About a year ago, I was approached by a local company wanting to hire me for event shooting. These events happened every two to three months and consisted of a press conference, a pre-party, the event and a post party. This was the first time that I had been asked to work on a scale such as this and I really gave it some serious thought. I factored in the amount of time it would take me to shoot each event and included travel time, shooting time and processing time. When all was said and done, I had arrived at a rate that was modest and fair, based on a reasonable estimate of the amount of time I would need to spend on the project. Of course this would vary per event as some might have taken more or less time depending on the event. At any rate, I figured I had arrived at a number that was more than fair due to my previous experience.

However – in part due to the number of photographers in the area trying to get into the same area of photography, and the majority of them offered cut rates, or even work for free “just to get in the door” – the deal never went forward. It’s a weird thing with photographers and I never understood why. I really don’t know of any other jobs in the world where people work for free “just to get in the door”. That’s usually reserved for practicums while you are still studying in school. My first background was in web development and I never worked for free “just to get in the door”. Sure, my first job wasn’t the greatest paying but over the years I’ve moved up and over and up – and sometimes back down – to get where I am today.

As a photographer, I’m always looking for cost effective – if not free – ways to advertise and grow my customer/fan base. Before I continue, I want to make it clear that for me, this is a side business and not my main means of providing for my family. I don’t know if that makes a difference or not, but I think if it was my only source of income most – if not all – of what I’m talking about would still hold true.

Enter Groupon. LivingSocial. WagJag. Kijiji Deals. There’s so many these days, I can’t keep up. There’s even a company that started up called OneSpout that delivers ALL deals to you in one email on a daily basis. Yesterday I noticed not 1, not 2, but 3 photography related deals. I’ve seen a few before here and there and wondered the ROI on those and seeing these three on the same day once again got me to thinking. I had thought about Groupon and LivingSocial before and have read a few things on merchant’s experiences with them and am still fairly undecided. One post I read comparing Groupon to LivingSocial mentioned that Groupon takes 50% – yes 50% – of the selling price, and also charges 2.5% on top of that for any purchases made with a credit card – which I’d assume would be quite a few considering these are all online sales. Although it does sound like this percentage is negotiable, it’s still pretty steep. Heck, I can throw a coupon in a local paper for a one time cost, and it doesn’t matter how many people redeem it – the paper doesn’t get a cut.

I haven’t looked to closely into what these online coupon sites cost the merchant, but to make things easy – let’s assume that it costs NOTHING to put put up a Groupon/LivingSocial/WagJag offer. I’m also going to be generous and keep the estimated hours on the low side. I also want to make it clear that I am not knocking these deals in any way, I’m just trying to understand the value or purpose for offering such deals.

Deal A: $49 for a Two-Hour Photo Shoot, 4 – 8×10′s, 2 – 5×7′s & up to 50 Edited Pictures on DVD (Valued at $700).

WOW! That really is a steal. Now let’s break it down. The deal mentions the two-hour photo shoot is in the location of your choice. Let’s assume 1/2 hour travel time each way (not to mention cost of gas), and 1/2 hour equipment setup and take down time. So far we are up to 3 1/2 hours. Already the photographer/company is down to working for $14/hr. Depending on the shoot, and the edits wanted by the client – I’ll go with 2 hours for processing & editing (based on a quick poll of photographers on Facebook). This includes offloading the files from your camera to your computer, going through them to find the “keepers”, and processing them for final delivery. So that puts said photographer up to 5 1/2 hours of time. We’re now down to $8.91/hr. Oh wait! The prints and the photos on DVD! Depending on where prints are done that cost really varies, but I think we’ve already seen the per hour “value” that has been attached to this photography/photography studios work – even though the deal mentions it has an actual value of $700.

At the time of this writing, there were 64 deals bought with 5 days and 8 hours left to go. Based on 5 1/2 hours of time, this photographer is going to be busy for roughly 352 hours – based on an 8 hour work day that’s 44 days to fulfill the current deals sold.

