Should I or Should I Not?

[huntersdad]

One of the parents of a kid I shot during softball season contacted me today. Her husband oversees tournaments and what not at a local golf course. They are having a couple tournaments over the next month. They have asked me to sponsor a hole in the adult tournament for $100. They will place a sign at the hole for advertising which will stay there for a week after the tournament and additionally, I will be mentioned in the monthly club letter and at the tournament banquet. I would be the "tournament photographer".

The first tournament is a parent/child tournament and the second is a team tournament. The only holdup I have is that they want the pictures to be available for showing during the banquet that night. This means after shooting all day I have to go with what I have and will not have the opportunity to PP, which concerns me some. Also, I'm not sold on shooting the adult tournament but the kids could have some merit to it.

Any of you ever shot a golf tournament like this before? Any thoughts or suggestions?

[adam8080]

Will you be giving these picture to the tournament overseers for unlimited usages or will you be selling the pictures, or a combination of the two. Will you be the only one taking/sell pictures?

Should be pretty straightforward shooting. If shot in jpg in camera, then it should make things pretty easy for the end of the day.

[huntersdad]

Only photographer and pictures to sell. I might would give a couple to the club for advertising and opportunity but I would not be required to do so.

I thought about the jpeg but so used to shooting RAW and doing corrections that jpeg and being limited scares me a little bit.

[adam8080]

Printing on site should help you sales. If you think you can make some money from it, go for it.

Jpg is just fine for this kinda stuff. Check your settings, set a white balance and you are good to go. Chimp every now and then to make sure that everything is dead on and you will be fine.

What kind of showing is going on at the end? Projector? Are you expected to provide it?

[huntersdad]

Not sure about the show. I'm going to have to ask about that one. I also wasn't planning on print on site. May have to reconsider that one.

[adam8080]

There are probably some threads talking about printing on site if you want to look them up.

If you make it easier for people to buy your product, more people will (provided that you have a product that people want/can afford).

[tim]

Shoot manual for consistency if the light is uniform. Shoot RAW + small jpeg, present using the small jpeg and process/print using the RAW. Printing onside will require 2-3 people and 2 laptops, at least, but will increase your sales. You could take orders and payment on the day and tell people photos will be ready to collect one week later from the same place, or can be mailed out for $10. Even if you're just showing on the night you'd want a few machines so everyone can look at them.

Make sure you have cards giving the proof site URL so people can order later. Tell them ordering will be open for 3 days, otherwise people put it off.

[adam8080]

If you do shoot manual, don't forget to change your settings for shady areas under trees and clouds!

[The Stig]

Why not? If you're used to shooting in RAW and making adjustments, I'll bet dollars to donuts you know what you're doing behind the camera. Therefore, shooting outdoors in jpeg should be a relative cakewalk. Besides, the $100 with mentions, signs, and so forth sounds like a hot deal to me. My $.02.

[Naturalist]

I would go for that deal easily. It could lead to more sales in the future and its getting your name out there. A good $100 investment.

[radloser]

I plan our annual FOP golf outing and one year I had the outing at a local country club. They had some of the girls working there walking around with cameras and taking pictures. At the end of the day, all of the photos were put together on a slide show and it was pretty nice. Nothing that a decent photographer would put together, but nice for what it was. That might be all they are looking for on site. If thats the case, I don't think they are expecting fine art photography for the slide show.

Another thought. If they don't expect you to print and sell on site and you don't, you're probably going to loose tons of sales. Most people after the outing are not going to bother buying photos unless it really means something to them. And that's IF you even get them to a website or something to see them. If you have them printed and ready to go there, you will probably move plenty. People come to outings with plenty of cash and will spend it.

[edward.hall]

You can show them the images during the banquet but if they ask for a copy I think they have to wait and pay for it.

[PhotosGuy]

You can show them the images during the banquet but if they ask for a copy I think they have to wait and pay for it. That would work for me. Put up a screen & project a slide show of a CD of the images. Setiprime & others have done that at the annual banquet & had good luck with it.
Maybe print some contact sheets to use to take orders, but a website would be a better option IMO. Print up some business cards for just that event with the specific url on them.

[Tigershark]

if you can rent a Shinko Printer do it and print on site. If you nail the exposure there should be very little PP and just print an 8x10 for a decent price and make some good money. The good thing is you should have plenty of down time, after everyone tees off you should have enough time to sit at the computer and get everything printed and have it waiting for them when they come back in. It is popular and I can't imagine not getting tons of sales of the prints. If you have laptop and a wireless card and a lab near by send them to a 1 hr lab not ideal but there will be time just upload print and have someone drop them back off to you they will sell.

[golfecho]

Printing on site should help your sales. If you think you can make some money from it, go for it.



Might be an opportunity for you to be the first person to actually use the "print" button found on the camera . . . ;)