photographers on sportives

formerlyknownasbonj

WHY oh WHY must they always appear out of the bushes with their mahoosive cameras to take pictures when you're grimping up the steepet hill on the route at about 7 mph? :x :x

I don't want to see (or buy) a picture of myself grimacing and busting a gut up some bar steward of a double-figures-percent climb, i want a pic of myself swooping elegantly round a fast bend or grinning insanely while hooning it down a descent !


GRRRRR !!!! :evil: :evil: :evil:


LISTEN AND LEARN photographers! You might sell more pictures. There's only so many climbing photos people want of themselves.

SteppenHerring

Do you reckon it's easier to photograph someone moving at 7mph or 35mph?

formerlyknownasbonj

SteppenHerring wrote:

Do you reckon it's easier to photograph someone moving at 7mph or 35mph?

I think it's far easier to photograph somebody at 7mph. Obviously. But that's the main part of my beef!

If they want me to pay them £20 or more for their work I *want* it to have been bloody well difficult!
If I wanted a picture that anybody could have taken I wouldn't be paying them £20 for it.

I want them to have had to invest in an extra performant lens, I want them to have had to use maximum skill in action photography - timing and in making use of the advanced features of the camera for a high speed shot, and if they had to get into an awkward position under a bush to get a more advantageous viewpoint then all the better.

I'm sorry if I sound a tight arse but I'm not paying £20 for something that anybody with any old digital camera can take by just driving up to a layby in their car and reeling off a few autofocus snaps.

stevo1602

I'm with you formerlyknownasbonj.

I could get my little 5 yrs old nephew to take a shot of me grovelingup a big bloody hill, and he often does.

Come on photographers put some creative effort into it.

jgsi

formerlyknownasbonj wrote:

WHY oh WHY must they always appear out of the bushes with their mahoosive cameras to take pictures when you're grimping up the steepet hill .

You mean this quality of 'gurning'
http://tinyurl.com/yd7f98r

formerlyknownasbonj

only the bottom one and the top one, of groups, are vaguely evocative.
the others are generic ten-a-penny pics.

dbg

And on the same subject - £20 for a high res download is a bloody joke imo - I'd happily pay £10 but £20 - no way I'm sure they'd make a lot more money if they reduced their prices. Agree about wanting some good downhill shots too

dbg

And on the same subject - £20 for a high res download is a bloody joke imo - I'd happily pay £10 but £20 - no way I'm sure they'd make a lot more money if they reduced their prices. Agree about wanting some good downhill shots too

formerlyknownasbonj

dbg wrote:

And on the same subject - £20 for a high res download is a bloody joke imo - I'd happily pay £10 but £20 - no way I'm sure they'd make a lot more money if they reduced their prices. Agree about wanting some good downhill shots too

Well, it's not £20 for the download of the pic. It costs them no *further* money to allow download of the pic.
It's £20 for the work that went into creating it. I don't think anyone would deny that some work went into creating the bits and bytes that make up the picture, even if they are just bits and bytes. But it's whether that work was deserving of that £20 that is the debatable issue.

I would think that just getting a bog-standard camera and taking bog-standard pics should be minimum-wage type material. If they are out for, say, 8 hours, let's call it £48. How many riders were there - 200, with a 10% yield (guessing here) - that's 20 sales, that should be £2.40 per pic.

(there were probably a lot more than 200 riders, and a slightly less than 10% yield, it's more like 1,000 riders with a 5% yield on that ride, but I don't really know the exact figures)


To my mind, they are good quality shots, but in today's world of high quality digital cameras, that's nothing special - they have to have something else.
The novelty of a professionally-taken picture of yourself wears off.
There's only so many climbing shots you can look at before you get bored, and most people who have been to a few sportives have already got them!

popette

There are some photos of me in that Cat & Fiddle challenge series. I look like a huge, black-lycra-clad hippo, that has been stuck on a tiny bike. I only buy photos that make me look thin!

SteppenHerring

The prices are stupid. Just seen the Blenheim ones and they want £12 for a "print". I would pay maybe £1 - £2 for a hi-resolution download - which would give them £4 - £8 of revenue - but at that price they will get £0 from me.

I suspect that if they dropped their prices (and took more imaginative pictures) they would make more money.

Marko1962

popette wrote:

There are some photos of me in that Cat & Fiddle challenge series. I look like a huge, black-lycra-clad hippo, that has been stuck on a tiny bike. I only buy photos that make me look thin!