Deal B: $69 for a Photo Shoot, Prints and Image DVD (Valued at $660)

Again, WOW! This deal breaks it down a bit further – one two hour photo shoot, within a 50km radius of the GREATER Edmonton area (a $400 value), more than 50 digital images on DVD (a $75 value) an 11″ x 14″ print (a $125 value) and choice for one 8″ x 10″ or two 5″ x7″ prints (a $60 value). As you can see already, the deal price for this is below value of almost all of the individual components contained within it. But act quick! There’s only a limited number of deals available! At first glance, this makes sense to me – sell a few deals, but get the word out. However, I read further down and the one thing that really confused me about this deal is that the photographer mentions that he has 30 years of experience…

Now for the breakdown. This time let’s assume 1/2 hour to 1 hour travel time each way (not to mention cost of gas), and 1/2 hour equipment setup and take down time. So far we are up to 3 1/2 hours – 4 hours. Already the photographer/company is down to working for $19.71/hr – $17.25. Depending on the shoot, and the edits wanted by the client – I’ll go with 2 hours for processing & editing. This includes offloading the files from your camera to your computer, going through them to find the “keepers”, and processing them for final delivery. So that puts said photographer up to 5 1/2 – 6 1/2 hours of time. We’re now down to $12.55/hr – $10.62/hr. And again – there’s the photographer’s cost of the prints and DVD supplied as part of the deal.

Again, at the time of this writing, there were 374 deals sold with roughly 10 hours left. I don’t even know where to start on that one… I thought this deal was limited quantities? Based on this number of deals at 5 1/2 – 6 1/2 hours we are looking at between 2,057 and 2, 431 hours spent fulfilling this deal. Based on an 8 hour work day, that’s between 257 and 304 days. If this is all this photographer/studio ends up doing – that works out to a yearly salary of $25,806 (let’s give him a few days off, no one works 365 days/year). Please remember – this is ASSUMING Groupon/LivingSocial/WagJag cost the photographer nothing to offer a deal. Based on Groupon taking 50%, we’re down to a yearly salary of $12, 903. This is below the income considered to be the poverty lines ($14,000 – $20,377)  in Canada for a 1 person family depending on where he/she lives.

As much as I love photography, I know I wouldn’t willingly offer my services if it was my only source of income to live below poverty level. Not only that, for the number of extra hours as an extra income this wouldn’t really be worth my time as a photographer.

Deal C: $60 for $200 Two-Hour Photography Class and Nature Walk

This deal really caught my eye because it was different than most of the ones I have seen which have been similar to Deal A and Deal B. I’ve seen one other photography class offered and I suspect this is the way to go. With a deal like this you can target aspiring, beginner and experienced photographers and share your knowledge in a certain area of photography. The only thing you are really losing here is your time but if set up right, and for the right price, I’m sure that would be more than offset by the number of deals you sold. Unfortunately I was unable to find how many of this deal actually sold…

I’m not the world’s best photographer, I know that. As do all photographers, I have my strengths and my weaknesses. I provide a service and charge what I feel is fair for the quality and service I provide. But I would hope that photographers that charge less than I do provide a lesser service/quality product and those that charge more than me provide a better service/quality product. It only makes sense with physical, material objects we purchase, shouldn’t it be the same with services like photography?

I also want to mention the fact that most photography (e.g. the A and B examples) is something where the effort increases proportionally with the number of buyers. It’s this reason alone that makes me think Groupon (et al.) are not the best for photography and other such services: Groupon is all about getting people in the door in volume (which is why it’s all about the ‘activation’ quantity). If you run a store or restaurant and you normally get three people in on a Sunday, you can probably still handle five times that with your same staffing. You get more value out of more people. Any sort of one-on-one service (like photography) gets no real benefit from having “lots of customers” at a time.

In conclusion, I urge you not to sell yourself short or devalue yourself or your services with these types – or any types – of promotions. Not only are you devaluing your own services and products but it lowers the bar for other photographers providing similar services in your area.

If you are a photographer and have offered a deal through Groupon or LivingSocial or one of the many other online deal sites that are around these days, I’d love to hear about your deal, your experience and thoughts on why you decided to offer the deal that you did in the comments below…

Over the past 18 months I have really enjoyed sports shooting and while I still shoot portraits, engagement, weddings and pretty much anything else, I feel that the time has come for an identity dedicated towards sports – more specifically combat sports. It’s been a great ride so far, and there are a few things coming down the pipe that I’m hoping will really take things to the next level.

In the meantime, I’ll be keeping pixelens photography & design active for non-sports photography, web development and marketing. I’ll also be getting back to blogging more about general photography tips, techniques and tutorials that I find interesting – I hope you do as well!

