Expensive BrightRoom Event Photos

[7rider]

It's $50 to order a CD with the 10 or so pictures of me (some not so good) taken by the photographers at my tri. Kinda pricey, but the only photos of me "in action".

Has anyone had any experience with ordering these? Any regrets?

Okay....so I'm coming into this discussion spectacularly late, but I wanted to throw something out there.

I bought postcards and a few 4x6's of me after my first century. They didn't offer an option of a CD back then (2001, was that so long ago??), which would have been totally cool. If it's your first tri, and the photos are good, I say go for it. What is $50 but a really nice bike jersey on sale?? Dinner for two at an okay restaurant? A mediocre saddle? Put it in perspective: memories or something for the closet.

Curious....would they provide high-res pictures? Our second attempt at a century (in a dying tropical storm - 7" of rain and 30 mph wind...yuck) ended at mile 50 for us, but we did have some pictures captured. I visited the website (and passed around the URL to folks so they could look) but didn't buy. The pictures posted, however, were very low-resolution, so it was difficult to even get a "feel" for the picture and whether or not I wanted to buy it (which I didn't....I didn't want to remember that dismal event).

[chickwhorips]

speaking of hard photos to get, and seeing blue's photo. i saw this once, only once. 6 horses running and all hooves were off the ground. old friend of mine took this picture and i don't know how long it took her to get it, but it was a LONG time.

[KnottedYet]

AAAAAAAAAH!!!!! BrightRoom just raised the price of the CD to $57!!!!!!

CCCCCCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Trek420]

OK, who sent them the link to this thread?

[tribug]

I'm glad some people are understanding the biz side of photography and what it takes to make images.

I'm running an event photography company called Opix (www.opix.net) in San Diego. I have no idea how Brightroom or other companies do their business so I can speak only for my company. These are some quick facts:

1) Number of shooters I hire: usually 3 - 4.
2) Number of images I look thru after an event: 5,000 – 10,000
3) Number of nights to go thru #2: 5
4) Number of people who place an order: 10% or less, usually.

Notes:

#2: "look thru" means determing the race number(s) in each image. It's not always easy because sometimes you can't see. And I spend a lot of time trying to figure out them. Really frustrating. I do all of post-race steps by myself.

#3: I say "nights" because I still have a day job so I do everything at night. Needless to say, I don’t get much of sleep in that period…

In short, this is extremely time-consuming, and therefore images are priced accordingly, NOT just for ink and paper (or disk). Of course, there are many other aspects of running this kind of business, but BlueTree and others have already mentioned so I don't repeat.

Honestly, it's not so rewarding money-wise. If I were a little bit smarter, I shouldn’t be doing this business...

[KnottedYet]

I gave up on getting anything from my tri. After Brightroom raised their prices the 2nd week, and then the $8 shipping charge, I couldn't even afford to buy ONE picture.

And, no, I won't "steal" them. Like I said before, I have many artists in my world and I don't do that.

If BR had lower prices, how many more pics would they have sold? Seems like their profit would be better with lower prices and more sales. And the hard work has already been done (pics are taken, and sorted, regardless).

My mom and SKnot got a couple pics. None of me on the bike, but that's the way it goes. I'll have those to remember the tri by.

[tribug]

If BR had lower prices, how many more pics would they have sold? Seems like their profit would be better with lower prices and more sales. And the hard work has already been done (pics are taken, and sorted, regardless).

Lower prices may bring more sales, but the profit margin from each sale becomes smaller. So, for example, if Brightroom wants to make $100 and now they need to sell 5 prints, they may have to sell 8 prints to reach the same goal with lower prices.

Also, posting pics isn't the end of hard work. Once I get orders, I retouch those ordered images, which takes some time. Virtually no single image goes to the printer straight out of camera. I always look for any improvements in images so my customers will be 100% satisfied.

Disclaimer: Like I said in my previous post, I am speaking only for my own business, not for Brightroom or any others.