Link required :oops:

formerlyknownasbonj

As an aside, do you not think that if they stuck automatic, infra-red triggered, high-speed cameras at strategic points just after jumps at MTB trail centres, they would make a mint. EVERYONE would buy a picture of themselves airborne!

popette

no problem

C&F challenge hippo http://www.robcrayton.fotopic.net/p61377522.html

Polka dot not hippo http://www.derekbphotography.co.uk/photo2753323.html

wouldn't buy the first, bought the second. If my thighs look slim, I will pay £10 for a photo. Shallow? Yes, probably. Only exception was the Etape - bought 3 photos at ridiculous expense. A bit hippoish but didn't care - I was on top of Ventoux for goodness sake. Hold on, see if I can find that one

http://www.maindruphoto.com/product_inf ... =1548_1549

I would probably buy a photo from every event if they were less expensive.

jhop

On the etape at least they do take shots on descents as an earlier poster requested and they do seem to usually get dramatic backdrops. This year one was taken after the finish at the top of Ventoux on the descent to the village.

Airwave

Totally agree with you.I guess it's easier to stand at the top of hill&snap away when everyones going slowly than it is to photograph everyone when they're going fast.Imagine trying to take photos of 20 peolpe as they whoosh by.I always try to get a sense of speed when i take photos of cyclist-it does'nt always work ,not every time.But when it does you get a much better looking shot.

Le Commentateur

Why would people want photos of themselves riding through a typical suburb? It's not exactly a Dolomite level of scenic beauty. Surely there must have been places with a better backdrop than row of white road markings?

Marko1962

popette wrote:

no problem

C&F challenge hippo http://www.robcrayton.fotopic.net/p61377522.html

Polka dot not hippo http://www.derekbphotography.co.uk/photo2753323.html

http://www.maindruphoto.com/product_inf ... =1548_1549

Just a bad shot Popette, looks like he caught you at a very bad moment when you were huffing and puffing and all scrunched up, doesn't show off your normal svelte self however you do look like your are blowing a kiss at the photographer and prob made his day

ugo.santalucia

Having a look at the Epic ones, I would have bought one with a bit of scenery, but, as you say, a picture of me climbing at 5mph up a 20% slope is hardly exciting. It is a shame, because that slope had a very beautiful background, which doesn't come out at all (in my picture)... hence I won't buy...
Although I think they are at £ 7.50 for this one, which is not too bad

TheStone

I never understand why they take them towards the end of the ride. People won't pay
£20 for a picture of themselves looking rough.

Take them near the start, charge £5 and I'm sure they'd make more money and have time
to fit in a wedding in the afternoon.

.... although been on a few sportives recently where there were no photos, so it probably
isn't worth their while most days.

Anonymous

formerlyknownasbonj wrote:

As an aside, do you not think that if they stuck automatic, infra-red triggered, high-speed cameras at strategic points just after jumps at MTB trail centres, they would make a mint. EVERYONE would buy a picture of themselves airborne!

A la Alton Towers?

Cool!

formerlyknownasbonj

obviously the busier sportives are more profitable as well, 'cos on the less well attended ones they're still out for the same time and it costs them no less in overheads, but get less photos to sell.

oldnewbiker

Thinking about it its a lot easier to get shots of more people if they are moving slowly ,if you have loads of people wizzing past you are going to miss more than you take and if you are a professional photographer then thats less potential customers.

GiantMike

I'm a keen amateur photographer with enough decent camera gear to take some fairly decent pics. I'd expect to be paid £100 for a day's photographing, £50 for processing (digital images actually take quite a lot of post-processing to get the most out of them and to make them 'internet-friendly'), plus £50 for expenses and pies, plus a nominal £20 for a website and bandwidth. Therefore, if I sold 220 pics at £1 each I'd be content (or 110 at £2 each etc). Would you pay £1 for an image? Of course you would.

Professional photographers charge a lot more because they accept that they are losing the copyright control when they sell a high quality digital image and therefore any reprint money.

At £20 each I'd expect somebody to capture me as a cycling God in an image worthy of handing down to the next generation as a summary of my greatest achievement, rather than a still image of me being sweaty and conveying no feeling of movement or achievement. However, even if they only sell 30 pics that's still £600 for a day's work which isn't a bad reward I guess.

ugo.santalucia

GiantMike wrote:

I'm a keen amateur photographer with enough decent camera gear to take some fairly decent pics. I'd expect to be paid £100 for a day's photographing, £50 for processing (digital images actually take quite a lot of post-processing to get the most out of them and to make them 'internet-friendly'), plus £50 for expenses and pies, plus a nominal £20 for a website and bandwidth. Therefore, if I sold 220 pics at £1 each I'd be content (or 110 at £2 each etc). Would you pay £1 for an image? Of course you would.

