Am I being impatient or have I failed?

I did the photography for an event on Monday, a team tetrathlon (one person does each event) and worked late Monday night and all Tuesday to get the photos on line as quick as possible and so far I have only had two sales.

Am I being impatient or am I not going to sell any more? Are my pics bad or was it just down to the appalling weather that people don't want them?

Sorry with all the questions, it's just that it was my first time doing this and I don't know what to expect.

My photos can be found through the links here:

http://www.oliviapile.​co.uk/photographs.htm

It was the Old Berks Team Tetrathlon

Thanks so much for reading.

I wouldn't expect many sales from that sort of thing. I do find with weddings people take at least a couple of weeks to get around to ordering. I sell a LOT more prints quickly when I give an incentive, I do 20% off for the first two weeks the photos are online. I just did a print order for a wedding that was about 18 months ago, so some people are just slow to get around to things.

Welcome to the wonderful world of event photography! It's very common for people to take awhile to order if it all. Like Tim, I offer a discount if the photos are ordered within 10 days of the event. It does help in getting people to order.

It can be different somewhere else, but here we don't get almost any sales from events like this. So we are covering only events where we can sell to agencies (big enough that it's news).
For all other events we always do it so, that we arrange with organizer to get payment in advance, and they can market photos after that. It might sound bad for someone, but I rather get 500-1000eur for event, then hoping for few 1000eur of possible sales. Especially because in reality (and I have few years of experiences like this), such things pretty much always end with few sales of 10-20eur photos. So it's just not worth for us to even bother.

Your images are good. I see what you mean about the weather. As was posted earlier, you take the pictures hoping that someone will place an order and never does. What kind of marketing did you do? Is everyone (anyone) even aware that your website exists? Perhaps that could be the issue. In any case, consider it gaining experience points and how you can improve your skill.

Nicolas

I think the ordering process might be interfering a little bit?

It all depends how you run it.

I know someone who does some equestrian events and I gave a few pointers that have helped them tremendously increase their sales.

This guy was doing online sales and was not happy with the sales volume.

At one event I took over his front office operation and ran the sales side for him.

What I did was go direct with on site prints.

We took his Canon Pro9000 printer and ran 13x19 prints and 8x10 of some sample photos.

I call this stacking the deck because people would come and grab the 13x19 and ask "How much for this 8x10?" and I'd say "The 8x10 price is $45 but you are holding a 13x19 print which costs $80".

Little things that put the product in perspective make a huge difference.
Nearly everyone got an 13x19 print instead of 8x10s.

It is an impulse buy and there is nothing like holding a 13x19 or 12x18 print in your hand.

I have done occasional Pony Club events and being a 1-man-band am unable to take the shots and print on the day, although there's no doubt that onsite printing helps hugely.

If you can't print on the day, can you set up a viewing station or 2 - probably try and put them in the secretary's tent? You could also put some example prints up alongside the viewing station. I've just got some A2 prints done by Photobox - these will show people where to go online and are a great example of some of my shots. I also leave flyers around with details.

I also think that your online ordering system will turn people off. Can you find anyone that can develop your own site, rather than relying on links to flickr? Also you can't currently order directly from your website (or flickr) - this will turn people off. If you can't order onsite (favourite option) then make the online ordering simple (you can find links to Paypal that can be used).

The weather was abysmal over the weekend and that probably didn't help either.

Keep the faith and good luck.

Not that it would make your photos sell more, but I have a few suggestions:

Horseriding: I believe a perspective angle facing more toward the front of the horse riders, and possibly a vertical framing, would improve the quality of your shots. Get a different angle, and get up in their faces if you can. Also consider moving yourself up or down to get more or less of the background/sky in the picture. Also, open up your aperture if you can! The backgrounds are too much in focus.

Shooting: Some of the shooting ones are pretty good but need more separation between subject and background. Once again, try to get a different angle, especially one that gets the viewer more involved in the scene or event, and get in their faces. Vertical framing again.

Cycling - Again some pretty good shots, but try vertical framing, larger apertures, and getting in their faces. Also adjust your angle so you can either shoot up or down at them to get a different perspective with different background elements.

Running - Some of these shots are better than the other groups. In this case, the very low contrast of the scenes and the faces are working against you; increase contrast (on many or all photos in many of the categories. Again, get in their faces to see the emotion or exhaustion on their faces.

Prizes - Probably the best group.

Thank you all so much for your help. It's all really interesting.

Form- thank you so much for looking at my photos in such detail- it was so miserably wet and cold I could scarcely see the people let alone think about interesting angles, but I'll take it all on board if I ever get asked to do anything like this again. Very helpful.

Everyone else thank you so much for reassuring me that it's not just me.

I'm really grateful to you all this is a great site. Thanks.

LowerO and abie10- I totally agree about the ordering system, but I thought that this might be the only time that I get asked to do anything like this so I didn't want the expenditure, if I ever get asked again I'll definately improve this

Alexajlex- I would love to be able to print on site and I'll see if I can get someone to help if I do it again, I did have a big board of large samples and business cards by the results board,

As Sledhead said, welcome to the world of event photography!!

My initial thoughts are that your ordering method is not obvious, buying an event photo is an impulse thing. I had to look at your page as what to if I wanted a print, whereas most event photographers use a shopping cart of one kind or another so that as soon as someone looks at an image they also have a range of purchasing options in front of them as well.

I know many users of this forum rave about Flickr, but they are not usually people wanting to sell prints. Also note, that your thumbnails are cropped to squares which is slicing heads. A lot of people will think that you have shot the image like this and look no further. You have to think how the punter thinks, not how you as a photographer thinks, when it come to web selling. Get yourself a dedicated website - the sale of 6 7x5 prints covers the costs of mine for a year, they are not expensive.

I also shoot a lot of running events, and your images could be improved. Full length, arms and legs pumping, out sells everything else put together. If you can get an out of focus runner in the background, so much the better. Close ups, and shots from behind rarely sell although side on occasionally do.

Ditto for the cyclists.

Equestrian photos that sell well tend to be of the horse on the way up over the jump with the horses ears up, front legs bent under and the riders head the same side of the horse as your camera.

I've never shot any shooting event, but it looks like you were told where to stand?? Probably for H&S reasons I guess.

I hope I havent come accross as harsh, but this is my thoughts upon looking at what you are showing.