Part Timer's Career Post Mortem

jmphotocraft · June 17, 2014

Well my 2014 Little League season is at an end. After 5 years of doing this I've decided I'm giving up the T&I and action side business, at least at this capacity as the "official" photographer for the entire league. Maybe I'll do it again someday, like after I retire from my career in software. So I thought I'd share some of my experiences...

The good:

Got to see a lot of very fun moments - good baseball, kids experiencing pure joy, kids being kind to each other, the community coming together.
Paid for all my gear, including a 5D3 and 300/2.8LIS and lots of other stuff.
Got good at shooting sports.
Made the players feel like stars.
My kids told me they like that I do this, because it makes them "cool" with their peers and the jocks.
Met a lot of great people in my town, made new friends, became a little bit of a celebrity.
Lots of compliments from players' parents.
The hourly rate isn't good, but it's a nice chunk of change at the end of each season.

The bad:

E-mail has become practically unusable. It seems that 7 out of 10 of my emails either get blown off, missed, buried, misread, partially read, misunderstood, or filtered into the spam folder. Spam filtering is nabbing my emails with increasing frequency.

I get it, everyone gets 200 emails a day, at some point you just say you'll read that later and never do, or you just hit delete. This defeats my system.

Starting in 2009, the first 3 years I did this I shot every kid in the league on spec. 2009 went well because the league had never had action shots done before, so people were impressed and there was a clamor for them. Also, the league's photos had never been online or on-spec before. Previously they were done the old fashioned way, with paper forms and paying for packages in advance. People looooved the convenience I offered, and showed their appreciation with orders.

The 2nd year sales went down a little bit. I think some people didn't need more photos, and people began just enjoying and sharing the shots online without buying. The 3rd year, 2011, I offered early bird coupons to people who ordered within 2 weeks of the photos going online. To my surprise, this accomplished very little, and sales went down again, even though I know the photos were getting better. I would guess 35% of the league placed orders. I know many people were just viewing and sharing the images online, watermark and all, and never getting around to buying. So I took the next year off, thinking I was done.

The league hired a full timer to do T&I and action for 2012. I enjoyed a relaxing season coaching. However people didn't like the other guy's service or results as much, so the league asked me to do it again for 2013. That was a major ego boost, so I agreed on the stipulation that the business model would change to make it more manageable for me. I came up with the bright idea to require pre-orders. Pay me $20, $40, or $60, I give you a coupon code for $25, $50, or $75. No pre-order, no photos. Best year of sales ever.

Thought I had finally found the right formula. I didn't waste any time shooting kids whose parents weren't interested, and I had money up front from the parents who were interested. I could relax and not worry about sales after shooting, or people forgetting to order. I enabled right clicks, external linking, moved my watermark (my URL) to the corner, and actually hoped people would "steal" the pics and put them on facebook. Because I already had the money!

However, a significant number of people simply forgot to redeem their 2013 coupon codes, which I said expired on 12/31. This year I've been dealing with reissuing credits to 2013 customers for what they originally paid, for 2013 photos only. But many aren't coming forward to ask me about their leftover credit, and they are not buying anything this year either. It's not a huge number of people, but it's big enough.

This system relies heavily on email in order to direct customers to my site to place orders, to send them their coupon codes, to alert them photos are online, and to schedule picture days with coaches. But email is now plagued by the problems mentioned above. It has become basically ineffective.

Furthermore, of the people who DO receive my emails, an astonishing number of them cannot read or refuse to read simple instructions and fill out a 3-field form correctly. I will not miss receiving obtuse questions that are already answered in plain view, and the surprising lack of basic computer/internet skills displayed by some. Sometimes I wonder how some of these people can be functioning adults in a nice suburb.

Another bad thing - I think I care about baseball a little too much because I really can not help being bothered by the sight of kids whose parents have obviously never thrown a ball to them, and use Little League as cheap babysitting. In T-ball, fine I guess. Beyond that, if your kid wants to play baseball, get your butt outside and play with them. There is no easier sport to practice with your kid. It is LL's job to teach them the rules and strategies of the game, NOT how to throw, catch, and hit. I feel bad for those kids.