For all your sports photography, design and marketing needs I welcome you to TKO Photography. You can also follow TKO Photography on Twitter at @TKOPhotography and on Facebook.

In July, pixelens led one of three Edmonton legs of the 2nd Annual Worldwide Photo Walk. It was an enjoyable experience, meeting with other local photographers and playing around with a rented 15mm Fisheye lens in the downtown Edmonton core. Looking forward to the 3rd Annual walk this year.

Worldwide Photo Walk 2009 - Edmonton Group #2

Canada Place (HDR)

In August, pixelens was able to swing a deal with the Athletics department at Concordia University College of Alberta to shoot their home games and was able to pick up some experience shooting soccer, basketball, volleyball and hockey. Starting in January pixelens will be continuing with basketball, hockey and badminton.

Concordia Thunder Women's Basketball vs. Augustana Vikings

Concordia Thunder Men's Hockey

In August, pixelens also did some shooting for Fused Logic at the Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival. Shortly after, pixelens created a photographic journey book through Blurb of the event. The book is on sale over at Blurb.

2009 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival book cover

The later stages of the summer also saw pixelens shooting Bedouin Soundclash one night and Lex Justice and Ras•Pect another night for The Edmontonian. pixelens definitely wants to get in more concert shooting in 2010.

Bedouin Soundclash frontman Jay Malinowski; 100mm, 1/125s, f/2.8, 800ISO

Lex Justice

September was a big month for pixelens. It started with a summer family shoot for local MMA fighter Ryan “The Real Deal” Ford. In exchange, Ford hooked pixelens up with a media pass for TFC 8 at the beginning of September. pixelens then hooked up with Fused Logic to shoot Aggression MMA: First Blood a few weeks later. Since then, pixelens has forged an alliance with Top MMA News based out of Winnipeg and has shot at KOTC, Heat XC 4, TFC 9, and MFC 23. The new year is looking big already with KOTC, Aggression MMA, TFC, MFC/Heat XC, and CCF setting up shows in the first three months of the year. pixelens is also beginning to leverage website development experience and is currently working on a couple MMA related websites for fighters and organizations.

Darcy Boizard (right) vs Jason Bowden at TFC 8

Ryan Jimmo (left) vs Emanuel Newton at MFC 23: Unstoppable

The second half of 2009 saw pixelens published in a number of publications including online at The Edmontonian, Vancouver Sun, Canada.com and in print in Prospect Magazine and the Edmonton Examiner.

Vancouver Sun feature gallery

Published on Canada.com

November saw entry into the Globe & Mail Journalism Dream contest in which one lucky writer and one lucky photographer will be chosen to be guest journalists for the Globe & Mail at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Thanks to your support, pixelens ended up finishing in the top ten by votes. Considering the contest began at the beginning of October and pixelens entered at the beginning of November, this was a huge feat. Of the top 50 entries by vote, the judges selected the top 10 and are revealing them as we speak. Second through tenth have been revealed with only first place left. It’s a bit stressful waiting to see if we made the top spot!

Listed below are the top 5 articles posted on the pixelens site for 2009. Interesting that most of them were posted since September.

1. TFC 9: Total Chaos
2. HDR: From Start to Finish…
3. MFC 23: Unstoppable
4. MFC 23: Unstoppable – Billy Hua vs Kenny Hamilton
5. Published! MMA Regulated in Massachusetts

If the latter part of 2009 was any indication, 2010 should be a good year as well. pixelens is looking forward to the following in the new year:

• setting up photography/website packages for MMA fighters
• getting into the next level of sports photography
• getting sponsored and accepted to sportsshooter.com
• shooting more concerts
• setting up photography/website packages for new bands
• monthly wallpapers for download
• splitting out wedding and portrait photography to a separate website
• complete minor modifications to website

You can preview more of the book and order in soft or hard cover over at Blurb!

pixelens photography old look

For the new look, I started with a free WordPress theme called Magazeen. I liked the general layout and the focus on the imagery in this theme, and being a site about photography imagery is important! I made quite a few modifications including increasing the font size, increasing the main content area width, and decreasing the sidebar width. I also changed the color scheme from a blue to black/grey and reduced the size of the header image.

pixelens photography new look

A key feature, aside from having a larger image in the article preview, is the row of images across the top from recent articles. Rolling over these images will display the article title, clicking on an image will take you to that article.

