Trackday Photos - What's your view?

[Guido]

Hi folks.

I guess this poll only refers to people who haven’t or don’t buy trackday photos from the “official” photographer. I just want to gauge your feelings on some of the reasons why you don’t buy them.

Main reason I’m asking is that whenever I’ve done trackdays (as in photographed them), the take up is pretty poor, barely covering my costs let alone the time/effort that’s put in.

Of the numbers of people who recently attended the DSC trackday only a very small proportion appear to have ordered images and I’m very interested to try and find out what the reasons are for this, particularly if there are areas I can improve in that may sway this.

If you didn’t know there were photos from the DSC days at Cadwell, then have a look HERE

Why would I be interested you may ask?

On my part, I incur quite a lot of cost to get there and take the photos, aside from the time and effort it takes to get them. I need liability insurance for all MSV days I do, and have to pay MSV per day for the privilege of being there. Added to that, the cost of my equipment was in excess of £12k. Any income I gain is purely speculative, in that I don’t know anything is going to materialise before the trackday, purely hoping people like my shots enough to buy themafterwards. There’s also the fact, I’m usually jealous as hell that everyone is out there on their bikes doing to them what was intended and there’s me, on the wrong side of the armco barrier crouching in nettles when I could be out there too!!!!!!!

Be as honest as you want. Tell your mates to vote/comment too. If I’m flogging a dead horse it’s better to know and to know why so I can either save myself the effort and expense like I did with BSB or if necessary, try to change the way I do things (cost permitting) for everyone’s gain.

Thanks for your input.

Regards,

Guy
Cope Images

 

[Chiz]

Afternoon Guy,
I would love to have a PROPER photographer at trackside to take photos.(THATS IF I EVER GET TO A TRACK THIS YEAR).
Normally you find that you never know there is a photograher trackside & then it is always by word of mouth that you hear there was a guy taking photos.
I assume you post on all sites that you will be there & that you have a 20' x 20' ft sign at trackside & at the track briefing stating all your info.
If you highlight at the :flash::flash:briefing :flash::flash:then everyone involved will see your details,prices etc etc.

 

[Pict]

Hi

Showing myself up as a real vanity queen here but I usually only buy when I have new bike/leathers/helmet and it's been a bright sunny day when there is plenty opportunity for 'knee down' or at least seriously purposeful looking shot. So don't buy many photo's then...

That's why at the SDC night or any other foggy / wet track day I am just not interested in a picture of my bike travelling very slowly / cautiously bolt upright in the gloom.

If I do buy then I always buy the CD, just because the media is easier to use / manipulate (while always acknowledging copyright ) but feel that the pricing is very bad if you only want one or two shots on a CD, and often just don't buy at all because of that. No argument the other way that 20+ shots on a CD for £25/30 is usually a good deal.

 

[Pict]

Afternoon Guy,
I would love to have a PROPER photographer at trackside to take photos.(THATS IF I EVER GET TO A TRACK THIS YEAR).
Normally you find that you never know there is a photograher trackside & then it is always by word of mouth that you hear there was a guy taking photos.

I think thats a Knockhill thing. Anywhere else the photographer bit is covered in the briefing and you are told where you can go and view, set up a directory etc between sessions. At some days you are even given a sticker for your bike if you want photo's taken (no obligation) then the guy doesn't waste time and effort on those who are not interested in photo's

 

[mbg]

Having recently been involved in organising an SDC Track Night and then being involved in taking pictures I can sympathise with you.

Prior to the night we were offered the services of a professional photographer but it was at a cost of £15 per head which is why we decided to follow the DIY route.

Fortunately both SDC photographers have some experience and have good equipment so the resulting pics are of a high standard.

I think this may be something to do with the lack of uptake you are experiencing. Compact and DSLR cameras are now very advanced and many people are quite happy with the pics they produce. It's not until you compare them to professional shots you see the difference but how do you get them to do that.

When I was involved in showjumping the pics were available to view, in small form, on the day or at the next show. This meant instant sales/orders. I don't know if that's a possibility?

The world of photography is now accessible to all through very clever compacts starting around £200 and for around £3K anyone can have an excellent camera body and a decent lens. It would appear to be a much more difficult market to be successful in than ever before.

Good luck.

 

[239desmo]

I did my first trackday with the SDC last month and would have paid for photos because it was my first.
However on a similar vein when I was heavily involved with athletics in my spare time virtually every road race had an official photographer on the finish line and each competitor was sent a proof to see if they wanted to buy.
My experience is folk would take one if it had a particular meaning for them (first or 100th or whatever) and other than that most folk didn't bother as there are only so many you would want to put above the mantlepiece. I also have a drawer full of "medals" which never see the light of day and with half of them I don't even remember the event!
Nowadays apart from the large events it is unusual to see photographers there.
People can take ok'ish piccies themselves with the camera equipment available (I did myself and that was my first attempt at the piccies as well at the Club's event) and that will be a factor.
Is there a waiting list of photographers wanting to cover these events?
If not then the organisors should think about whether they should be charging you in the first place to attend?
Tbh Guy I think even if you were giving them away free you still wouldn't get a 75% take up.
With your skills would you not be better concentrating on being employed by a race series director or a factory team etc who will pay up front and appreciate the effort you put in?

