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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
What's Worse?
Jesse Beals, Photographer
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Tracyton | WA | USA | Posted: 1:48 AM on 10.18.09 |
->> Not sure what's worse. Standing in a major Seattle rain storm photographing the state rushing record being broken and getting entirely drenched from head to toe for 3 hours on Friday night. Or seeing pretty much all the photos that I loaded on my exposuremanager photo sales site to sell to parents / players snagged and sitting on the football kids face book pages.
I loaded the game to Exposuremanger.com and have found that the kids can drag photos off this site instead of right clicking. So do I cancel my account and start loading photos on photoshelter and deal with having to edit and size each photo before loading it?
Looks like I can either deal with the facebook thief's, even though my logos are on the photos or triple my editing time to insure that no more photos get taken by loading them ready to sell on photoshelter.
The million dollar question, will the stolen photos with logos get me much free advertisement from the facebook pages???? |
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Brian Dowling, Photographer
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Philadelphia | PA | USA | Posted: 1:56 AM on 10.18.09 |
| ->> Kids will just do screen captures no matter what program. I've had Olympic athletes crop out my watermark on the bottom of my image and use it on their Facebook...I've just learned to accept it and put my watermark in the middle now at 50% opacity where it won't ruin the photo. |
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Mike Janes, Photographer
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Attica | NY | USA | Posted: 2:09 AM on 10.18.09 |
| ->> Dragging from Exposure Manager doesn't work on my computer - all the images are linked to the next image so if you drag the image it just opens up the new page and does not copy it. No matter what program you use they'll do this with a screen shot as Brian mentioned (I've seen my photoshelter images copied to). Usually the kids are not the ones buying anyways, it's the parents. You could always report the image but is it worth it, probably not. Most just deal with it. |
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Jody Gomez, Photographer
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Murrieta | CA | USA | Posted: 2:31 AM on 10.18.09 |
->> Jesse, I send the kids a message telling them that I appreciate that they like my images so much that they want them on their Facebook/MySpace pages, but there's a tiny little issue with copyright laws. So a compromise would be that they can use the image as long as they post my website address in the caption.
I feel this is the lessor of two evils, because it gives you a little more exposure (as Mike pointed out, they're going to get them anyway) and it doesn't alienate potential clients. I have a three strikes contact policy - I will send three messages and if they don't respond to any of them, I file a copyright complaint with the website and their page gets yanked.
I have found that 99% of the kids respond to my first message to them and I've only had to turn one kid in over the past five years.
Other than turning in every single kid for copyright infringement, I don't know what else you can do. If the images are on the web they're going to find a way to get them, no matter what we do. Just make sure your watermark is large so it can't be edited out.
Jody |
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Angus Mordant, Student/Intern
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Sydney | NSW Australia | Australia | Posted: 2:35 AM on 10.18.09 |
->> ...Or the fact everyone spends thier time trawling the facebook pages of the kids they shoot to find the pics...
They will do it regardless, I'm lucky where i shoot mainly for 2 schools and i know a fair few of the kids, they will post my link in the caption, if not they are often watermarked anyway. |
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Craig Mitchelldyer, Photographer, Assistant
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Portland & Orange County | OR and CA | USA | Posted: 5:23 AM on 10.18.09 |
->> Why would photoshelter triple your edit time? You can use photo mechanic to resize and upload in one easy step. Or just upload hi res and photoshelter will resize for you.
If you put it online, it's going to get stolen. |
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Jesse Beals, Photographer
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Tracyton | WA | USA | Posted: 4:30 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Craig,
With exposure manager I can dump the shoot to that site as thumbnails not cropped, color corrected or sharpened. Exposuremanger e-mails you when a photo sells and then you load up the finished version that would be printed. So loading a game only takes about 20 minutes.
As for photoshelter all photos loaded to this site need to be already sized, color corrected and sharpened and ready for sale. When a person buys these prints they are ready to sell to the customer without you having to do anything.
This is were the time comes in. 20 minutes to load 400 thumbnails on exposuremanger or 2 hours re-sizing, color correcting and sharpening 400 files to photoshelter to be ready to order at will. |
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Mark Peters, Photographer
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Highland | IL | USA | Posted: 5:21 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> If your primary concern in facebook lifts, there isn't a system in existence that I'm aware of that will prevent print screen from working. I certainly wouldn't change display and fulfillment service simply based on that.
About the best that you can do is make sure the size is small to try to minimize the risk of them trying to make prints from them and watermark if you feel it is necessary. I realize watermarking is extremely popular, but one downside that I see in this case is that if they are pulling thumbnails of unedited images and posting those - especially if they are upsizing them - your name is being presented to others on works that you wouldn't otherwise choose to have presented.