To sum up:

If I were going to do a whole league again, I think I would simply demand a flat fee from the league of like $12 per player. I'd provide everyone with a small T&I package (like two 5x7s), and then sell action shots, trading cards, magazine covers, and extra portraits additionally, on spec. Or basically I would come up with some kind of business model that minimizes email, and reading.

Anyway, overall it's been a lot of fun and a great way to build up my skills and gear, and to meet people, but 5 years is enough for me. To any other parent-with-camera out there thinking of getting into this, I would say go for it, but understand that it's basically a 2nd full time job. I'd also say that 2 or 3 seasons would be a good run. Mid way through this season I was wishing I hadn't taken it on again, but now looking back at the quantity and quality of the photos I'm proud of them, and I will always remember enjoying the good parts.

If you've read this far, thank you.

mercphoto · June 17, 2014

Nice write up Jack. Sums up a lot of what I went through with karts, motocross, and then cars. If spinal injury had not sidelined me I would have quit soon after for reasons similar to yours. Saturation with the customer base is something I found I hit, and it sounds like you did as well. The flat fee idea is a great one and one I would have tried if I had continued the track days. Have the event organizer throw in $10 bucks per driver straight to me and open up the gallery to low-res downloads, then sell hi-res files, custom posters and such as gravy.

Spec shooting is a quick way to waste a lot of time for little financial gain.

We'll see if I change my tune in about 2 years, when my little girl gets old enough to get into her own soccer league though!

"Yes, honey, in fact I do need a 7D Mark II and a 300/2.8L lens."

jmphotocraft · June 17, 2014

Thank you, Bill, we are on the same page. You may indeed change your tune when your daughter starts playing real soccer. (You could do it with a 7D2 and a 70-200/2.8 though) I was the official 'tog for one soccer season, but I gave that up quickly because in our area all games are on Sundays. That meant I couldn't watch any of my kids games, unless I was shooting them. Little League is played 6 or 7 days a week, so I can be both the photographer and a coach or spectator.

I do regret that this was my son's final year in Little League :cry and although I was an assistant coach for his team, the photography limited the time I was able to practice with him. I'm sad about that. He'll play in the next level on the big field, but it doesn't quite have the magic of Little League.

silvio000 · June 18, 2014

Well Jack, thanks for sharing your work. It allowed me to learn more about action shooting and i always enjoyed what you did.

Why not follow your son and also step up to the big field yourself?

jmphotocraft · June 18, 2014

Thanks silvio, I appreciate it. I'm not going to stop taking pictures, I'm just retiring from my job as the official photographer from my town's Little League Baseball, which I did for 5 years. It was a ton of work, about 450 kids.

Glort · June 20, 2014

Very interesting read and valuable insight for those looking to get into action sport..... many of whom seem blissfully but frighteningly ignorat as to the extreme difficulties they face.

You pre pay Idea seemed like a very good way of overcoming the problems of on spec sales and I always admired your thinking outside the box. It seems though that the technology that can help us is also the same technology that sinks us as well.

I don't think your problems are just with email however, I think it's Human nature.
Some years ago ( over 10) I did a portrait promo at a lifestyle show. We took booking and deposits of $130 and got 73 bookings. Knowing my average sale even then was a tad over a grand, naturally I was stoked and keen to get them in and maximise the back end where the real money was.
Aafter an initial rush of people ringing to set shoot dates, we had 37 Clients that hadn't contacted us over 4 months later. My wife was right onto it and was ringing the people and trying to book them in. She'd work her way through the list and get a few, and only a few every time.

The upshot was that 26 people were rung 5 times over 9 months and never made a booking.
We were amazed that even with $130 deposit, we couldn't get these people in. So, in the end, I had to be content that the deposits from the no shows at least paid for the investment in the stand and pomo materials etc and the rest were profit.

If I had such a fall off rate at 130, I'd say your chances at getting redemption of $60 or less in todays money are diminishing at best.

