Do You Need a Permission?

...to just show up at, let's say, a high school baseball or a football game or a swit meet, and shoot some pictures without prior permission from the respective schools or the parents, and then post the images on my site and announce to the coaches, players, and parents to preview the images? Whether they purchase whatever prints they want to purchase or just preview the images is entirely up to their choice.

Yes. Whenever you capture images of the underaged students in an organized sport, you should get permission, especially if you are selling them. I don't do this for soccer. I just make a CD at the end of the year for all the parents. If they put anything I shoot on the net, I don't take pictures of their kids again. I do this for free, but don't print up anything. If you are doing this for money, there are channels to go through. Call up the school.

In select parts of the US, showing up and taking pictures of kids will get you thrown in the back of a police car while you explain what you were doing.

I recommend asking permission.

Meanwhile, some schools or leagues may have official photographers for the meet, so asking will make sure you are not interfering with someone else.

Thank you, Suzie and Longwatcher, for your responses. How all this started was that lately I've been asked by some parents of my boys' classmates to shoot similar photos I did with my boys. They really like the posters of my boys on my wall. So when I show up at their event to shoot, some other parents think I'm a pro with that long white lens, and they ask whether I'd be interested in shooting their kids, etc. After providing these parents with a CD and sometimes poster prints, etc. and feeling really guilty for charging them (even for just some gas money!), I thought to myself that it's about time to get a SmugMug's pro account and let them do all the transactions, printing, etc. while I just concentrate on shooting. I love shooting, but at the same time I don't want to provide a free service all the time.

And if I happen to be at the location, why not shoot the images of all other kids, and therefore my thread topic question....

I guess I can either get the permission of an authority if I want to shoot the entire kids, or just limit myself to shoot only the kid(s) whose parents asked me to shoot.

It's a hard thing, but the people who are organizing my sons' soccer league expressly do not want us to sell the images. I told them I was not planning that. So, I'm allowed to shoot my sons' teams with the full understanding I'm doing this for free. I also don't agonize over PP, the parents get the JPEG images only. So, if you find that people are liking your work, it's a good chance to see if you can be the authorized photographer and see where that takes you. Our league actually had guidelines and a staff they hire to do the team shots, but I take none of those.

SuzyView wrote in post #5355364
It's a hard thing, but the people who are organizing my sons' soccer league expressly do not want us to sell the images. I told them I was not planning that. So, I'm allowed to shoot my sons' teams with the full understanding I'm doing this for free. I also don't agonize over PP, the parents get the JPEG images only. So, if you find that people are liking your work, it's a good chance to see if you can be the authorized photographer and see where that takes you. Our league actually had guidelines and a staff they hire to do the team shots, but I take none of those.

Thanks, Suzie. That's a useful information. For now I'll just limit myself to shoot only the requested parents. I have no intention of doing this full-time as a career, so being limited isn't too bad. Eventually, I'm sure words would go around if enough parents are happy with the images and perhaps I'd be designated as authorized photographer for their events.

Thanks, again, Suzie. Happy clicking!!

SYS wrote in post #5352140
...to just show up at, let's say, a high school baseball or a football game or a swit meet, and shoot some pictures without prior permission from the respective schools or the parents, and then post the images on my site and announce to the coaches, players, and parents to preview the images? Whether they purchase whatever prints they want to purchase or just preview the images is entirely up to their choice.

No permission needed if you are sitting where all the other paying, or non-paying fans are sitting (and there are no signs that say, "No photography allowed"). Now, if you want to get down on the field, you'll need permission to do so.