Selling MTB Event Photos
Regular readers will know from a previous post that I set my self a little photo assignment a couple of weekends ago to photograph the Snowdonia Enduro Mountain Bike Event.
I usually take part in such events myself and always look at the photos of myself that are offered for sale afterwards. Usually the going rate for a digital image is around £7-£8 which always seemed a lot. I thought that I could do just as well so seeing as I was side-lined I gave it a go and have been pleased with the results.
Part of the photo album
The day itself was good fun, and I soon had a decent Snowdonia Enduro photo album up online for all to see. As far as pricing and availability goes I decided to be generous and let people have fairly decent sized images with a small, fairly inconspicuous watermark on them for free. Obviously if I was doing this for a living then that wouldn’t be a good approach and most photographers put a large watermark across the main part of the image and only provide small images online. I was just testing the water and thought that it would be good to get some photos out there , almost as publicity, in case I decided to do this again in the future.
I did decide to sell high resolution images as well at the low price of £3.50. Again, I thought I’d keep the price low to at least try to encourage some sales to see how it all went. So far it has been going well, I’ve sold quite a few of them and have had really good feedback from all my customers. It’s not going to make me rich, it may ‘just’ cover my costs, but it won’t pay for the time it took. Luckily I enjoy wandering around Welsh hillsides so I had a good day out anyway. I also like fiddling around with photos on the computer and building websites too so none of it was a chore! I can now see why other people charge twice as much though. You would need to in order to make any profit.
I will do it again though, maybe this weekend, not because I could make money from it but because it was a fairly enjoyable day. I like the feedback I get from people and the fact that some people did buy photos makes me feel good. Feeling good is what its all about!
So thanks to those who bought photos, and if you see me behind the camera at an event you’re competing in, don’t forget to give me your best smile or grimace of pain as the case may be!
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In the end my time off the bike due to illness went on a little longer than I had expected last year so I ended up taking photos at quite a few events. These included:
Snowdonia Enduro
Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon
Aberystwyth Twin Peaks Challenge
Forest of Dean Enduro
It may not have been quite as good as competing, but I had fun taking the photos, processing them afterwards and of course selling them. It all went pretty well and I’m planning to attend quite a few MTB Events in 2010 as event photographer too. I’ll keep you updated as to which events and where you can buy the photos.
Al.