Started a new company/website

[Aaron Kupferman]

After lots of positive feedback from my friends at the track days I drive at, I decided to try my hands at a track day photography side-business. I created the website www.motorsportlens.com and shot a very large track day event at the California Speedway this last weekend. I am trying to set myself apart from the other track day photographers by offering higher quality, more photographically interesting images. I launched the site on Monday morning and have had lots of traffic and a good number of image sales.

I shot over 4500 photos and sorted those down to about 1500 that I color corrected and posted to the galleries. I am charging either a "day package" price of $60 for all of your photos from the day or a per-photo price of $10 each. These are of course personal use royalty-free purchases. The package price is equivalent to what other California track day photographers are charging but my per-image price is a bit cheaper. I am trying to bring in the people who wouldn't normally spend $60 and give them some options.

The website is a PhotoShelter customized website with only the home, about, and order info pages residing on my server. The rest are CSS customized pages generated by PhotoShelter. This lets me upload my exported jpgs with the PhotoShelter uploader and create the galleries pretty easily.

After the hurried launch on Sunday night and replying to customers emails this week, I finally have a bit of time to breathe and refine the site a bit. I would like to hear from everybody what they think needs to be changed, reworded, added or taken off the site. Any other advice on how I could make this more successful would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my logo and some sample images from this weekend.

Thanks!

Aaron

http://www.motorsportlens.com/images/motorsportlens_banner.jpg (http://www.motorsportlens.com/)

http://www.motorsportlens.com/promo/MSL_CalSpeed_0030.jpg

http://www.motorsportlens.com/promo/MSL_CalSpeed_0010.jpg

http://www.motorsportlens.com/promo/MSL_CalSpeed_0017.jpg

[John Thawley]

I'd suggest you yank those ALMS photos pronto. Unless you paid the $1000 licensing fee, you're leaving yourself wide open.

[E. John Thawley III]

Good work at a great price. I'd buy a CD from you...

I'd suggest you not go too deep trying to please the $10 customers. In my experience, you'll spend more time on a $10 sale than on a whole CD. When rates are that reasonable, you have to save TIME to make any money.

Good luck. I'll look for you if you're covering any NASA races next year.

Thawley

http://www.thawleyphoto.com/gallery/public_html/Enduro@Dusk.JPG

[Aaron Kupferman]

I'd suggest you yank those ALMS photos pronto. Unless you paid the $1000 licensing fee, you're leaving yourself wide open.

Did I miss something in the papers I signed when I got my media credentials? Are we not allowed to sell photos taken at the ALMS race without paying a licensing fee? Right now I have them set up for "rights managed" purchases. What are we allowed to do with the photos without paying the fee? Could you shed some more light on this for me? Thanks!

Any other comments? I know you have been commenting on a lot of other websites recently :) but I would appreciate any other feedback you might have John.

Thanks!
--

E. John, the nice thing about the PhotoShelter setup is that for any of the individual image purchases including the $10 single image purchase or multiples there of, I do not have to do anything. The entire payment and download process is automated. It is only for the $60 package purchase that I create a separate gallery for people to download from.

I hear you about saving time to make money. After sorting and color correcting my first day's images I realized that I had to shoot the same exposure with the same setup for every car at the same time, then move on to the next setup. This allows me to apply the same CC to larger batches of images than doing each image one by one.

I'll see if I can get out to any NASA events to shoot, and if I do, I'll say Hi. :)

Thanks

[Kevin DiOssi]

I am curious to know how the ALMS shots work. I don't shoot ALMS for profit, I shoot it for fun, and because it's practice on amazing machines. I have them on my site as well, but nothing on there is available for purchase, it's more of an online portfolio.

[Daniel Buck]

good luck with it! :-)

I just had the final (I hope!) adjustments done on the suspension of my mustang, maybe you'll be getting a few shots of my car at an event in the future! :-D

[John Thawley]

Did I miss something in the papers I signed when I got my media credentials? Are we not allowed to sell photos taken at the ALMS race without paying a licensing fee? Right now I have them set up for "rights managed" purchases. What are we allowed to do with the photos without paying the fee? Could you shed some more light on this for me? Thanks!

Any other comments? I know you have been commenting on a lot of other websites recently :) but I would appreciate any other feedback you might have John.

Thanks!


Yeah... you missed the part that says you can't sell without a written agreement with IMSA/ALMS/Panoz Motorsports Group.

If you've applied for a credential, you are approved for a specific use. If you are a spectator, it's probably on the back of the ticket.

Regardless, at the end of the day, you own the copyrights to the photo, ALMS owns the Intellectual Rights to the content. What happens on track is a "show." It is their "show." You can't sell images, video, duplication... blah, blah, blah... of that "show."

It's like the statement at the end of a sports television broadcast. "This broadcast is for the personal enjoyment of our viewers. You may not copy, redistribute or broadcast in any form without the written consent of....."

That said, you can't do it.

Do I think it's right? No. In fact, I think it is short sighted. In this day and age they need to re-think the big picture. But.... that's a whole other argument.

JT

[Kevin DiOssi]

PM Sent John. I don't want to hijack the thread.

Back on Topic, I like the logo and the site.