Forums >Running 101>race photos
See, here's the problem. They don't charge what they like. Like everyone else on earth, they charge what they think they can get.
Indeed. It could be framed as a classical micro-economics problem set. You have a monopoly seller who will charge the profit maximizing amount. You also have a monopsony buyer (i.e. only one person will buy the photo of you, namely you). The problem is that the seller does not have information about the purchasers private value. Or really, he can only charge one price (if he has one product - a high res digital photo), but he has a multitude of monopsony buyers with different values. Presumably he maximizes profit by only transacting with the buyers who have a high private value - or else he wouldn't charge such a "high" price.
Anyway, I think it would be cool to experiment with the model (of course, easy for me to say, not my livelihood) and do a Radiohead-type pay what you want (but you must pay something). Would like to see the results of that.
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
Indeed. It could be framed as a classical micro-economics problem set. You have a monopoly seller who will charge the profit maximizing amount.
Ha, this is like a physics problem, where the question adds "discounting friction and air resistance." The friction, here being all the family members along the course with digital cameras.
"If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus
Good Bad & The Monkey
That. Was. Awesome.
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
To ensure that I was using them to simply share on line or whatever vs. trying to print my own high quality picture without paying. And Clive, in your case, you would just elect to not pay the $2 (or whatever price).
But if you let people opt out, your fixed costs (all that stuff Elly listed) might not even be covered, let alone turn any reasonable profit. I thought the motivation for this model was to (1) keep people from lifting the small images, and (2) answer a stated market demand for small, lower-res images for FB posting, avatars and the like.
"I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."
-- Dick LeBeau
What is the right cost for low res? What about high res? $40+ is too much IMO for high res, but I'd very likely pay $5-10 per race for the full res shots.
I would too, especially for a "goal race" I don't know the right price - I suppose it would be trial and error. Probably depends somewhat on the size of the race.
People lift the small images anyway in a lot of cases because they know how to work around the system. The way I look at it, it's a way to generate revenue from something the photographer is already doing (no incremental new cost) without cannibalizing the other source of revenue (higher quality prints that some can choose to pay for later).
Yep.
I need a smoke.
How about an auction? People name the price they are willing to pay and a photographer/team of them can take up the assignment if he thinks he could turn a decent profit.
S Army Kettle run...
I've seen this at running events and also the stock car track I race at ...
The photog shows up with their camera and printer. You like the picture and are willing to pay for it, they print it off with the event logo etc. Usually pretty nice. Kinda like the picture they try sell of you trying to not barf on Space Mountain - Disney World.
For the economists in the group, the photog knows the business and understands their cost/price point and prices accordingly. After the fact, the race director posts the name of the photographer for those still interested.
Reduces the temptation ...
Tim
offering a coupon in the race packet of my most recent race was a motivator to me.
not bad for mile 25
This could also be bundled with race sign up, couldn't it? Sort of like races say they are $29.99 or $39.99 if you want the shirt. You could elect at sign up to pay $2 or something to have access to low quality digital images.
The trouble with bundling is that there's not going to be a decent photo of every runner.
Charge a penny per pixel. Absolutely proportionate to the resolution, and sounds like a bargain. Emphasis on "sounds like".
A girl I know is going to college and wants to be a photographer. I asked a photographer I know for advice I could give her. He said she should major in business, since most photographers are poor business people.
Yeah, but most business people are poor photographers.
"Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain."
Jack Kerouac
Can someone give me a current snapshot of this thread?