and thats before anyone has taken commission from sales.
I tried similar with motorsport but when theres a lot of togs around already offering fair prices for images, theres no way you're going to sell any worthwhile volume. The only way I made any money was by signing with a team to provide only them with images, no one else.
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deano87
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Registered: 21st Oct 06
Location: Bedfordshire Drives: Ford Fiesta
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quote:
Originally posted by AndyKent
Whilst the idea isn't a bad one, I wouldn't expect you to sell many at all.
Fact is that if people really want a photo £5 isn't a bad price at the moment, and I'm guessing those pro togs are out there all day making sure they get photos of everyone.
If you start offering a 'service' but miss half the riders who is going to bother to come back to your site? If thats the case you'll have to spend a lot of time taking photos (all day basically) and if you only sell, say, 5 pictures per day (and thats optimistic) you've only made £10 max, and thats before anyone has taken commission from sales.
I tried similar with motorsport but when theres a lot of togs around already offering fair prices for images, theres no way you're going to sell any worthwhile volume. The only way I made any money was by signing with a team to provide only them with images, no one else.
Valid point on the catching riders front. I haven't done specific number crunching - but most people down the woods wouldn't pay £5 for a pro photo, but a lot ask me if I have a site etc, so I figured selling for as little as £1 or £2 could work.
I guess one avenue to explore would be 'hiring' me - i.e. £15 per hour, all the photos I take are theirs on a disc, something like that.
Then I'd just need a free website hosting thing to promote it, even Facebook.
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Graham88
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Registered: 16th Apr 07
Location: South East Kent Drives: E46 M3
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When I did a Brands Hatch trackday it was £10 for the first photo and £2 for each one after that. They took LOTS of shots of my car and I ended up buying £28 worth of shots. I spent a good couple of hours looking through all the shots though, as they'd literally taken a few thousand because they had 3-4 photographers.
That's not easy to compete with Deano.
[Edited on 01-04-2010 by Graham88]
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deano87
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Registered: 21st Oct 06
Location: Bedfordshire Drives: Ford Fiesta
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I guess. It was just an idea to earn some extra wonga whilst hanging about a place I love i.e. it wouldn't be a chore.
Hourly rate route might be an idea - got a camcorder as well and not a lot of people ever see themselves ride.
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Tiger
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Registered: 12th Jun 01
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Basically, it's very bad for photography in general taking photos and charging less money. Its a severe downward spiral that leads to flooding the market with potentially substandard works (by that I don't mean you).
Basically, take good photos, take good money. By undercutting the field, people will become more familiar with cheap prices and the smaller aspect of the industry becomes no longer a profitable area.
What we have nowadays are people that think because they have a camera, they are a photographer (again, i'm not aiming this at you at all, I had this discussion with the photographer 'Perou' some years ago).
These people then produce substandard photos and charge pennies, which people think is the norm. Then when a pro comes along and takes an incredible photograph with a professional price tag, people are no longer interested.
The summary of what i'm trying to say is don't undercut the pro's - if you take good photos, charge the same price 
[Edited on 01-04-2010 by Tiger]
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deano87
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Registered: 21st Oct 06
Location: Bedfordshire Drives: Ford Fiesta
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Very fair point I suppose. And really I am jumping on the photography bandwagon. I don't think I'm a photographer, but I can take a half decent clear action show which appeals to some people. But I certainly wouldn't want to drag the industry down.
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AndyKent
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Registered: 3rd Sep 05
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quote:
Originally posted by deano87
I guess one avenue to explore would be 'hiring' me - i.e. £15 per hour, all the photos I take are theirs on a disc, something like that.
I think this is your best option, but on a slightly different take. Someone hires you for 15 minutes for a £10. They get to keep every (worthwhile) shot you take during that time digitally.
If you've not done shooting-on-demand before though I'd have a go first. With my motorsport stuff I was shooting 3 cars only during a race which might only last 10 laps. That means you have to be shooting 5 or 6 high quality, saleable images per lap - not easy when stuff is moving quickly - and I'd imagine would be the same for biking stuff. If you mess it up you're screwed!
The biggest problem will be getting people to use you though, and thats where I'm not really very good at advising
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deano87
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Registered: 21st Oct 06
Location: Bedfordshire Drives: Ford Fiesta
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Without a doubt I would need to get a bit more practice in, but I could do that any weekend down the woods.
Getting people to use me won't necessarily be a problem. Like I said, a lot of people have never seen themselves in pictures (especially those that rid on their own a lot) and therefore there is bit of a market for it, imho.
Will have a think
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AndyKent
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Registered: 3rd Sep 05
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Fair play if you want to give it a go, but its a lot easier said than done getting people to hand over their cash
Be interested to hear if you get any further though
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