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Here's an idea ...
First of all, what's he doing?Well, his basic idea is excellent.
Will he get any orders? He's almost bound to get at least some. But, considering how much time, effort and money he put into this exercise I bet he won't get rich. So, where'd he go wrong?
That's easy. There are 20 thumbnails on his A4 sheet. On four of these, at least half of my daughter's head was missing! On another, I assume he was trying to produce a good close-up of the horse. However, the print had obviously begun as just another snapshot which he had cropped to show just the horses head. And a couple of inches of Sarah's hands on the reins. If we chose to have that as an A4 print he could not possibly fill an A4 sheet with it due to the way he had cropped it. It would end up as a long, narrow strip the full length of the paper, but would barely cover half of the width. These are only his most obvious problems. I won't go into the rest, but I think you get the idea. However, don't get entirely the wrong idea. Remember, he's actually got off his butt and is doing this. He's probably earning a little bit of cash too. Are you? If he keeps trying, he will improve his photography and his earnings will go up. Remember, today's mighty oak was just some nut that held it's ground. Let's get it right.What could our friend do to improve his chances of earning a decent return on his time and effort? Absolutely the most important thing would be to learn a little more about his camera and how to compose a decent image. Improving the framing of his shots would be an instant improvement. Some of the shots are also let down a little by rather cluttered backgrounds, but things like this are quite easy to improve by just adding a little more thought in selecting where to stand, for instance. Behind the scenes.Some of the boring, behind the scenes work can be streamlined to make things much easier and more profitable. Obviously your subjects need to be aware that you are taking and selling photographs of the event. They also need to see proofs before they will purchase. Print a small leaflet, maybe A5 or A6 size, to hand out to the competitors and make sure that they all get at least one. Include on this a web address they can look at to see the proofs and place an order. This is far better than the alternative of collecting names and addresses, printing proof sheets for everyone and posting them out. Your overheads will virtually disappear and you will get your orders quicker. Where to shoot.
How about Sunday League football matches? They take place every Sunday during the football season all over the country. During the summer it's not hard to find amateur cricket matches. If you keep your eyes and ears open you can probably find charity games you could target. Your local newspaper probably carries a 'whats on' section on Thursdays or Fridays that will be worth a look. Try looking through magazines on cycling, skateboarding, surfing, BMX bikes etc. at your local newsagents for ideas. There are many sports that seem to keep themselves almost hidden from view such as sand yacht racing and hovercraft racing. It's also very easy to overlook things like radio control model car and boat racing. The list really is almost endless. The most important thing to do is to get up, get out there and start.
Why not grab a no-charge copy of my Manx Norton screen saver yourself so that you can see exactly what we're talking about? I'll send you:-
Don't worry, I promise not to give your details to anyone and I won't spam you! Please remember that free e-mail suppliers like Hotmail, Yahoo etc. have pretty vicious spam catchers. If you use one of these, please check your 'Junk' folder in case we get zapped!
Now, I said earlier that there were lots of ways to make some money from your If you filled in the little form above and got hold of the goodies I promised, I'll also send an occasional e-mail with other great ideas for you to try. In the mean time, if you want a dozen more excellent ideas right now, take a look at this:-
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