Dog Agility photos

Hi,

Here are some pictures from an agility match I was at a couple of months ago. C&C welcome.

Wow your photography is amazing, id love to know what equipment you have as I snap dogs at dog shows and my movement snaps are rubbish lol
Thanks

Your copywright kills the images

They are nice images, perhaps make a card and bring it with you to events. They seem a tad dark to me, did you shoot raw?

silverhalide wrote in post #6723028
Hi,
I was able to sell some images to the other competitors, and had a great time of it. Does anyone have recommendations on how to turn this into a successful side-business?

Nice pics! You must have halfway decent light in there, your exposures are a couple stops faster than mine.

As far as turning into a side business, one of the main things you'd need to do is make sure you're on the right side of things with both the club running the event, and the facility. I have no idea how things are run in Canada, but in my neck of the woods a photographer can't just show up and start shooting pics. You need to be an "official photographer", and sometimes that's an exclusive contract. But once you're that person, you can certainly do the shoots, and pick one flavor of either posting/selling online a couple days after the event, or doing the "trailer with PC's and a printer" route the day of the event. Neither will make you rich, but it's a good side job.

Dave

Michael_Lambert wrote in post #6726151
Your copywright kills the images

Isn't that the purpose?

I'm still playing with the transparency, I'll probably bump it up a little next time.

Sandwashphotography wrote in post #6726137
Wow your photography is amazing, id love to know what equipment you have as I snap dogs at dog shows and my movement snaps are rubbish lol
Thanks

Gripped 40D. I think all of these were taken with the 70-200 f/4 IS.

Manual exposure, high-speed continuous, and center focus point. Settings were mostly ISO 1600 (varied from 800-3200), mostly f/4, and trying to keep shutter over 1/250 (although settings varied through the day), I prefocussed on the jump, tunnel exit, etc. and used the * button for focus as the dog went by.

tracknut wrote in post #6727844
Nice pics! You must have halfway decent light in there, your exposures are a couple stops faster than mine.

As far as turning into a side business, one of the main things you'd need to do is make sure you're on the right side of things with both the club running the event, and the facility. I have no idea how things are run in Canada, but in my neck of the woods a photographer can't just show up and start shooting pics. You need to be an "official photographer", and sometimes that's an exclusive contract. But once you're that person, you can certainly do the shoots, and pick one flavor of either posting/selling online a couple days after the event, or doing the "trailer with PC's and a printer" route the day of the event. Neither will make you rich, but it's a good side job.
Dave

The building is sort of a barn with translucent plastic sides and roof. Kinda nice in that you don't get harsh shadow, but they do blow-out the backgrounds.

This event was a fun match run by the school we train at, so I had OK'd it before hand (actually got them to add a photo release to the sign-up sheet), and pretty much had free access everywhere. I printed up a bunch of cards (well, pieces of paper) with my website on it, and gave them out at the match. I ended up selling downloads of the images (up to 1500 pix on the long side, which would be sufficient for them to make a 4x6") and collecting via paypal/cheque.

I'm just beginning to think about contacting organizers of other fun matches and real trials to see if I can do other events.

Dave, thanks for you comments -- I've seen your postings on another agility thread, and enjoyed your web site.

Thanks everyone for your feedback.

Nice shots. I've done some agility myself, and had a great time doing it. I used to compete, but now just take out the camera. The little shows are fun - not a lot of pressure and it is possible to do them yourself if you are organized. I know around here they say they never get photogs out at the small agility shows, so they were all really anxious to buy what I had to sell. What I did at my last show was sell CDs. I had a price per dog/per day, per dog for the entire weekend, and additional graduated pricing for those who had two dogs at the event, for three dogs, etc per day and per weekend. I gave the organizer a free CD of her and her dogs for letting me come out.

Once you have the OK from the event organizers, make sure you have lots of advertising put up, at the start gate, beside the food stand, etc, everywhere people will be passing by regularly. I left my computer out for everyone to look at the pics, and it was surrounded constantly. Next year I plan to add a couple of viewing stations to make life easier.

I don't do onsite printing. I prefer selling CDs. Easier on me and really, everyone wants digital prints to put on their facebook pages and such. I know a lot of people argue against selling the files, but I find it works best and people are more willing to shell out for a couple dozen digital files rather than a print or two. When shooting events I prefer to look at the money I make on a per day or per hour rate rather than per shot. Event photography is all about volume IMO. You want to get it right in camera because there is just not time to do much editing before the sale.