Do I charge them?

I have been taking pictures this season when my son has been playing baseball. I am getting parents asking about buying copies of the prints. These people are my son's coaches and other parents/friends. The question is do I print out copies and give them away, charge the parents for the actual printing costs, or do I charge for printing and my time? If you think I should charge, what would be a fair price?

I've given photos away before in circumstances like that, but I would see nothing wrong with charging, either. At least to cover the physical costs.

My concern is if I start doing it (even for one person) then it could snowball and how do I stop???

drmac wrote in post #5430651
My concern is if I start doing it (even for one person) then it could snowball and how do I stop???

thats why I would charge then if it snowballs I could quit my day job

Smugmug. Post the pictures on there and let them print as much as they want. You can get a pro account and add a little profit if you would like. Takes care of the snowball issue. Remember the more you sell the higher the price.

You could give them CDs with the photos on them and let them print them themselves. As long as your image files in someone else's hands doesn't bother you.

Geeee
I found a gold mine.
Do you think I should get the gold and sell it or invite everyone over to grab as much as they want? What would you do?

And how is that a helpful and productive answer?

poloman wrote in post #5431286
Geeee
I found a gold mine.
Do you think I should get the gold and sell it or invite everyone over to grab as much as they want? What would you do?

It's helpful and productive, just sarcastic and he is right. You have a potential goldmine. I would set a price to "cover your costs" and a little profit at least. Buy some equipment with the profits and rinse repeat. That is going to take some work and time on your part. You don't have to charge an extraordinary amount and you are there taking pics anyway, right?

drmac wrote in post #5432522
And how is that a helpful and productive answer?

Sorry....thought it would be obvious.
You are spending your time and effort. As you progress, people will expect more and more from you. You will probably spend a fair amount of your time post processing. There is a lot of money in photographing kids for moms. This injects you into the family. The family then wants you to do other types of photography. Unless you hate people, it is pretty nice work. If you need me to expound more, just ask.

drmac wrote in post #5430608
I have been taking pictures this season when my son has been playing baseball. I am getting parents asking about buying copies of the prints. These people are my son's coaches and other parents/friends. The question is do I print out copies and give them away, charge the parents for the actual printing costs, or do I charge for printing and my time? If you think I should charge, what would be a fair price?

In view of the fact that you are a parent of a player, and other parents and coaches are asking for prints, at a minimum I would cover any costs incurred as a result of the requests. You are, after all, not a person trying to milk an opportunity on speculative coverage of sporting events for which you are not connected in any way (not a 'leech')

In doing thing like this with our daughter's involvement in team sports, I have found that a 'donations accepted, to cover printing/duplication costs' is a nice way of handling it...that way the more prosperous parents might throw in a bit more ("I only have a $10 bill, might as well throw it in") while less prosperous parents throw in some coins. No one is forced to pay a certain amount, everyone certainly can understand that it costs money to make prints or to burn photos to CD. And if you spend a certain amount of time in the process, keep in mind the time that the coaches are volunteering far more of their time. Or remember the time that some parents take to bake goodies or go to the store to provide beverages for the team and coaches.

If you were a pro, then I say "charge them!". But we are in a community -- your community is the team which you children are part of -- and we each need to contribute in some way to the betterment of the community at large, or else we have all turned into a bunch of sharks and leeches!

My choice. Make a fair profit & you can afford that 300 f/2.8 someday.
And, if you don't get them used to paying a fair price now, you'll never get them to want to pay one in the future.
Think of it this way, is one of the parents a tax accountant who likes to work on his own car? Will he do your tune-ups for free?

PhotosGuy wrote in post #5433792
And, if you don't get them used to paying a fair price now, you'll never get them to want to pay one in the future.

I think this is a good point.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #5433792
And, if you don't get them used to paying a fair price now, you'll never get them to want to pay one in the future.

The assumption is that drmac ever wants to 'make a profit' from photography of this type (teams). We don't know that. He has expressed a fear of 'for pay' growing into more than he wants to invest time and effort into.

For instance, I make plenty of money thru photography, when I want to be hired. But...
I do not want to be hired to do team coverage, as I am doing the photography for the benefit of my family (team member, ourselves), so merely covering costs associated with benevolently providing photos to other parents is all I want out if it. If I take two hours of my time for personal photoshoot and then another hour or two in PP time, and all I end up with are photos of birds or flowers, why is it any different to similarly take two hours of my time for team sports photoshoot (including my own kids), and then another hour or two in PP time?! It isn't. So covering incremental reproduction costs (prints, CD) is the only incremental change from shooting flowers or birds, and all I want out of being nice and providing photos to other parents!

If I was a team sports photo professional, I would approach this from a totally different direction!

I now picture myself running freely through hills and meadows with my camera in hand tossing prints hither and yon.