What's next logical step?

drummerJ99

Senior Member
I'll start off by saying that I'm a hobbyist, who's never once got paid for a single photo I've taken. I'd like to start changing that. I shoot mainly sports, motorsports and some wildlife. I understand wildlife won't be buying my photos, so this is really geared towards sports. I'm shooting with a D3200 (yes I know not a professional camera, with about 10,000 photos taken on it.)

My current workflow is:
Go take 200-300 or more photos depending on event.
Edit Photos and try and eliminate some that look similar, out of focus, etc.
Upload all finished photos to Facebook and sometimes Flickr. I do all of that to try and build a portfolio but I think maybe for a portfolio it'd be better to be 10-20 or so of my best images.

My problem is I understand uploading all 200+ edited photos to Facebook kills any chance I have of selling a digital print as they can just download or screenshot the photo. But it also seems that if I don't upload at least a decent number that I get very little post interaction. Of course my small number of facebook likes doesn't really help.

I've looked into sites like Zenfolio, that allows selling of digital prints. My problem is I can't really justify spending $200 a year on the pro version to sell prints when I haven't made a single dime off a print yet.

My second question is do I need a model release to sell digital prints of say a local event from a race track, or football game from local highschool or pictures from local motorcross event? Since most of those would end up being sold to the person in the photo or their parents, I'm unsure.

How would you recommend I proceed?
 

Texas

Senior Member
Step one: forget Facebook

Step two: when using web pics be sure to keep them at 1000 pixels and 88 dpi (only poor hardcopy pictures can be made from those)

Step three: review some summaries of copyright law (editorial vs. commercial use will clear it up most issues) A friend of mine is a lawyer who specializes in protecting creative rights and it is a complex and unintuitive area of the law.
 

drummerJ99

Senior Member
Step one: forget Facebook

Step two: when using web pics be sure to keep them at 1000 pixels and 88 dpi (only poor hardcopy pictures can be made from those)

Step three: review some summaries of copyright law (editorial vs. commercial use will clear it up most issues) A friend of mine is a lawyer who specializes in protecting creative rights and it is a complex and unintuitive area of the law.

Thanks for the response. I've tried reading some copyright law but pretty sure you need to be a lawyer to understand it. Lol So have also checked out some commentators and books and understand it for the most part. Like street photography is ok. Personal portfolio pics are OK. Anything commercial needs a model release. But when it comes to selling digital prints is where I get confused.


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