As for the pre-pay model, thats what a friend of mine does with cheer. He's sold the concept that every team gets a CD of pics included in the competitors fees. He knows what he's made before he even gets there and can look at every kid and go " 10 Bux, 10 Bux ( or whatever it is he gets) and be content. The organisers push the concept that they have this great professional team shooting the pics and no one cares then who takes their own pics and who dosen't. My friend dosen't have to put the pics online or handle orders or anything else. Burns a set of disks for the team, hands them over at the end and seeya next year.

It's the neatest method I have ever heard of that's for sure. I haven't been able to swing it yet so far on the couple of associations I have tried it on but I'll keep pushing where the opportunity exists!

Your story really makes one wonder how and if ( apart from the prepaid per every kid) one can make any worthwhile money out of sports these days?
I was only remembering my Equine shooting days a couple of nights back and was reminded of a competitor ( so to speak) She only ever sold online and would often show at events I did. I had a trailer and 20-30 Vstations, she was selling online. I always wondered how much she could have possibly made doing it this way. I tried online a lot more aggressively than she did and got zip out of it. I see to this day she is still selling online only. Clearly she does it for nothing more than the fun because the numbers have halved in the sport so the sales haven't got greater, that's a gaurantee. There is no way she'd do more than cover a sausage Sanga and a can of coke for lunch she has at these events let alone fuel and wear and tear on her entry level cams and kit lenses.

Another guy I was friendly with also had a trailer lasted 2 years longer than I did at it ( he was located in the country) but he gave it away for exactly the same reasons I did, lack of numbers at the events.
Unless I was selling onsite ( and I'd strongly wonder about that with most sports) or doing pre paid, I wouldn't bother with action at all.
Here T&I is still good. Plenty of competition but because many of the competitors are either one man bands that generally haven't done it too long or failed to keep up with the times if they have been at it a while and the companies are all employing kids at $10 an hour that probably aren't even sure which model camera they have, There are still good opportunities.

I like T&I. I developed a system for it years ago which works well, gives me the best average sales I have ever heard of here and is appealing and therefore marketable to the clubs. Many shooters think of it as production line photography and uncreative and non artistic and it is largely. Dosen't mean I can't have fun with it and enjoy it though! Like you I enjoy working with the kids and the funny things they do and say, I'm able to deal with people I have a SLIGHT mental edge on (If they are under 10yo.) and I enjoy going back year after year and seeing them grow up. Amazingly ( and no one is more astonished than I am!) I can remember some kids names from year to year and talk to them about funny thing they did or said in the 10 sec they were in front of me the year before.

Often they will tell me what I did or said! I have been asking one little girl how her arm is after she broke it 4 years ago and we had to work around it in the pic. She told me in no uncertqain terms before I could get it out this time round that her arm was fine and I didn't have to ask again this year! The coaches and parents were absoloutley in tears of laughter.

And best of all with T&I, for me the hourly rate is VERY good. As far as the creativity goes, well if I want to play artiste, I put a casting call on one of the model sites which I have also a lot of experience in that field and get a bunch of people very happy to come indulge me summoning up all the creativity and wacko ideas I can muster all day long to get that out of my system!

I imagine you'll be like me and in a couple of years look back through some of your pics and say " I miss that". What you'll probably be missing is the people and the bit of notieriaty the same as I do but then think back to the work and what you went though and think " What in the hell was I thinking of doing that???" You may well see other opportunities as I have and persue them and take skills with you you have learnt this last 5 years to give your nesxt endeavour a solid start and fresh ideas to that realm that were pretty standard or old hat in what you did before.

I'll tell you one thing as a parent though.... When it comes to shooting your own kids you NEVER take too m,any pics. When you think you have, take some more. in 10 years when they aren't so cute and loveable anymore and you wish time for them had stood still, There will be no eweekly game that you took unimportant pics of, there will never be too many pics and there will never be bad ones.

