Selling at my own School

[casey487]

I am a high schooler in the midwest and have been shooting my schools sports for a few years. I have been a yearbook photographer and used my photos throughout the school. I cover just about everything being one of the most skilled photographers at my school.

But I want to sell my photos. I have been told I have a lot of talent and have even won national awards in high school journalism for my photographs (javascript:openViewLarger('photocontest/sports2.htm',725,700)), but I cant seem to make the sale. I have a smugmug (http://c-bStudios.smugmug.com) account that I got for free and have only made one sale in the last 4 months. I am not looking to make a fortune and I know that is less and less possible these days, but I want to get my name out there because I know my photos are at least decent for people to spend a few cents to a buck on.

I talked to my student activities dean about linking my smugmug on the schools webpage and she said that the school has an exclusivity with another company, but they company doesn't sell photos, they just take them and give them to the yearbook staff (i would know, im on the staff).

I get some people asking about my photographs, but they are mostly just kids, and dont buy them, they just copy the lose res bitmaps and put them on the facebooks. I think about watermarking, but it feels cheep.

Any suggestions? If im missing anything, let me know.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2291/2330217232_158d295313.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2110/2113473541_4241f54482.jpg?v=0

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2111/2344740352_1b7d3a4ff8.jpg?v=0

Thanks

c-bstudios.com (http://www.c-bstudios.com)
c-bstudios.smugmug.com (http://c-bstudios.smugmug.com)

[Nick Pro]

Great shots. As a fellow head YB shooter, the school will not let me sell shots unless I am not shooting for the YB at the event. What equipment are you using, and what strobe set up for B-ball? Thanks!
Nick

Also, who did your website? I am in need of one, and yours is really nice and professional.

Edit for the 3rd time, haha. I see you use a Mark III. Is this yours, or your schools? If it's yours, how did you afford it? Again, what lenses are you using?

[casey487]

What equipment are you using, and what strobe set up for B-ball?

Well, the one thing the school was nice about was they did get us a kick a$$ camera, a 1D Mark III to be exact. And there was no strobe set up on the bb shot, just high ISO and great timing. I was amazed it came out that good.

As a fellow head YB shooter, the school will not let me sell shots unless I am not shooting for the YB at the event.

My YB advisor has no problem with me selling my shots, but she is not the one in charge of getting my page linked or anything.

[Nick Pro]

Well, the one thing the school was nice about was they did get us a kick a$$ camera, a 1D Mark III to be exact. And there was no strobe set up on the bb shot, just high ISO and great timing. I was amazed it came out that good.



My YB advisor has no problem with me selling my shots, but she is not the one in charge of getting my page linked or anything.

Wow, you have to be the luckiest kid alive. We have nikons at my school :oops: Nt even good ones! a D60 and a D100.

[jhawksley]

Edit

[casey487]

Hawksley-

How did you advertise? If i could bypass my school (cus it seems a dead end) I could go straight to the parents/pocket books.

[jhawksley]

Edit

[basroil]

One word, FACEBOOK.
Advertising there is fairly cheap, and you can target your school directly. When kids find shots they like, they sometimes tell their parents. Per 2k views, you can assume that you'll get one sale. Not bad if you plan on selling prints with at least 3 bucks profit. Of course, this is only a supplement to direct ads. Another great way to get to parents is to talk to them. And of course, have good customer service. The better parents like you the more gossip will travel around between them.

On a side note, you are pretty damn lucky that your yearbook doesn't claim your photos. I've had a horrible experience with my highschool yearbook (they stole a photo of mine and ran it a year after i left), and deteriorating conditions with my college paper (now they want to steal photos and claim all rights, even though it's my equipment, time, and efforts to get in places. not even a damn dime for taking photos for them, ,though i did meet people in high places because of that)

[casey487]

One word, FACEBOOK.
Advertising there is fairly cheap, and you can target your school directly.

On a side note, you are pretty damn lucky that your yearbook doesn't claim your photos.

Do you mean advertise through facebook, or just target people and message them?

I've been quite lucky with our yearbook staff. They basically consider me a God send b/c their weren't to many talented photographers before me. Not to sound full of myself or anything.

[taylorwilsdon]

Put big fugly watermarks on your pictures to keep them off facebook and sell them for pretty cheap.

One suggestion would be sell digital versions (touched up, 1024x res) for like 2 bucks... I bet a ton of people would buy that if only to put as a computer background, facebook/myspace pic etc. Digital picture frames are big these days too.

You have no overhead costs (no printing, etc) and you'll sell tons.