Shooting soccer - "good" v. "what sells"

Hi all,

I'm about to (hopefully) delve into the commercial side of things by selling photos of my son's soccer matches to the parents. It's been noted elsewhere that there is a difference between a technically good photo and one that parents will buy - so what do you guys do when sorting what images to offer for sale? Stick with the ones you know are good, or what you think will sell? Or for that matter, what do you find it is that parents want?

Oh yes.. There is a huge difference. I notice it most in the Cheerleading/Dance photos that I shoot. Usually the photographers will go through the queue of photos that have sold and it is amazing the things that parents buy. I have seen technically excellent shots never sell and out of focus shots sell like crazy. I have yet to figure out why. LOL

AdamC wrote in post #5635307
so what do you guys do when sorting what images to offer for sale? Stick with the ones you know are good, or what you think will sell?

Do you want to show off. Publish the ones you think are good
Do you want to sell pictures. Publish the ones you think will sell

Am I missing something or was it a dumb question? ....Sorry

I go at from the other way round - I shoot what I think parents want and then show everything to them.

What sells? Mainly .....

Kids with the ball, looking up. Outsells everything else put together
Tackling between two players.
Goalkeepers catching, throwing, occasionally kicking.

I dont shoot T&I because if parents think they can shoot it themselves, they will

These are from mine from today: http://www.myeventphot​o.co.uk/event/5710/ind​ex.html

KIPAX wrote in post #5637370
Am I missing something or was it a dumb question? ....Sorry

Possibly!

Gary_Evans wrote in post #5637451
I dont shoot T&I because if parents think they can shoot it themselves, they will

Pardon my ignorance - T&I?

Thanks for the comments guys.

T & I is Team and Individual photos. This was my first year shooting T&I. I shot the Team photo but convinced the parents to choose an action shot form the season instead of the typical posed individual shot. Why have 4 shots with the same pose (one from each year) It's amazing, they thought it was such a great, new idea and refreshing. Why didn't any suggest it before? BTW, 2 out of 34 parents still wanted the typical posed shot.

It seems like a lot more 'labour' to go shoot all the games instead of just doing the individual shot, did you charge more to do it your way?

jayg123 wrote in post #5639589
It seems like a lot more 'labour' to go shoot all the games instead of just doing the individual shot, did you charge more to do it your way?

It's a labor of love. I go to many of the Home games for the team and post the photos for the parents to buy. I also put together a slide show for the teams annual banquet, which I charge for. The parents club of the team also purchases an enlargement to present to each senior on the team. This has ranged from a high of 17 photos from one team to a low of 3 on another. In addition to the purchases by the parents throughout the season.
One goal is that the sports photography will lead to other work from the parents. So far, word of mouth has caused other teams to contact me and teams have asked me to shoot the T&I rather than the person who had the contract in the past. This was also the first year that I offered packages and it went well. It has also led to a request to shoot a wedding, I turned it down.

Mike R wrote in post #5639546
T & I is Team and Individual photos. This was my first year shooting T&I. I shot the Team photo but convinced the parents to choose an action shot form the season instead of the typical posed individual shot. Why have 4 shots with the same pose (one from each year) It's amazing, they thought it was such a great, new idea and refreshing. Why didn't any suggest it before? BTW, 2 out of 34 parents still wanted the typical posed shot.

Cheers. Our club already has an arrangement with someone for that (in fact they all got their group shots only last week) and it doesn't hold much interest for me anyway. Action shots are fun to shoot, and hopefully as you say, the parents will see it as new and refreshing (and something they can't do themselves) - I've certainly never seen anyone doing 'pro' action shots at games in 7 years of watching my son play.

AdamC wrote in post #5639687
Cheers. Our club already has an arrangement with someone for that (in fact they all got their group shots only last week) and it doesn't hold much interest for me anyway. Action shots are fun to shoot, and hopefully as you say, the parents will see it as new and refreshing (and something they can't do themselves) - I've certainly never seen anyone doing 'pro' action shots at games in 7 years of watching my son play.

Only the newspapers here, and then they only come out if it's a high profile game. What I think is sad is that no one pays any attention to the JV level. I'm the only one who will cover a few games,and send something to the local newspaper which they will use (no pay,just by line) but I do it for the kids. Parents have thanked me, and bought prints, which means they do read the by line.

Ah, now I understand. How do you sell the shots throughout the year? On something link smugmug?

jayg123 wrote in post #5640017
Ah, now I understand. How do you sell the shots throughout the year? On something link smugmug?

Yes. I use Exposure Manager but have my own domain so their name is not part of my address. In the past couple of weeks, I have had a spike in activity on my site. In June I'll be posting a notice that all photos will be removed in August to get ready September. I'm hoping that it will lead to additional sales.

I just did a quick pull of my sales stats by photo (thanks Exposure Manager) and found that the highest sellers are individual shots.

Although I can generalize that the best sellers are "individual action shots", turns out that the highest two sellers (by a large margin) are more like "individual sportraits." For example, the highest seller has been a shot of a little league catcher crouching in the rain behind the plate and watching the outfield in between batters. No action to speak of.

Anyways, being that I also shoot for the local newspaper, I have been able to notice that the photos that tell the story of the game (and thus run in the newspaper with the accompanying story) are not the shots that parents buy. Meanwhile, the photos that parents buy don't tell the story of the game and thus do not run in the paper.

It's almost like I have to shoot with two purposes in mind: images for the paper to tell the story and images that parents are likely to buy.

Geez, that was not a very direct answer, but I hope it helps.

prplegophr wrote in post #5640708
It's almost like I have to shoot with two purposes in mind: images for the paper to tell the story and images that parents are likely to buy.

Ah! I suspected that this would be the case.

prplegophr wrote in post #5640708
Geez, that was not a very direct answer, but I hope it helps.

Sure did, thanks!

Try to remember to cover each player. This means you might actually miss a few great action shots but if you don't you'll wind up with plenty of good shots with the same 3 or 4 players...not too good for sales. If often made sales of what would be considered a throw away because the intended player was OOF but another came player in focus. I do a little creative cropping to then put emphasis on that player. Hope this lil tid-bit helps.