Professional photographers charge a lot more because they accept that they are losing the copyright control when they sell a high quality digital image and therefore any reprint money.

At £20 each I'd expect somebody to capture me as a cycling God in an image worthy of handing down to the next generation as a summary of my greatest achievement, rather than a still image of me being sweaty and conveying no feeling of movement or achievement. However, even if they only sell 30 pics that's still £600 for a day's work which isn't a bad reward I guess.

There are some "buts".
Firstly, I've never paid 20 pounds for an image... normally 10 or less is the average.
Secondly, normally there's more than one photographer on the road, so the costs increase
Thirdly, because it's the kind of job where you don't work 9-5 mon-fri, but maybe just sat-sun dawn to dusk, you have to charge a bit more to make a living...

That said, 20 pounds is burglary

GiantMike

ugo.santalucia wrote:

There are some "buts".
Firstly, I've never paid 20 pounds for an image... normally 10 or less is the average.
Secondly, normally there's more than one photographer on the road, so the costs increase
Thirdly, because it's the kind of job where you don't work 9-5 mon-fri, but maybe just sat-sun dawn to dusk, you have to charge a bit more to make a living...

I agree that a professional would need to charge more, but I was just using myself as an example of how I could make a fair profit from relatively low price photography. I wouldn't give up my day job, but would happily sell images for a couple of pounds and still make some decent funds to pay for my bike upgrades.

Road Red

They did take a downhill shot on a corner on the Dragonride this year.

Having done 8 sportives this year I have given up on getting the 'classic' shot. Cant blame the photographers though, I wont start to look lke Lance until I lose another stone or two, and twenty years..

Did buy the shot on the last bend of the Etape though. The wife will use it to point out the pain etched on my face if I ever mention doing it again. (Which I will!!)

juggler

Agree with last post - shots on Dragon were pretty good... actually made me look fast cornering a bend down hill.... so much so i paid for the print :oops:

Others... look pretty poor struggling up the steepest hill.... time will tell.. less and less market for these photos unless they are good ones.

pneumatic

I have one of me on the Ventoux, grim-faced, jersey open, silver chain glinting, bronzed limbs glistening with sweat. You can almost feel the heat coming off those white rocks.

I'd have paid double what I did for it, just to own the image.

Mind you, at the pace I was travelling, any photographer could have set up the shot and taken a whole contact sheet. I was practically doing a track stand! In fact, if you'd set up an easel, you could have painted me going past!

jackfeeder

Some of the MTB events are the worst - Marin Rough ride this year 1 pic of me pushing the MTB bike up a v.steep hill. No-one is going to buy that of them, if the photographer had gone 100 yards further on everyone would have been back on their bikes and heading downhill - much better. Surely it's just common sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

knedlicky

Considering the prices many sportives both in the UK and abroad charge to enter, they should be providing photos for free. And there are examples of sports events which do this, without their entry fees being any higher.

I’ve 10-12 photos of myself from 7-8 duathlons from the last decade which I’ve been able to download for free at high resolution. I was also able to do this from one sportive in Germany (4 photos) and from one in Switzerland (one photo), while another sportive in Austria sent me through the post, without me ever asking for it and without them asking money in return, a 12x18 cm glossy print-out of a photo showing me in their event.
Different lands, different values.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t bought prints occasionally, but never at the prices many people are quoting here, so I wonder which events you must be talking about. I paid under £2 for a 12x18 cm glossy print at an event in France (the prints were available to pick up about 30 mins after the last participant came in, so pretty efficient – the photos were taken about 3 hours before that), and about £10 for the download of 8 very high resolution photos take of me in an Austrian sportive. The prices which others here quote seem much higher.

As for catching one at a wrong moment, I’ve added as avatar the photo taken of me on the Horseshoe Pass during the recent Ruthin sportive. After the last steep stretch, I stood up and stopped pedalling to relief the muscles, and then noticed the flash from a camera. I jokily shouted to the cameraman, 'That that was unfair, try again now I’m seated and looking energetic', but I could have been speaking to the wall for all the reaction and interest he showed.
Maybe that's part of the problem with some of the photos - they are not taken by anyone interested in cycling or making it look good/exciting?