Tournament shooting - workflow and base equipment?

[CiM_Photography]

I have been given exclusive access to photograph an upcoming hockey tournament, taking place over 4 days with 30 teams competing. The arena runs 2 rinks, side by side so I will be teaming with another local photographer to undertake this assignment.

My question is: what do team members & parents expect for workflow? My thought process was this:

• Shoot JPG (correct Kelvin) and offload the CF cards at the end of every period
• Have one individual running the computer at the booth uploading the cards and deleting bad images/duplicates
• Parents will be able to browse the photos (somehow... TBD?) and record the image number they are interested in
• Upload all the photos to ZenFolio/SmugMug so they are available as soon as next day for parents to order them

I don't know if this is the proper workflow, so I'm reaching out to you guys to suggest the best method of handling this opportunity. I have a month or so to square this away, so I'll need to act pretty quickly.

Thanks in advance for all the input - I feel like this is my "big break" and I want it to go smooth.

[jcpoulin]

Jeremy...Do you have quality processing and printing ability to do it at the rink? Do you have a cosmetic "station" in which to draw people there? If not, the Website download most cost effective, productive way to show a lot of pictures...Just need to get the word out that the service is there...business cards, get the players parents around the locker room. That's a lot of hockey!!!

[CiM_Photography]

I do not have the proper equipment to process and print photos on-site. I do have an iPad and "Square" app for Credit Card sales, which is nice. But I don't have the rest, which is needed. So at this point I think online sales will be my starting point. If that shows promise, I will invest fully back into the on-site equipment to further boost my profits and business profile.

I was thinking that a good way to show capabilities would be to invest in the actual printed product itself, using images I've taken during practice games. This way the parents can see what printing options are available prior to logging into the sales site.

Yes, that's a lot of hockey indeed. 14 hours each day, 4 days. That's 3 times per year by the way....

[Cozmocha]

I have never done anything like this so I can't be of much help. But what software are you going to use to import / sort / delete the images? I would suggest Photo Mechanic for a quick simple way to do this. Lightroom or other programs can be quite slow.

[CiM_Photography]

Lightroom 3 has the ability (I think) to monitor folders and add photos as they become available. If I am wrong, then I will invest in the proper software for the application.

[Palladium]

Here's an idea to think about and something to generate some income without a lot of extras for your first outing.

With exclusive coverage - maybe reach out to the teams and set a reasonable price for the tourney and just shoot and burn to disc. Sell it as a one price for the teams as they get images for all their games for the same price (so if xyz team makes it to the championship game they pay the same for a team that just gets the tourney minimum number of games.

You can deliver the disc once they the team get bounced. With this setup you'll get immediate funds and not have to partner with the hosting sites, etc.

I think you'll have a lot less stress. Maybe price it with a discount before the tourney begins and a higher price if the teams decides to purchase after the tourney begins (You'll shoot all the games anyway).

[bubbygator]

Have you thought about taking an official team photo? Or taking audience shots?

[J.Napier]

Jermy,
I do not think LR would handle this task very well but if you can make it work I would love to hear about. There are a few good programs out there but they will cost you $. Not sure how much you are willing to invest in this one event though.
It is a big undertaking and it will take a toll on you shooting 14 hour days trust me. The last thing you want to stress on or have to trouble shoot is computer glitchs or up loading issue. Things break and its not if something will go wrong it is a matter of when. If your trouble shooting gear there is no one to cover the game if you only have to photogs.
@ bubby, team shots are a great idead if you can do a presale like was mentioned earlier, unfortunatly it also drives up cost as you will need a dedicated photog and a possible assitant for at least one day maybe more if you miss a team or some other glitch, timing is everything with team shots during a tourney or event. Crowd shots.... you will need a someone (photog with flash) working the crowd while thier team is playing and then these shots would probebly just need to be added to the team CD that you should be pushing.
Just a few thoughts from a guy that does a few cheer,softball,volleyball and basketball tourneys and such. I have not done any hockey so I cant speak to that sport so much but most sport events play out the same. Jeremy, I have not looked at your site but I assume you have done a bit of hockey shooting? And have all the business necessities in place?

[CiM_Photography]

I wasn't clear in my first post on a few things, so allow me to clear some stuff up.

• The abovementioned Tournament is an ongoing thing - not just a one-time event. I do plan on staying with the arena for some time to make sure I maximize my profits. This includes attending their practice games in the coming month.
• I'd much prefer to avoid going the route of digital sales, and instead focus on print sales through SmugMug or ZenFolio.
• I will be putting myself through solid practice runs so I don't fall on my face when the time comes.

