Motivation needed

[burnet44]

I have a snit load of cards
vista print cheap
I pass em out like candy

prob not the best cards
but hey my ad budget is low lol

[ajaffe]

Again, perception is reality. If you give them a flimsy card with awkwardly cropped photos, the parents are not going to get that "wow he is really professional" feeling.

On the same note, buy a domain name that doesn't have photoreflect in it. My dinky little smugmug site isn't known until they visit my page, but getting there my url is clean.

If you want to be taken seriously you have to take yourself seriously.

[burnet44]

all they have to do is google firstdownphotos
It always comes up first on google search

[ajaffe]

Look at your business card.

It boils down to one thing, complacency.

Why isn't your PP good? Complacency. Lightroom is under 100 dollars for Students/Educators with the Adobe discount.
Why aren't your photos gaining traction? Complacency in editing and culling.
Why don't your photos pop/wow more? Complacency that you can't do better.

You have the desire, now apply it and succeed.


Forget about everyone else, compare yourself to yourself.

[burnet44]

great advice
Im getting LR

[TooManyShots]

Originally Posted by burnet44

congrats

Ok I finally have a fb
one is my name and the other page is firstdownphotos
If and how could I get people on my firstdownphoto page
then I could get the word out through that page?

if any of you studs wanna look

Pat Carrigan personal page
firstdownphotos I have no clue what kind of page it is

any ideas accepted

Not just people. You need to have athletes, your potential clients, on your FB list. Use FB to attract people to your site. Don't use FB to distribute your works unless you are giving away photos for free. Don't rely on search engine to come up with your site. Rely on your FB social network to spread the words.

[John Godwin]

Originally Posted by burnet44

great advice
Im getting LR

Once you get Lightroom there will be a learning curve.

For instance I have concluded that the ISO for a particular camera will determine which settings (sharpness and noise reduction) I use when converting a RAW file to JPEG.

There is a tremendous amount of stuff that can be done to give a photo more Pop or Wow especially when converting a RAW file.

Here are parts of the program that I use quite a bit. For a lot of these I use the same setting no matter when or where or time of day taken.

White Balance
Recovery
Contrast
Blacks
Clarity
Vibrance
Tone Curve

I use Lightroom 3 and am not convinced I need to upgrade just yet for what I do. All of my cameras are covered with the version I have.

Once you determine the type of look you want it is easy to get that same look from day to day.

Do not be afraid to ask for help.

[jra]

Maybe a couple of things to keep in mind that I've found from experience.....if you shoot a sports team on spec and make virtually zero sales, it's pointless (at least from a business perspective) to shoot that team again. Even if you do get sales, anyone that's going to buy has usually already bought by the second game and shooting additional games becomes a waste of time and money. Little kids sell far better than older kids.....Parents are far more likely to buy photos of their child's first year of baseball, soccer or whatever compared to the parents who's kids have played for the last 7 years and they have all of the photos and fridge magnets they can handle.
Finally, shooting on spec in and of itself is almost always a loosing battle....pick your games carefully. Rarely will your sales cover your expenses unless you can really "wow" your customers and hopefully sell right there on the spot....and even then it's often times still a loosing battle.

[burnet44]

I agree
Had a call last night from a teams dad
he asked hey where did ya go
I said look I shot 3 games
no one bought
I had to move on
he said we have a game Monday
I said If your playing a team that has bought or someone new Ill prob be there
If not if you would like me to show up and shoot your kid only and you can prepay I can do that

He said the other parents would buy lol

I did go to the game
they were playing a team I havent shot yet this year
I took a lot of the other team

[TooManyShots]

Originally Posted by burnet44

I agree
Had a call last night from a teams dad
he asked hey where did ya go
I said look I shot 3 games
no one bought
I had to move on
he said we have a game Monday
I said If your playing a team that has bought or someone new Ill prob be there
If not if you would like me to show up and shoot your kid only and you can prepay I can do that

He said the other parents would buy lol

I did go to the game
they were playing a team I havent shot yet this year
I took a lot of the other team

Did you make any sales? Obviously, there are some sort of demands for your works.

[ajaffe]

Free is always in demand


On another note, LR4 is a big improvement over 3. Noise reduction alone is worth it for me.

[TooManyShots]

Originally Posted by ajaffe

Free is always in demand


On another note, LR4 is a big improvement over 3. Noise reduction alone is worth it for me.

Heheheh.... For the OP, I just checked over your site. I want to mention that you didn't watermark your photos. Why? Also, why am I seeing Ads on your site?

BTW, yeah, if you always find yourself shooting under the most horrible lighting condition using ISO1600 or higher, get yourself educated with a good NR program. I would HIGHLY recommend FlexNR if you shoot with a 1dmarkIII.

[burnet44]

Ads? where?

[TooManyShots]

Originally Posted by burnet44

Ads? where?

Where I click on your recent shoots. Is a white banner with a mail box and some greeting cards. It disappears pretty quick. It could be your host's banner.

[burnet44]

ok yeah I think thats what it is
thanks for the advice
working on fixing it