A entrepreneurial idea I keep seeing

Pretty much all the feedback I get working in a small town is on which kids are in the paper and how to get copies of the photos. I've seen a few people try to make money off an idea like this, and I was wondering if anyone on here had ever considered trying it.

You essentially just shoot local amateur sports and create a web site where parents can buy copies of the photos. With persistence and patient, I think this could be a somewhat lucrative side job when I get out of the business. Anyone ever tried anything like this?

 

On the d3 sports site, they have people shoot games and the shots go up on picture prints, where people can then purchase the pix. You could probably do something similar, although I don't know if there'd really be enough market in just one local area to make much money. Although maybe. The paper always did seem to be selling quite a few prints, so if you're just running a one-man operation and you get all the money, it might pay off.

http://www.pictureprints.net/photographer/D3Sports/Football/

 

A friend of mine is a frelance photog who has been doing this for years and doing quite well with it ... especially shooting JV and freshman games and passing out business cards to parents there.
He's also gotten a couple of contracts with schools to shoot sports stuff for yearbooks, programs, etc., out it.

 

Contract with associations and schools, like this company did: http://www.actionimages.us/mp_includes/body.asp

 

There's a guy following me (and whom I follow) on Twitter who does this in the Atlanta area. I believe he contracts with leagues. I would not recommend randomly showing up to kids' games and shooting pictures.

I've had my 11-year-old son, a budding photographer, shoot my team's games, although I tell all the parents what he's doing, and we don't sell the pics -- I just email a few to parents. Of course, it's less threatening seeing an 11-year-old boy taking pictures of your kids than it is a grown man.

 

I think most larger areas already have this, but there seems to be a lot of smaller towns where it hasn't popped up yet. I'm imagining getting permission from league officials rather than formal contracting.

 

I would think you would want a formal contract -- that way you would get exclusive rights, AND you would have something to wave at the first parent who called you a pervert. Also, there's the issue of whether the outfit that shoots team pictures would claim rights to do action shots under terms of its own contract. I'm no lawyer, but it seems like you'd want to have everything all legal-like to save yourself much, more more grief later.

 

You know what really makes a mint, though? Folks who take team and individual photos of the Little Leaguers. If you could get that gig, you work a long day then just print the stuff out and rake in the bucks.

 

Ick, now we're getting into levels of complicatedness that make this seem less lucrative in a time/effort:cash ratio way.

There seems to be quite a bit more competition for the formal team photos, most towns have a couple pro photographers who do those in between weddings and family portraits.

 

At my first weekly we used a lady who made some pretty good coin selling photos. Today, we use two or three photo stringers at my place who do the same. I think every little 2A burg around here has somebody like that.

 

It might more complicated on the way in, but it's going to be way more complicated if you don't do it. All you need to do is find out who is in charge of the league and talk to that person. I presume there's some boilerplate language you can sign, and it's an easy sell because the league isn't out anything for your expenses. You're also likely to boost sales if you put things together as packages like the team photogs do. If you get in good with one league, I would bet you would have more calling you for your services, then the other way around.