Have you considered offering low res facebook image files that are fully edited, sans watermark to those who purchase prints? |
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Jim Pierce, Photographer
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Waltham | MA | usa | Posted: 5:24 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Jesse,
You are not alone I see my photos all over the place online with Proof on them. I use photoreflect and about 9 months ago I had PR change the "proof" to my name and have it many more times on the photo.
I still see it but at least they know whose it is. Like Craig said if you put it online it will get stolen. at least people know whose it is.
I doubt you will see any benifit from this advertisment. If one potential customer is doing this all their friends are to and you just have not found them yet.
You are far from alone.
Jim |
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Kevin Seale, Photographer
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Crawfordsville | IN | United States | Posted: 5:28 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Jesse - That is not correct. You can upload whatever size or level of finished image want to Photoshelter and set it up in a way that you have to review and approve the sale before it goes on to printing. When someone places an order, you are notified. During this step, you can upload a new, fully edited, hi-rez image that will update your archive and be the file that is used for printing.
Based on the way you describe your flow, you can do the exact same thing with Photoshelter and do it just as quickly. |
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Frank Niemeir, Photographer
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Woodstock | GA | usa | Posted: 6:47 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Exposuremanger.com looks like a hijacked site to me.
exposuremanager.com is what you mean -- m_a_n_a_g_e_r |
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Mike Janes, Photographer
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Attica | NY | USA | Posted: 9:14 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Jesse - I sell on MaxPreps but most teams/coaches in this area do not use the site so regular season game sales are thin, it's more popular out west than up here. However, playoffs and championship games do well - you need to promote pretty good and hand out cards as usual which they will provide you and have to have everything edited ahead of time to meet their criteria. You can also tell how many people from each school are listed as members on MaxPreps to target which games to shoot which is a good tool - however, you can't tell what sports they are playing.
When it comes to Exposure Manager vs PhotoShelter it depends on your needs. Exposure Manager IMO blows PhotoShelter away for print sales while PhotoShelter does the same back in editorial. It's why I have both PS & EM built into my sites. |
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Jesse Beals, Photographer
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Tracyton | WA | USA | Posted: 9:56 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Well I did a little more digging today on this topic. I really had to laugh when one of the kids snagging photos posted all over facebook how my photo selling site was crap and how he would never pay for prints. The kicker, he has all my photos on his facebook profile page and is telling everybody to check out his cool action shots from Friday nights game in his photo folder.
Gotta love high school kids. |
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Patrick Fallon, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Columbia | MO | USA | Posted: 10:25 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> Jesse,
Stop photographing him [or at least stop posting him] |
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Monty Rand, Photographer
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Bangor | ME | USA | Posted: 10:42 PM on 10.18.09 |
->> I upload a few selects from each game to Facebook expecting the kids to steal them. I then add a link on the caption directing them where to go to buy them. My sales have never been better. I feel letting a few steal them has helped my sales overall. I realize this isn't the best way to market my images, but so far sales have been a lot better than last year by a lot.
At one school, I'm friends with just about every athlete. Whenever I post new photos, I send it to the whole list and everyone knows. I get boyfriends buying posters for their girlfriends and vice versa.
Don't get me wrong, kids still go to the site where I sell photos and rip those off as well, but I have seen a surge in photo sales this year. Once these kids get out of school and are getting married, guess who they call to photograph their wedding? That guy that took all those great sports pics....... |
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Jeff Mills, Photographer, Photo Editor
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Columbus | OH | USA | Posted: 2:18 AM on 10.19.09 |
->> Your business model is frankly backwards. Your putting your time and effort into shooting kids that you can only hope will lead to a sale.
Just because you have a great gallery of images of a player doesn't mean they are going to sell. Some parents simply don't have the money, already have plenty of photos or simply don't care.
I've had tons of great images over the years of diving TD game winning catches etc etc. One in the million shots that I would of sworn those kids/parents would be just thrilled with and I'd contact them and get an "thats nice" comment.
I thought they would want $300 worth of prints but didn't get even a 4x6.
Yet at the other hand I'd get a $90 order from some second string offensive lineman who played 3 minutes and who just happened to be in the frame while I was shooting another player.
Point is, you simply don't know who's going to buy and who isn't.
Have parents who want images purchase a package in advance were your getting paid for your time and energy and the parents are able to use that booking fee for print credits.
Your able to focus on shooting the kid(s) who's parents are actual real paying customers and your not standing in the rain shooting a bunch of kids who are only going to want to steal your photos.
Maybe when they want some photos of themselves for FB they'll ask their parents to hire you to shoot them then. If they don't well then they don't get photos, you don't have to waste your time checking out a bunch of kids FB pages looking for your shots and if you've got not bookings you might not even have to go out in the rain or can see if you can schedule it next game etc. |
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