 

[Scotty]

it costs money

is my main (proberly only) problem

a track day is an expensive day out (and thats before you drop it) the extra £10 (or whatever the price is) on top is, for me, an extra too far.

having done 3 or 4 trackdays the novelty of haveing a picture of me on a race track has worn off

im also a @@@@ rider, the chance of any knee down action is infintesamally small ~:/

 

[Pict]

Having recently been involved in organising an SDC Track Night.

I think rather than offer photography, if track day organisers employed you to make up and distribute these 'goody bags' of Tunnocks etc and a good cuppa, uptake would be around 99%

 

[mbg]

I think rather than offer photography, if track day organisers employed you to make up and distribute these 'goody bags' of Tunnocks etc and a good cuppa, uptake would be around 99%

Nice to be appreciated.

You're still getting your free DVD of pics whether you want it or not. Look upon it as a triumph of SDC members over Scottish weather.:thumbs:

 

[marklwhittaker]

i have my own personal track photographer

 

[Pict]

i have my own personal track photographer

Aye, they were cracking pictures by Mrs W

 

[Spud Raver]

Can I just add that I havent seen any trackday photos or race photos better ANYWHERE than what Guy does, they are amazing!

Guy, could you not link some on here just to show people what you can do. The one with Shaky going over the Mountain a few years ago is one of my all time faves

 

[dseered]

Guy - you know I respect your work alot.

OK, every track day I have ever done I have bought a disc of images and I value the ones you took of me the highest because of the extra effort you took in getting a different angle of dangle and the varying shots from every session.

As you know it is also fairly important to not have 'Static' wheels - the amount of bike shots I see that have been taken with a shutter speed that is far too fast is unreal and looks awful, it seems that folk don't care about that though and are happy with crap pics.

I think as far as the DSC and trackdays are concerned - if they want you there they pay you to be there, or at least a 'coverage of costs' and then maybe a cut of the profits.

Someone is having a little tiff with me at the moment as they want all the High Res files that I took on their family shoot when they have only taken the Included framed print. Yes they are welcome to the files, they are £20 a file - oh and there are 360 of them and you have to have the lot !

I am soon to be a full time 'Pro' I have commited to it and will be leaving a 30K job with no savings, glad AsDa always have job availability as I think I may need it !

 

[Spud Raver]

£20 for pressing a wee button....yer having a laugh!

 

[Freak]

Mate, as with a few others who have seen what you can do I'm really surprised there aren't people clambering all over you for more photos!

But I'll be honest I don't exactly rush out and buy them off you either I guess rightly or wrongly we are friends and that line has been crossed to a degree like the weekend you spent snapping the Desmo you never charged me a panny for that, if it had been purely business you'd have made a few quid I'm sure.

From a trackday perspective though I'm not that interested unless there's a brilliant shot or it's something new, if I do a foreign trackday at a new track or I have a new bike then yes I'll purchase some photos for sure just as a memory because it's different to me doing "another" trackday.

But there are plenty of first timers (like Stuart) and I remember HAVING to buy my first TD photos, well you would wouldn't you?

I think also it's your attitude, you're a great guy and you give your time for free and don't push it hard enough, we've had a few conversations where you've said I wish I'd of asked this or done this etc, well maybe you need to be a little more pushy and go for it!!

 

[Chiz]

Mate, as with a few others who have seen what you can do I'm really surprised there aren't people clambering all over you for more photos!

But I'll be honest I don't exactly rush out and buy them off you either I guess rightly or wrongly we are friends and that line has been crossed to a degree like the weekend you spent snapping the Desmo you never charged me a panny for that, if it had been purely business you'd have made a few quid I'm sure.

From a trackday perspective though I'm not that interested unless there's a brilliant shot or it's something new, if I do a foreign trackday at a new track or I have a new bike then yes I'll purchase some photos for sure just as a memory because it's different to me doing "another" trackday.

But there are plenty of first timers (like Stuart) and I remember HAVING to buy my first TD photos, well you would wouldn't you?

I think also it's your attitude, you're a great guy and you give your time for free and don't push it hard enough, we've had a few conversations where you've said I wish I'd of asked this or done this etc, well maybe you need to be a little more pushy and go for it!!

Freaks right:- Its all in the marketing.
Cut throat world & all that.

 

[dseered]

£20 for pressing a wee button....yer having a laugh!

Yep, a few wee buttons that are attached to some kit that you can't buy with buttons !

 

[Chiz]

Yep, a few wee buttons that are attached to some kit that you can't buy with buttons !

Great reply.