Just tonight my son in his first year of an apprenticeship after graduating last year was showing his GF a pic of him at preschool when I used to do the annual pics for them. It was amazing how many of the other preschoolers he is still either good friends with or still sees around.
You cannot percieve how fast time flies and how quick kids grow up till it's too late.

If as shooters we could share this knowledge with the parents of the young kids we shoot today and old buggers like me give them the benifit of that hindsight, we'd never NOT sell a pic. I do use that experience in life as a fairly effective sales tool where I can but you can only reach so many people. Take it from me mate, the best thing about doing what we do is being able to get loads of good pics of our own kids.

We are very lucky for that.

johng · June 20, 2014

5 years is about right. That's about how long I kept my business running. I would also add that, like any side business, you have to have understanding family that is on-board with the endeavor. It's one thing when you're at a game you already were going to attend - something else when you're spending several nights or a weekend on your second job.

It's interesting - now that my son is about to turn 8 and is getting more involved in sports I find I prefer to leave the camera at home. You can be a good fan or a good sports photographer but you can't be both at the same time. At most I shoot a single game of his just to have a photo for the album. But, I find I enjoy the experience of watching him and the other kids much more enjoyable than making quality sports images of them. It wasn't what I expected. I guess I'm a bit of the odd-ball sports photographer - I ran my business and did my shooting BEFORE my child was involved.

Nice write-up!

jmphotocraft · June 23, 2014

Thanks very much for reading and sharing your experiences. Yes, it is human nature, not just email. The email issues were just the last straw.

I know I'll look back on these photos with pride and the experience as a positive one, but the job is like running a marathon. It kinda sucks while you're doing it, but you're glad you did it afterwards.

John, if you get the urge to start the business up again for your son's leagues, I'd encourage you to resist it, if him being competitive is important to you. I regret missing the time I could have spent with my son practicing.

Glort, I agree with your last paragraph very much. I envision some people coming back to these images years down the road. As for my hourly rate, it was low because I shot action. If I were just doing T&I, I'd be done shooting a team in 15-20 minutes, and done processing in another 20 minutes, and I'd probably make nearly the same amount of money. But I like the action shots, so I spend upwards of 2 hours shooting each team, and another 2 behind the computer. As for my pre-pay model, I thought it was working, but email and human nature are killing it. It's better than speculative shooting, but it's got it's own problems. If you can sell on-site, that's the best, short of getting a flat fee from the league up front.

johng · June 23, 2014

jmphotocraft wrote: »

John, if you get the urge to start the business up again for your son's leagues, I'd encourage you to resist it, if him being competitive is important to you. I regret missing the time I could have spent with my son practicing.
.

Jack, thank you for the advice - I appreciate it. I have to say whether my son evolves into a competitive athlete or not I'd simply want to spend more time with him doing whatever than at a second job. I have to admit I am quite perplexed by all the parents that invest all their money and time into their kids sports - especially travel. It's not like any more of them are going to get college scholarships than in the past. A colleague at work spends $8,000 a year on travel soccer programs - plus a ton of vacation time and about 20 weekends a year going to tournaments. I enjoy playing catch with my son and taking him camping, canoeing, fishing and lots of other things. Another friend has had his son (now 9) in 2 baseball leagues since he was 6 pushing him into baseball because he is a huge fan and always regretted not pursuing baseball himself. If sports end up being what interests my son, that's great. Another friend's daughter was into competitive swimming - it dominated their lives from 8 until 18 - 2 surgeries and no scholarship later her career is over. But, there's just so much more in life to experience as a family FOR ME AND MY FAMILY than sports. I used to think sports was all important and when my son was born I thought - can't wait until he plays football and baseball. When I grew up, the members of my family were all very competitive athletes. But sports didn't dominate our lives. I try to keep that in mind as I raise my son and as I look at friends with older kids - by the end of high school they all seem to end up in the same place regardless. It's just when 10 years is dominated by sports they miss out on a lot of other things IMO.

jmphotocraft · June 23, 2014

Oh we are much more in agreement on youth sports than not. I was still able to be an assistant coach on my son's LL team this year, I just regret that I couldn't work with him as much as he and I would have liked outside of game time. I wasn't saying I wanted to be able to drive all over creation for a travel team or two.

