Business info

Hi All,

I was thinking of starting a side business selling pictures. I have checked out Smugmug.com and I seem to like what they offer. The question I have is if I were to go to the local High School and start taking pic's of a basketball game do I have to have permission from the school/parents to do that? Do I just take the pic's and hand out business cards saying if you want to buy these pic's go to XXX site? Also if I go to a sponsored car show ( e.g. Super Chevy Show ) and take pic's of the cars, some private owned and some with sponsors on them ( Budweiser, Mobile 1 oil, etc..) do I have to have their permission to sell the pictures? I just don't want to get in a pinch doing this.

Thanks for any help...............Sam

I guess th eanswer to that is it depends - if you look at the full T&C's for events you will probably see that you cannot take pictures and sale - hence the reason they have passes etc.. again talk to the organisors

with regards to high school - I would suggest you talk to the head teacher before hand - I dont think its a great idea to take pictures of children and post them on the web for sale without a model release

Thanks Etaf

At our local HS theres a lady who goes in and takes pics at all the tennis matches everyone knows shes doing it and if you want her to get some special ones of your child you just ask her.
So I really think ask the coach and all should be good.

Sonya

Thank you Sonya.

I've also known people in my area to take pictures at sporting events, especially the outdoor ones. There's no real expectation of privacy in an environment like that, in public. As long as pictures are posted with no identities being made known, I don't see an issue with it. Besides, the media (local paper) shows up anyways and posts a bunch of pictures in the paper; parents have never complained about that. There's too much of a taboo sometimes placed on taking pictures of children and young adults. Try not to let it get in the way of what you want to do, and let people know what your intentions are and why you are there... to give parents and the like an opportunity to have some good pics of their kids that they otherwise may not have. We did this our first year in business and it worked well. We passed out business cards to everyone in the crowd with a link to the website where the pictures would be displayed and sold. Good luck!