 

[Gizmo]

Its a real tough one as pro photographers in most sports are now struggling, the very top guys tend to get contracted by the teams/pr agencies and it means snappers working in the middle ground don't get commercial sport work nor is their revenue from the likes of event photography, or not enough to cover the costs anyway. I think there are 2 reasons, firstly its quite cheap to do motorsport photography, one big zoom, a reasonable camera and you can get decent shots so loads of amateurs now shoot, most customers don't see the art in the shots, how good the pan is, focus, depth of field they just want a shot of themselves but they also dont care about quality, the second one is we're a facebook/youtube generation that accepts crap and steals others work ! I've seen riders with framed pictures in low res web jpg with a watermark through the middle sat on their mantlepiece, it brings it home just how far the inability to determine quality has sunk and that people simply steal others images no matter how bad, poor quality doesnt prevent it.

i think the rest is simply a business/market equation it tends to be trackday virgins or folk wh rarely td that buy photos, discount yer racers/regular trackday addicts who already have photos, discount folk with mates at the track with a camera and you are probably down to 20% of those taking part who would be prepared to pay, thats between 20 and 30 people, your hit rate to make a day viable needs to be pretty high given that small market just to cover costs, time spent etc and I think it the numbers work against you

You've then got a problem probably not yet seen in motorsport, I recognised the desire of people to see their own images published a while ago, for 4 years we've ran one ad a year made entirely from owners photos that they send to us, its a very successful campaign.

The idea actually came from upnorth and how much traffic increase we got for gallery photos after events.I expanded upon that idea this year as we needed to grow our facebook fan page and drive traffic to our corporate website, the big change is that we are now also publishers, we dont need a magazine to do this, so we now take cameras to a lot of events, give our bike owners a disc to stick on their number plate to help make it easy to snap them and we shoot all day, photos go straight up on facebook and our website, its viral/community marketing pushed hard. none of our competitors do this but it wont be long before they do, at that point yer average event photographer has a problem, people simply wont pay when the bike companies will let them grab a shot for free if they have bought one of their bikes or even better publish it on their own website. I cant foresee that happening at motorsport, the marketing departments simply aren't as focused on community building a brand although Ducati were at one time, a forward thinking photographer could maybe sell them the idea , snap owners and get them up on the company website no need to pay but you'd feel part of something and they might even get some photos they can use in advertising or promo as well if you handed full rights over for the right fee

the line between publisher/content/creator/brand/advertiser has gone and its how the creators gets creative is what counts, the content is still king, you provide it, you just have to work out how to make money from it but thats a little bit harder now

 

[Anteater]

My perspective is probably different to everyone elses.

As a racer you see a lot of lenses pointed at you when you go out on track and subsequently when I go looking for them online (which I do occasionally) you can find a lot of images of yourself on lots of different sites.

Now lets be honest, theres easily 20 odd photographers at a race meeting thats a lot of competition for piccies. So even if they only get me in one pic each for say 7 meetings thats 140 pics to chose from.

I will buy normally one picture a year and maybe a couple of copies to send out as thank you's to people who have helped me.

So 1 pic form 140 which works out about a £10/15 for a decent size picture- nobody is going to make a sustainable income from that amount of competition and low odds are they?


As for the family shoots - I'd be pi55ed of whith £20 a frame as well and wouldn't sign up to a photographer doing it like that.


Theres a guy up here who does these funky family photoshoots and he makes a lot of money. Why?

Cos his business model provides good vaule. His angle is he charges you an hourly rate for his time, he takes the photos, does the retouching and bangs them all on a disc. He waves copyright gives you the disc and you get your own prints organised.

His hourly rate is not cheap but it's well worth it to peeps wanting these things instead of getting ripped of for four figures from companies like Venture etc. His studio is always busy - if he does 4 or 5 family's on a Saturday he could prbably chill the rest of the week!

 

[Guido]

Hi folks,

Sorry I've not been back since posting the poll. Been a bit manic at work lately.

Many thanks to all of you for taking the time to respond. It's great to know what people think and what their drivers are.

In response to a couple of valid points......

Jon & Ian probably know me better than most. I come across as bolshy, upfront etc on the web. That's mainly cos I am Yorkshur afterall. In the flesh I'm quite a shy bloke and certainly don't have the balls there to push myself in front of people.

I agree with a lot of the points made especially the team or race series angles. This however has suffered like many aspects of photography in that the value of images has been lowered so much that even they are not interested in paying you for your efforts, rather hoping you'll be honoured to do it for them for nothing or forcing you to hand over images in return for access.

I have lots of things I'd like to try at trackdays in terms of an 'offering' but most involve pretty hefty investment on my part and that's something I can't afford now or as a supposed "businessman", I can't justify

Thanks again for your input folks. Tis much appreciated.

Regards, Guy

 

[silverburn]

I've always found the photographers at the venues I've been to, are done and dusted by 11am. Now I dunno about you, but I'm only just getting head round the lines by session 2/3, so any photos I have had taken were usually crap. I stopped doing them after 3 events.

Basically, if you're planning to offer this, how about an afternoon start? The pictures will be better, as the rider will have 'got their eye in' by then, rather than wobbling about like they do at the beginning of the day? And pick a slow/simple corner; it'll make tracking easier, and more likely the rider will be kneedown (a better shot).

Of course, this is just my opinion; you've probably heard this a million times already!