My current game plan is to shoot in JPG with a custom WB (determined prior) and Manual Exposure to eleminate variability issues. This way, when photos are offloaded onto the terminal, no processing is required other than deletion of junk photos (mis-focus/fires). Images will be loaded into folders that are categorized by Day->Rink->Game->Period/OT so they are easily searchable. They will be displayed on rink-specific displays (1 display per rink) using some slideshow software, following each period so parents can view the image quality and composition.

Cards will be given directing parents to the website where they will be uploaded that night for photo sales and merchandise items.

I just need to triple check my thought process and make sure this is all standard and that I'm not omitting anything severe...

[Darsk47]

Originally Posted by CiM_Photography

This way, when photos are offloaded onto the terminal, no processing is required other than ......{clip}........I just need to triple check my thought process and make sure this is all standard and that I'm not omitting anything severe.

Good plan but I think you're omitting some post work, which means you are not calculating the time required for same.

Attempting to cover as many players as possible ( in order to help more parents part with their $$) you will be shooting all over the rink to get captures of the players you need. You are going to want to do some cropping/levelling/adjusting lighting/sat/sharpening etc.....on the images you are going to sell.

I doubt you will do that for all images out of the card, but you should have a disclaimer on the bottom of your monitor that says something like "unedited image - images sold will be processed to quality print levels" and then have a couple of examples near the monitors.

That's going to take time and talent to do. Your plans of returning to do many of a similar event may quickly change if you put less than a quality product out there. Any parent with a camera and a basic knowledge of Photoshop will soon be saying don't by J's stuf for xx$. I can do much better for free.

just my $.02

cheers !

[John Godwin]

If the arena lights are like most high school gym lights be prepared for the fact they are probably going to cycle and a custom white balance is probably not going to work as expected for all photos. If you are using strobes then there should not be any unexpected white balance shift. Good luck and let us know how it worked out and what you might do differently in the future.

[slimenta]

I have a huge lacrosse tournament coming up and have many of the same issues. A few thoughts.

Simply posting all pics will hurt as you will expect people to wade through way too many pics. I haven't tried lightroom in it's current version. However, I used to use it and the refresh rate slowed the process of reviewing pics. Photomechanic which is cheap is a standard for a reason. It is quick for purely sorting pics.

I do not see how you can avoid some post processing unless you are willing to accept poor quality. You must crop even if your exposure and all else is perfect. Do a loose crop, as opposed to what you would do for print media for a 4 x 6 size and that will allow most 5 x 7 and 8 x 10 prints.

If you use Smugmug, use Bayphoto for prints which is far superior to their other choice. Small increase in cost but worth the difference.

[CiM_Photography]

Thank you for the thoughts, Slimenta! I've altered my workflow to include time for cropping - which for all intents and purposes can be done in-line by the booth operator team. Right now, I'm looking at setting up a team of 4 people for this event - 2 booth and 2 photographers.

[bayberry]

I don't know if what I do applies to your situation or not, but I shoot mainly horse shows. The biggest circuit I shoot consists of 8 shows a year each 5 days long and they all come out to be about 14 hours a day at the show shooting.

I keep a clipboard on me pre-printed with sequential file numbers and I write the horses # next to each corresponding file # for each image as I take them. I shoot both raw and jpg. At the end of the day I download and quickly scroll through all the jpgs and delete the junk then drag each jpg into it's correct folder on my hard drive that I have pre-made for each horse. All the raw files I dump into one large folder for the whole show. The vast majority of my jpgs I put up as proofs as is - directly out of camera. I simply don't have time to edit so I shoot tight and try to frame and capture my images exactly as I want them or as close to it as I can. I have all the corresponding galleries already created on my smugmug sight and I use StarExplorer to upload all the images to the correct galleries while I sleep.

I'm a one-man (woman actually) show and it's a brutal amount of work but I do enjoy it. I don't have a booth or viewing stations or anything, people just go to my website to view and purchase their images.

[Gym Star Photos]

I would not rely on parents going to the website to order. You have to get the paid orders before they leave the rink. I know paper order forms are not the preferred choice, but do what you have to do to get the orders right then. If you have the budget for it, you can rent event software for a week, but you will need at least 2 computers to use. If you have to, borrow a few computers from close friends.... just get the photos in front of the parents so they can order them when they see them! Also, make sure they know you are there! Put yourself in a spot where they MUST pass by you to get in and out if you can.
You should have time to cull photos on the fly when the action moves to the other end of the rink, which will help your booth personnel if things do get busy. Having said that, its still good to have that additional person taking orders or helping parents find their photos.

Lance.