How do I sell my photos to the bike racers?

August 9, 2007 9:45 AM

How do I sell my photos to the bike racers?

I am in the process of starting to work as a photographer and had my first event this last weekend. It was a bicycle century (100 miles or 100 km) race in the Santa Cruz mountains and I ended up with a good sized batch of sellable photos.

While I had permission to photograph the event, the organizers have been less than helpful (understandably) about pushing the photographs to the race list even with incentives like discounts, profit sharing and free use of photos for their site.

I'm exploring other ways to get the photos to interested racers (Craigslist, bike forums, etc.) but would love to hear of any other ideas to get the photos to the folks who might be interested in buying them.

And yes, they are findable by search online but I'd like more "pull" and less "push". And I've learned an awful lot for my next event (i.e. distributing marketing materials to race folks, purchasing advertising space on event coordinator websites and the like).

posted by fenriq to work & money (9 comments total)

I've been to a couple of motorcycle track days where a photog would be out on the course. The organizers mentioned a website, where the guy would post all his shots for the day. You can look at thumbnails for free, and order copies of the ones you want through the website. It seems like you could do the same sorta thing. As long as you can get your website URL to at least one of the bikers, word ought to get around (particularly if they're good pics).
posted by spacewrench at 10:03 AM on August 9, 2007

When I was a runner in a big event like this there was a table set up at the awards ceremony and a by the recovery area that had fliers. The flier had an address on it where you could view and tiny thumbnail of your photo and gave instructions on how to order it. If they wanted you to photograph the event, they least they can do is provide you a way to get that information to the participants. (it doesn't have to be in a forceful manner)

Congrats on the gig though.
posted by crewshell at 10:05 AM on August 9, 2007

A local company, Zazoosh shoots photos at SLC bike events. They seem to have a nice interface where you can view photos by event/bib number. Their jobs page says that they hire photogs to shoot events, your pay is 80% of the profits. That may not be all that bad considering you can tap into their infrastructure. Who knows-If I wasn't riding the rides, maybe I'd be shooting for them as well!
posted by neilkod at 10:19 AM on August 9, 2007

^neilkod . . . who says you can't do both ;)
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 10:57 AM on August 9, 2007

Well when I try and do both, it looks like this. When I'm just shooting, its more like this.
posted by neilkod at 11:05 AM on August 9, 2007

i've ridden in a large mountain bike 'race' the past few years, and there is a systems set up much like spacewrench describes. the photographer(s) have their own website and that website is prominently referenced on the organizers' main page for the event. event participants could go directly to the photo website and browse by thumbnail, photo location, and/or time picture was taken and order prints, postcards, coffee mugs, posters, etc. accordingly. in this case i think it works pretty well, because for this particular event all registrations and notifications are handled through the event's web page, so pretty much everybody who is participating in the event is going to see that link to the photo site.
posted by the painkiller at 11:06 AM on August 9, 2007

I've done exactly what you've done in the past two years, did 95% bike events, and a few running ones, but I don't feel like giving up my weekends anymore. So here's some free business advice.

First off - experienced riders don't buy pictures. I've been riding for over ten years, why do I want pictures of myself? A century ride may be impressive to a novice, but I may ride a dozen or so of these a year. It would be trying to sell pictures of people walking to the store. Racers are worse - the only picture you're going to sell is the winning picture to the guy that won the race. I sure don't want pictures of myself getting tenth place.

Your market is first-time riders/novices. If it's someone's first century ride, they might buy one. If they're part of a big group (like a business or charity organized), they might buy pictures. If they just started cycling, they might buy a picture. Concentrate on the kids rides or 30 mile rides, not the punishing 100+ mile rides.

Secondly, it's all marketing. You need to make your name known before, during, and after the race. You need your name associated with the ride before it even begins. Be a sponsor - profit sharing isn't the same thing. You need to spend money upfront to get your name on banners, websites, etc. before the ride. During the ride, you need people to remember that their picture was taken, and by what company, at what time. I handed out business cards and trinkets at the beginning and end of rides, so that people have a physical reminder that they can buy pictures. If possible, you can set up a stand or something at the finish line too.

Post-ride, you only have a very limited time until all the riders forget about the ride and your pictures. People will be very interested in your photos when they get home from the ride. In two days, when they get back to work and have some time to kill, they'll be interested in your photos. By the end of the work week- forget it, if they haven't seen the photos yet, they never will.

Also, anyone with any computer knowledge will just scrape the image off your web site. And this industry has very, very low overhead. Anyone with a brand new camera and a smidgen of work ethic can take all your business very quickly. Photographers come and go all the time.
posted by meowzilla at 11:41 AM on August 9, 2007

spacewrench and the painkiller, I will definitely be doing more legwork before the next event to make sure that my information is available to the riders.

In this first instance though, I didn't have the time to get materials to the registration table.

Which is why I'm now stuck with product that I can't get in front of the potential customers.

meowzilla, thanks for the excellent and sensible advice!
posted by fenriq at 11:56 AM on August 9, 2007

If you have the chance, sticking a flier or a business card under the windscreen wiper of the bazillion cars that are parked at the start/finish area works a treat.
posted by tim_in_oz at 3:42 PM on August 9, 2007