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Official Photographer Business Model

Hahaha. A true artist completely engaged in his work.

I think your slo-mo clips are well done for the most part…maybe too much ultra close up. But I couldn’t watch even a minute…I checked the clock at 42 seconds. Way too much of the same thing. I think if you dispersed some real time clips in there, that would help. I also agree you probably can’t find a good price to make 5+ hours of work worth it.

I’m not sure what the utility is apart from social media or website marketing type use, so 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or up to a minute or two if not all slow. Some slow shots could be educational, but not if the whole thing is slow. Pace and rhythm are also important to watch.

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I completely agree. It gets monotonous unless you are completely obsessed with watching horses over and over again (which I kinda am). Right now, they are more like meditative films that can put you in a trance if you’re not careful…haha. However, if they are videos of you and your horse, you might have a longer attention span (not you specifically). Still, I agree that one minute would be the maximum. It’s funny when I study the analytics of my Youtube channel, most check out at less than a minute of play (which is fine if the video is a minute long). Thanks for the feedback!

When you are live-streamed on Clip My Horse, do you pay show management a video fee when you register for classes?

I feel the same. Maybe I’m old and not your target market. I love what you do and always check out your reels but I have a very short attention span for them and move on quickly. I’ve never watched one all the way through. I can’t see myself buying one, posting one, or making one. I appreciate the artistry of them but it’s not something I personally have an interest in. FWIW I also am very unlikely to buy super artsy show photos. I prefer classic action shots.

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This line made me giggle because that is exactly where I said ‘that is enough’ and closed it.

I am clearly not the OP’s market.

@capalypinto, if you can find a market for this I am all for you seeing how you can make this work with the official show photographers. Have you considered having a sit down with one of them to see their thoughts on if they think what you are doing is really interfering with their market or what you could do to add your product to the market?

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I love this forum!!! No sugar coating, just honest feedback. That’s why I wanted to post my plan here. And actually 47 seconds is a long time in the video world. I mean commercials are usually 30 seconds. So at least I kept you that long…hahaha. I think the market could be there if I shortened the videos to one minute and offered them immediately for sharing on social media (like you walk out of the ring and ping! sent!). I do think the customer’s attention span would be increased if the customer was watching a video of themselves riding as opposed to complete strangers in a YouTube video. Regardless, one minute videos are more marketable and less labor-intensive.
I have explained to show management that I am offering a different product than the official photographers and videographers. I think I need to hire a sales rep since selling myself has always been a challenge for me, being an introvert. I guess if the show grounds are a privately owned facility, they can do what they want, and select who they want to be there. I would think the show management would like to offer the riders a different type of product. Let the trainers and riders decide what to buy and from whom to buy. I guess I am confused about the whole official photographer model.

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It works like this - big shows want the people there to be able to buy photos of how wonderful their horse looked showing there. In order to get a great photographer to come do the photo taking they have to promise them a certain amount of available business because no venue would get any good professional photographers if the photographers can not make any money working there. If the venue allows anyone and everyone to take and sell photos very quickly there would be no one taking and selling good photos. Sure, lots of people would be taking photos, but they would not be great photos, they would just be photos.

Edit to add - If there is no official photographer who decides who gets the best spot for taking photos? How many people can stand in the ring and be taking photos?

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But if the professional photos are better, wouldn’t the customers buy those over the amateur’s photos regardless. It would be like any other business. Some suck, some don’t. The best will sell and the worst will realize their product doesn’t sell and they’ll go home.

People will gladly live with free photos, or steal proofs with a water mark on them.

No, it does not work how you want it to work. And now days there is not enough business to support several photographers at one show.

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That makes sense, but I feel that all shows should allow other photographers or videographers since competition improves the product. I think that the shows should allow different photographers, just like they allow different trainers at the show.

I think their biggest competition is not other photographers, but the average public with cell phones. Anyone and everyone has a cell phone and the technology is improving so much that the cell phone pictures can almost look professional.

The official photog shows up with an air-conditioned trailer, PC viewing stations, full-blown staff of about 4-8 photographers, 1-2 runners, and a CS rep that mans the trailer - all of whom need to be housed in a hotel on the Official Photog’s dime. And that’s before the $50K+ in equipment + the vendor fee + insurance & the whole 9 yards that comes with running a company as opposed to a side hustle.

We nearly lost all those amenities when high-quality cameras came out for the consumer market and every Tom, Dick, Jane & Harry was snapping shots ringside and selling CDs for $25, because the entirety of their overhead was one $800 camera.

And the photo quality was terrible in comparison to what came from the major show photographers. But because they got 40 O.K. pictures from the fauxtog for the cost of 1 high-quality professional photo the consumers fell for it, and we nearly lost all our professional photography companies. Fortunately, management came to stand behind these folks who have built their whole lives around servicing our industry and designated Official Photogs, ensuring we will have reliable, high-quality photography for our memories & our sales ads for years to come. It was hands-down the right decision.

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No. Plenty of people are happy with “good enough”. And for a lot of people “free” makes any photo “good enough”.
Here’s an example. I’m the official photographer at a local show and have been for years. There is another exhibitor, who is very friendly with almost everyone, who has a camera. She started out taking pictures of her friends, or people she rides with. But because she is “friends” with so many people, she ends up taking pictures of nearly half the exhibitors. Because her pictures are “good enough” (free, posted that night on Facebook, almost correctly timed… but often times slightly out of focus or other technical problems) many exhibitors are totally happy to share her photos instead of buying the professional photos, even when they are priced below value. And it’s not just her, there are a number of people who bring their camera and will take pictures of many different exhibitors. But I will say I feel it definitely eats into my profits, and I absolutely get why big shows have a vendor/media policy when it comes to photographers on the grounds.

Now that I’ve gone on a complete tangent and minor vent, my two cents as far as sharing or viewing videos go is that I’m not looking for art to display through a video. If I had video of a show, I want to be able to analyze my round. Now, I am probably outside of the target audience of late teens/early adults who have multiple social media accounts that they are trying to make or keep relevant, so your first step i think, would be to identify your target audience and go from there.

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Wow! Fauxtographer! haha. That makes sense. Does the show management pay the official photographer? I’m wondering about the future with the tech advancements in cell phones.

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Thank you, you said it far better than I did!

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The Official Photographer pays a vendor fee to the show.

Cell phone cameras are good as long as your subject isn’t moving, but they will never be able to stop-action like a true camera can, especially in anything less than perfect weather & definitely not indoors.

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If you read @dags post you will see that the official photographer pays a vendor fee, not the show paying the official photographer.

How will the business adapt with the advancement of technology in cell phones. So, hypothetically, the only videos that you would be interested in seeing could come from a cell phone? What about analyzing your round when in slow-motion? I feel that it can be a great instructional tool since you see everything. When I film in normal time, everything flies by and I don’t really see anything. But with slow-mo, I can study every move.

I see it now, thanks