JSPhoto
11-12-2005, 01:02 PM
Freelance sports photography, as I mentioned in part one is a cut throat business, and it is also feast or famine. The past two weeks have been famine, but from the middle of August through the next to last week of October it was feast. The past two weeks I have spent my time catching up on paperwork, entering bills, paid and unpaid into Quickbooks Pro. That includes three months worth of gas reciepts, meal reciepts and the like. The real killer was when I added my new gear and the balance over went to a serious negative not just for the month of October but for the whole year! I spent almost $1500 in gas those three months too.
The feast is picking up again now that football is over for our county and girls basketball has begun. Boys basketball will start very shortly and so will wrestling, swimming and gymnastics. Things get real busy the Friaday and Saturday following Thanksgiving as I will shoot two football games Friday and three Saturday as part of the State Championships for a magazine. It will then be a very long Sunday as I go through some 2000 photos and decide which ones will be used by the magazine and which will go to other customers. I'll then process those photos and spend all night emailing them to each customer. It's then back to basketball and so on until the Christmas Tournaments begin and then things get really crazy. If it works out the way it is planned now I will have very little sleep from the 27th of December through the end of the month. The 28th I have 5 basketball games in ONE DAY and the next day I have three more games. The day after that 2 more games....10 games in just three days! And that is not counting anything the papers may need during that stretch! One of those games will include the nations #1 player so I'll have to be on the job for that one, which will not be easy considering it is the 5th game of the day on the 28th. I'll be setting up a computer at that school to download my photos from the cards just to make things easier on me.
The bad part of this is that photos from each day need to be sent out that day, so I will be up late each night doing that as well. Then, the first day available I have to go through and catalog all the photos in case someone wants to buy any, plus putting photos up on the website...another two days of work.
Just going and shooting a job is only part of the work. Just because you take good photos doesn't mean you can shoot and forget it. You have to be a lot of things to be a successfull freelance photographer. Here is what it takes to do it successfully:
1: Obviously a good photographer - able to catch the action, but also the human side of things.
2: An artist - be able to use Photoshop or similar programs and make neeeded adjustments, crops and so on to your photos.
3: Planner - you have to be able to balance your time shooting for each client. Schedual jobs correctly and show up early, plan on staying later, and still getting to your next appointment on time.
4: Accountant - you have to use common sense in business. The highest paying job isn't always the best one for your business. You have to figure everything from mileage, to gear costs, rental equipment, time shooting, post processing, delivery methods and much more.
5: Saleman - If you can't sell your work you won't last long in this business. You also need sound, written contracts for your customers that spells out the job details, and photo usages, licensing and so on.
Depending on what your shooting, how many shots you take, where, and who it is for you can spend up to a week just doing post processing. That cost in time needs to be passed on to your customers. Even emailing photos takes time. Say you take a CD to a place and have them print the photos, it costs you time , gas, and a CD to do this and you need to get paid for that too.
Don't sell yourself short, but do not price yourself out either. Keep track of the competition, what they charge per hour, per job, per photo and so on. You also need to charge by your experiance. Someone in the business a month will not male what the person doing this for 10 or 15 years will.
The better you get, the more you will make, it won't happen overnight, but if you stick with it, act professional, look proffesional and have the gear to back it up you can succed. That doesn't mean you need to run out and buy the highest price gear to start off, in fact it's best to start off with less expensive gear and work your way up.
Well enough rambling now....
Any questions?? There are a lot of helpful people here, maybe we can answer them for you.
JS
The feast is picking up again now that football is over for our county and girls basketball has begun. Boys basketball will start very shortly and so will wrestling, swimming and gymnastics. Things get real busy the Friaday and Saturday following Thanksgiving as I will shoot two football games Friday and three Saturday as part of the State Championships for a magazine. It will then be a very long Sunday as I go through some 2000 photos and decide which ones will be used by the magazine and which will go to other customers. I'll then process those photos and spend all night emailing them to each customer. It's then back to basketball and so on until the Christmas Tournaments begin and then things get really crazy. If it works out the way it is planned now I will have very little sleep from the 27th of December through the end of the month. The 28th I have 5 basketball games in ONE DAY and the next day I have three more games. The day after that 2 more games....10 games in just three days! And that is not counting anything the papers may need during that stretch! One of those games will include the nations #1 player so I'll have to be on the job for that one, which will not be easy considering it is the 5th game of the day on the 28th. I'll be setting up a computer at that school to download my photos from the cards just to make things easier on me.
The bad part of this is that photos from each day need to be sent out that day, so I will be up late each night doing that as well. Then, the first day available I have to go through and catalog all the photos in case someone wants to buy any, plus putting photos up on the website...another two days of work.
Just going and shooting a job is only part of the work. Just because you take good photos doesn't mean you can shoot and forget it. You have to be a lot of things to be a successfull freelance photographer. Here is what it takes to do it successfully:
1: Obviously a good photographer - able to catch the action, but also the human side of things.
2: An artist - be able to use Photoshop or similar programs and make neeeded adjustments, crops and so on to your photos.
3: Planner - you have to be able to balance your time shooting for each client. Schedual jobs correctly and show up early, plan on staying later, and still getting to your next appointment on time.
4: Accountant - you have to use common sense in business. The highest paying job isn't always the best one for your business. You have to figure everything from mileage, to gear costs, rental equipment, time shooting, post processing, delivery methods and much more.
5: Saleman - If you can't sell your work you won't last long in this business. You also need sound, written contracts for your customers that spells out the job details, and photo usages, licensing and so on.
Depending on what your shooting, how many shots you take, where, and who it is for you can spend up to a week just doing post processing. That cost in time needs to be passed on to your customers. Even emailing photos takes time. Say you take a CD to a place and have them print the photos, it costs you time , gas, and a CD to do this and you need to get paid for that too.
Don't sell yourself short, but do not price yourself out either. Keep track of the competition, what they charge per hour, per job, per photo and so on. You also need to charge by your experiance. Someone in the business a month will not male what the person doing this for 10 or 15 years will.
The better you get, the more you will make, it won't happen overnight, but if you stick with it, act professional, look proffesional and have the gear to back it up you can succed. That doesn't mean you need to run out and buy the highest price gear to start off, in fact it's best to start off with less expensive gear and work your way up.
Well enough rambling now....
Any questions?? There are a lot of helpful people here, maybe we can answer them for you.
JS