Looking for a way to add some reliable revenue to your photography business? Perhaps a sideline doing volume photography for sports or events could provide that extra boost to your bottom line.
Robert Kenward started his volume sports photography business in 2006, and went full-time when he retired from his engineering career in 2018. Since then, he’s generated a steady income with an impressive return on his time investment. He feels other photographers, regardless of their specialty, can add volume photography as a reliable, profitable sideline gig to bolster studio revenues.
“The true art of volume photography is making as many people as possible happy,” says Kenward. Beyond that, it’s not that complex photographically. A good volume operation involves a simple setup, an easily repeatable system, and as much automation as possible to streamline processes and limit manual time. A lot of the work is up front, creating systems for scheduling, order fulfillment, and tracking customers. Then, with a standardized photography setup ready to go, you can show up, find the right expression for each subject, click, order, and fulfill.
“For talented photographers, this isn’t going to be a replacement for the creative work they do,” says Kenward. “Instead, it’s a way to bring in some steady income to pay some studio bills so you can channel your creative side into everything else you do.” By Kenward’s accounting, working a single sports photography gig with a medium-sized organization should yield anywhere from $3,000 to $7,000 in gross revenue from one photo day.
COMPOSITING
To keep his process as uniform as possible, Kenward engages in composite photography, often working with a mobile studio setup that can be placed almost anywhere, including inside a tent for outdoor location shoots. For team photos, he photographs each athlete individually and then extracts the athlete from the image and adds them into the team photo. This involves more post-processing work than a traditional posed team portrait, but the logistical advantage is he never needs to have the entire team together. If a player is late or sick, they can be photographed another time and still be part of the team photo. There are also myriad background choices and digital effects that can be added easily for a variety of photo products.
The drawback to compositing is the extra work involved in extracting and editing individual photos into a team picture. You can do this manually if you want to save money and spend time, or you can outsource editing and graphics.
Kenward outsources his graphics entirely. It’s an expense, for certain, but the time savings are enormous, he says. He works with Next Generation Photography Solutions for image editing and graphics, which integrates with GotPhoto for e-commerce, and Richmond Pro Lab for order fulfillment. As for Kenward, he just photographs as consistently as possible in terms of posing, orientation, and lighting, and then sends off the image files.
SETUP
Kenward recommends a simple, easily transportable setup. He fits his entire mobile studio in a wagon that requires a single trip from his vehicle to the photo location. For indoor shoots, he uses:
- Manfrotto HiLite background
- 1 small light stand
- 1 boomed light stand
- 2 strobe lights
- 1 tripod
- 1 camera with a 50mm lens
- 1 small table
- 1 bucket or stool to sit on
If he’s shooting outside, he sets up the same configuration under a black portable shelter or tent. He recommends a black shelter instead of a lighter color to remove as much ambient light as possible. “You want to get it as dark as possible in there so that you don’t have to run your flashes at full power to overpower the ambient light throughout the entire shoot,” he explains. “For these shoots, you’re working with lots of subjects, so battery management is important.” If you run flashes at full power the whole time, you’ll need to change batteries multiple times, he adds, which requires carrying extra gear and slows down your process.
BEST PRACTICES
To maximize your time and your profits, try following a few best practices for volume photography.
Go global. Global changes save time and lead to more consistent end results. Once you capture all the photographs, any change you make to one image should be made across the entire batch. There’s no individual editing. “Any time you touch an individual image, you’re costing yourself time and money,” says Kenward.
Be consistent. Do it right in camera—as consistently as possible in terms of lighting, exposure, and positioning—and then do global edits across images. When you maintain consistency across sessions, you have the flexibility to work in someone who missed their photo day while you’re photographing a different group.
Automate everything. “Don’t do anything by hand,” says Kenward. “It will kill you in volume photography.” Don’t take order forms and open envelopes. Don’t type anything in by hand. Don’t hand crop. Don’t individually edit anything. Set up automations for all tasks—have customers enter their own information, batch process images, and outsource image editing.
Organize, organize, organize. In volume photography, it’s all about organization, data management, and workflow. It’s important to track your customers, understand who’s who, and have efficient order fulfillment. A good CRM, workflow, and e-commerce sales solution is invaluable.
Build relationships. Customer service is essential. Especially with sports leagues, many of the administrators are volunteers. The easier you make the process and the more you follow it up with great service, the better your relationships will be. These relationships are key to renewing contracts.
Outsource intelligently. As with most small business enterprises, you can do everything yourself or you can outsource it. “Outsourcing has a cost, but if you price accordingly, it makes sense,” says Kenward. “You have to consider the value of your time.”
Volume photography and creative photography can peacefully coexist in the same business if you understand the place each holds in your workflow and revenue mix, according to Kenward. Volume photography is about process and organization, a way to generate reliable income and supplement your bottom line. That way you can pour your creativity into other pursuits that fulfill your artistic side.
“Volume photography could be the way you free yourself to focus more on the creative side of your photography,” says Kenward. “By removing some of the financial pressure through doing a couple of sports leagues a month, you can concentrate the rest of your time on what inspires you.”
Jeff Kent is editor-at-large.
Tags: sports photography