If you ever get a chance to see a talk on youth sports by Bob Bigelow, you should go. He blames this mass hysteria and the relatively overnight paradigm shift towards year-round sports on the very moment that Tiger Woods won his first Master's, and Nike airing the ad of him driving a golf ball at age 4. These people are insane. Yeah, kids learn and grow by competing, but let's keep it real! Unfortunately on the other hand, thanks to these people it seems that today if you want your kid to have a chance at even making High School Varsity, you can't only have them play/practice that sport in just the one season.

jmphotocraft · June 23, 2014

Oh, here's another chapter in the email/human nature saga...

When someone paypals me for a coupon code, I send them an email that says "Thanks for your order! Your $## coupon code is *****, it expires 12/31/2014. Please confirm receipt of this message. You'll use this code during checkout when you... (etc)"

Strongly suspecting most of my emails now get spam filtered or ignored, I posted an update on my website and asked a league official to send an email blast with the url to that page.

Now I am fielding emails from people saying they never received their coupon code. It's sort of fun just forwarding them their own email confirming receipt of the coupon code.

Jeffro · June 23, 2014

I can relate. I was shooting my friends riding motocross, started selling photos of others because the demand was there. A few years later all my friends stopped racing (we're old) but I continued to shoot the races. I got in for free. I wrote articles for a print magazine and an online magazine, reference the races I covered. Getting my photos published was cool...especially on covers of the print magazine. Having people know you at the track was cool as well. But then one day, it felt like a job, so I stepped aside. It didn't pay a ton, but I too acquired some gear and some skills in the process.

I have occasionally gone back to the track, just to shoot for fun.....it was more relaxing.

jmphotocraft · June 23, 2014

Sounds familiar Jeffro. Except for the being-published-in-print part, nice job!

Qarik · June 24, 2014

good read. does T&I" = team and individual?

jmphotocraft · June 24, 2014

Qarik wrote: »

good read. does T&I" = team and individual?

Thanks, yes.

jhefti · June 24, 2014

johng wrote: »

... I have to admit I am quite perplexed by all the parents that invest all their money and time into their kids sports - especially travel. It's not like any more of them are going to get college scholarships than in the past. A colleague at work spends $8,000 a year on travel soccer programs - plus a ton of vacation time and about 20 weekends a year going to tournaments. ... It's just when 10 years is dominated by sports they miss out on a lot of other things IMO.

All true. It should be done ONLY if the kids really want to do it, not the parents.

In my case, I didn't give damn about team sports. But when my daughter took up soccer, I took up photography. I ended up shooting sports professionally (but still a side gig) and it looks like she'll end up playing great soccer at college. All in all, a win-win!

bobcool · June 26, 2014

For sure the prepaid model is the way to go. If anyone wants to get into the T&I business like Jack did, find a better way to communicate to the parents and coaches.

In keeping step with the times, I'm wondering if there are SMS services that can bulk-text customers. If so, simply make the cell phone number (everybody has one, right?) mandatory on the sales form and then submit the list to the service and say - send out these texts xx times a month to remind parents of their orders/coupon codes expiring.

Thoughts?

pipster · June 26, 2014

Sounds like spam to me. I would have that number/feature turned off and would never buy anything from the sender.

jmphotocraft · June 26, 2014

bobcool wrote: »

For sure the prepaid model is the way to go. If anyone wants to get into the T&I business like Jack did, find a better way to communicate to the parents and coaches.

In keeping step with the times, I'm wondering if there are SMS services that can bulk-text customers. If so, simply make the cell phone number (everybody has one, right?) mandatory on the sales form and then submit the list to the service and say - send out these texts xx times a month to remind parents of their orders/coupon codes expiring.

Thoughts?

You can email (number)@vtext.com or (number)@txt.att.com to send text messages to cell phone numbers at Verizon or AT&T. I imagine the other carriers can do this too. However I believe sending email to multiple addresses at once with a message that contains a hyperlink is a red flag to any spam filter.