One of the cool new features that I like about the theme, is that on the two main posts, you’ll notice a + sign with some text. Click on this will expand a related articles menu – I’ll be adding this functionality to the bottom of each post as well in the near future.

Related articles pull down

WordPress always had gallery functionality, but I find it integrates very nicely with this theme, especially when coupled with the Lightbox Plus WordPress plugin. I will be utilizing the gallery functionality more often, and most likely for most sets be including a link to the related set on Flickr where there will be even more related photos to view.

Image gallery

Clicking on any thumbnail in a post, and eventually any image in an article, will result in a larger version of the image being viewable using the Lightbox functionality. This will be the default behaviour on new articles, I’ll have to go through and add it to older articles to make it work with those. A tip to other WordPress developers and programmers, I tried quite a few Lightbox plugins and the only one that worked from me based on this theme was Lightbox Plus. I also couldn’t get Lightbox working on the previous Autofocus theme, but tested it out and Lightbox Plus works on that as well. Great customization of features too!

Larger image viewing

There are a few things on my to do list:

• add Lightbox functionality to older articles with images
• move title of image to top of Lightbox popup
• add category functionality to articles
• add previous and next article links on each article page
• add previous article links on the main page

As with the previous site, I’ve provided buttons on each post where you can share the post on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, etc.

If you can think of anything else to make this site more functional, please feel free to comment below! I hope you like the new look.

Here are a few of the images chosen for prints so far, waiting to see what the rest of the winners choose!

Alberta Legislature at night

Kajan Johnson

.no entry

.168

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Ryan Fortin vs. Jared Kilkenny at HeatXC4: Hysteria - made the cut

Nick Denis (top) vs. Jason Townes at Aggression MMA - didn't make the cut

He had this to say as well:

In sports, look for the action, the story-telling moment, or peak emotion. And as much as possible, shoot faces, shoot faces, shoot faces when you get the action and the emotion and the story-telling moment all in one frame. And crop.

Interestingly enough, browsing through the sports photography forums lately, it rang a bell and I’d heard the “shoot tight, crop tighter…” adage in quite a few different spots. Since I received his feedback a week ago, I’ve been going through my older stuff and trying different crops, and I do have to agree – it really draws you in. That being said, on the other hand in some cases a wider shot I think makes for a totally different print; but I think I understand now the key difference in newsworthy sports shots and “just” a sports shot. Here’s a couple before and after crops for your viewing pleasure.

Concordia Thunder Women's Soccer vs. NAIT Ooks - as submitted

Concordia Thunder Women's Soccer vs. NAIT Ooks - suggested crop

Josten Tardiff (top) vs. James Petryk at Aggression MMA - pre-crop

Josten Tardiff (top) vs. James Petryk at Aggression MMA - post-crop

On my last couple shoots – basketball and hockey, I tried to shoot tighter as well. The hockey was easier being in a better lit venue, was definitely tougher at the basketball games.

Concordia Thunder Women's Basketball vs. Augustana Vikings

Concordia Thunder Men's Basketball vs. Augustana Vikings

Concordia Thunder Men's Hockey

Concordia Thunder vs. NAIT Ooks

You can vote for me here:
http://journalismdream.theglobeandmail.com/entry_photo.asp?id=640

You can either comment on this post that you’ve voted or email me to be entered in a thank you draw for an 11×14 print of your choosing.

Thanks again and hope to be sending Olympic photos your way in February!

Thanks to my sis-in-law for being such a great model!

.dream

The Globe and Mail has a contest and the prize is for one writer and one photographer to be “guest journalists” for the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. As some of you know, I’ve been delving into the realm of sports photography and this contest/opportunity is really exciting.

I’ve entered the contest with the images that you see on this page (both above and below). Their rule on voting is “one vote per category per user per day”. Voting runs until November 22nd, and on the 23rd the top 50 submissions by popular vote are then further judged on various criteria until a winner is chosen. I honestly cannot tell you how much I’d love to have this opportunity to shoot the Olympics – it really would be my Olympic dream, especially considering I’m not a huge sports player ;).

You can vote for me by visiting my entry on the Globe and Mail contest site.

So vote daily, get your mom & dad to vote, your friends to vote, get everyone you know to vote! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your support!

Cheers,
Jason

Jason Lambert (left) vs. Matt Horwich at Aggression MMA: First Blood

Concordia Thunder Hockey

Concordia Thunder Women's Soccer

Concordia Thunder Women's Volleyball