Pipster, if your kid was playing in Little League and you knew there was a photographer taking team and individual portraits and action shots, you would never buy anything from them if they sent you a text message?

pipster · June 26, 2014

Pipster, if your kid was playing in Little League and you knew there was a photographer taking team and individual portraits and action shots, you would never buy anything from them if they sent you a text message?

Since I have a camera phone or my own DSLR and what I think is enough photos of my kid there is nothing you can offer to me by sending unwanted e-mails or text messages. Yes I would black list you for any photography business either now or in the future.

bobcool · June 27, 2014

Pipster doesn't understand what I'm talking about - my point is that if you make it part of your form and set the expectation with your clients that you will send text reminders instead of email reminders, it may have better reach than the old email method. Email is dying a slow death in the general consumer world. Ask yourself how many emails you send per day as a consumer and compare to how many texts you send.

jmphotocraft · June 27, 2014

pipster wrote: »

Since I have a camera phone or my own DSLR and what I think is enough photos of my kid there is nothing you can offer to me by sending unwanted e-mails or text messages. Yes I would black list you for any photography business either now or in the future.

Wow you're a grumpy person. Anyway like I've said already, if I were to do this again, I would use a system that minimizes electronic communication and the customers having to read anything, so I wouldn't count on text messages either.

johng · June 27, 2014

It's interesting. Put a flyer on my windshield and it's OK. But, I'm with Pipster - don't spam my phone. Ever. And, for the love of God, don't ever send a group text so I can see 10 people respond back over the next 3 days and carry on a conversation

I think getting the league to send out an email is much better received by people than spamming their phones.

jmphotocraft · June 27, 2014

I didn't say I would do text messages, and I probably would not because it definitely crosses a line. But these photos are not just for the parents. The players enjoy them too. I know this by the number of my shots that show up on my son's Instagram feed of his friends (kids use Instagram like Facebook). Denying your kid a chance to feel good about themselves just to make a point that will be received by nobody is pretty lousy.

The point is we're just grasping at straws because email becomes less effective by the day. Of course I had the league send out email blasts, which of course many people didn't read.

johng · June 27, 2014

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Denying your kid a chance to feel good about themselves just to make a point that will be received by nobody is pretty lousy.

Jack - here's where your egotism shows through again. You really need to get over yourself and how important you believe your photos are to the self worth of the youth of today. I know it's harsh to say but it keeps coming through in your posts. Kids share self-ies too that make themselves feel good about themselves. Trust me, lots of kids all over the world feel fine about themselves without the benefit of your photos. Don't get me wrong - I'm sure you have lots of clients and kids that appreciate your work. I just think you have a very skewed perspective regarding how important in their lives that work is. You do fine youth sports work, but it's importance just isn't as great as you seem to think it is.

jmphotocraft wrote: »

The point is we're just grasping at straws because email becomes less effective by the day. Of course I had the league send out email blasts, which of course many people didn't read.

It's not that email is ineffective it's that just about any business model around youth sports action photography is ineffective - especially for leagues. Since you prefer baseball, I would suggest reading posts by Paul Alesse on Sportsshooter and Fred Miranda. He's covered the Little League World Series for years and is probably one of the best youth sports shooters I've ever seen. Last I heard, it's only major tournaments of a certain size they shoot. I haven't kept up with what he shoots on a regular basis.

My point is - spam filters aside, they're not the major culprit behind lack of sales for youth action photos. As has been discussed ad nauseum, people just don't care as much as you think they should.

jmphotocraft · June 27, 2014

johng - I'm well aware that many people simply don't care about photos. I think the best I've ever done is 50% of the league. I have no delusions about doing any better than that. If I have an ego about this, it's from the parents and children who go out of their way to compliment me. Or because the first time I quit they hired a full time pro sports photographer, and then asked me to come back the next year. Do I think that someday some of the people who didn't get photos are going to regret it? Yeah, I do.

Anyway, this is all moot for me because I'm done. It was a great run, but it's just too much time.

Part Timer's Career Post Mortem

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