June 29, 2012

Sports Photography Trends: Summer - The Best Time For Booking High School Sports!

Photo by Cincinnati Sports Photographer Vincent Rush

RIGHT NOW is the BEST TIME to book high school sports…do you have your marketing kits ready? The grads have thrown their hats in the air, and the coaches are taking a sigh of relief, FOR THE MOMENT.

Many schools require staff and personnel to work for a week, or several days, past the last day of the classes for students, so NOW is the time to act! These couple of weeks following classes are PRIME TIME for speaking with any high school coach. During these weeks most coaches are more accessible and more willing to meet – and listen – to what you have to offer.

Take advantage of this calm time, as a lot of coaches are hard to locate during the school year. When they are busy it is tricky to find a “best time” to speak with them, and finding the “best time” that they are willing to listen can be even trickier! Very often they are busy, and will only give you a few minutes of their time, if that. You want to approach them at a time when they have more time to listen to you.

Plan ahead. Do you have your marketing kits together and ready to go? Be sure to have samples of unique products that will make you stand out among your competitors. Have a calendar with you for scheduling. Have testimonial letters from other schools and coaches. Be prepared to leave detailed information with the coach/decision maker so they can refer back to what you discussed.

One HUGE advantage to approaching school coaches now is that more than likely there areMANY coaches there at the same time. Once you’re in the school, track down other coaches of other sports. Now is also the best time to show up unannounced and visit with as many coaches as possible. Make the most of YOUR time and the coaches availability. Don’t miss these lucrative couple of weeks…the BEST TIME FOR BOOKING SCHOOL SPORTS!

Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

June 11, 2012

Dayton's News Source :: Sports - Miami University Softball Team Breaking Records

Photo by Ohio Sports Photographer Vincent Rush of Cincinnati Sports Photography

Dayton's News Source :: Sports - Miami University Softball Team Breaking Records

Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.comCheck out my about.me profile!

Miami University star Simpson has Crawford County connections

Jessica Simpson delivers a pitch for Miami (Ohio) University this spring. / Vincent Rush of Cincinnati Sports Photography

Written by Dan Messerschmidt Telegraph-Forum

OXFORD -- Jessica Simpson has drawn quite a bit of attention over the past few years.
No, not the singer/actress who cavorted with Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo. But this Jessica Simpson turned some heads, just the same, as a star pitcher for the Miami University Redhawks' softball team.

Simpson has roots in Crawford County. She is the granddaughter of Bill and Barb Kaple of New Washington. Her mother, Karen, is a 1980 graduate of Buckeye Central High School.
As her grandfather, Bill is rightfully proud of Simpson, a 2008 graduate of North Canton Hoover High School.

"As a freshman in 2009, she was (Mid-American Conference) tournament MVP with a 4-0 record," Kaple said. "For eight years, at North Canton Hoover and now this, it's hard to top."

The "this" that Kaple referred to was another MAC tournament MVP and a trip to the NCAA tournament for his granddaughter.

Simpson had a love of sports and played a number of them before narrowing her focus to softball.

New sport

"I really was into sports when I was younger," Simpson said. "I played basketball, softball and volleyball. I always knew I wanted to play a sport in college. It turned out that softball was my sport."

Was it ever.

Simpson became a dominant pitcher, as indicated by the Miami and MAC records she accumulated in her four years in the circle for the Redhawks.

She holds MAC records for career wins (102) and career shutouts (46). Simpson also established Miami records with 32 wins and 358 strikeouts this season and career complete games with 117 and 1,021 career strikeouts.

This year, especially the post-season, demonstrates what an iron woman she has been.
To get to the NCAA tournament, the Redhawks had to battle their way out of the losers' bracket to win the MAC tournament.

The Redhawks lost 1-0 to Central Michigan to open the tourney. The next day, they beat Kent State at 11 a.m. and defeated Ball State -- the No. 1 seed -- at 7 p.m. The following day, Miami beat Western Michigan in an 11 a.m. game, before facing defeating Central Michigan twice, at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. with Simpson toeing the rubber in each. She pitched 42 innings in three days, giving up just three runs.

"Thursday we went to Knoxville and had to play Tennessee," Kaple said. "They were like the fourth ranked team in the country and Jess shut them out, 1-0. The next day, she lost to Virginia Tech in 100 degree heat. The team started to run out of gas."

Ready for college

Simpson was well prepared for Division I college after having played on state championship teams her sophomore and senior years at Division I Hoover.
"A lot of things stand out," Simpson said, looking back. "I loved my career, both high school and college. Shutting out Tennessee was big. We were only the third team to do that. It was a huge upset. It's something I'll remember for a long time."

Her athletic prowess is not surprising, considering her pedigree. Grandpa Kaple was a multi-sport athlete at New Washington (Class of '58) and her uncle, Brett Kaple, was a prolific scorer in basketball at Buckeye Central and now coaches at Colonel Crawford.

For her efforts, Simpson was mentioned in Sports Illustrated's Faces in the Crowd in the June 4 issue.

Next step

Though her playing days are over, Simpson has no intention of leaving behind the sport she loves.
"I can't imagine my life without softball in it in some way, shape or form," Simpson said. "I plan to be an English teacher and coach softball, along with giving pitching lessons."

Simpson will graduate in December and, as she put it, "Try to find a job wherever life takes me." She did indicate she would prefer to go somewhere warmer, which would be better for her softball coaching aspirations.

With her resume, it's easy to believe that Simpson will succeed wherever she goes.
dmessers@nncogannett.com

May 3, 2012

The Importance of Image and Presentation for Youth Sports Photography Businesses

RegarRegardless of what business you’re in, first impressions are everything. A great first impression and a professional look can help a youth sports photography business book more business, and increase its sales on every job.

Presentation when booking the shoot

You will need to adapt your dress and presentation for different situations.

If you’re approaching a coach before a practice, you’ll want to dress more casually (khaki pants or shorts and polo shirts) than you would if you were meeting with league or school officials.

It’s also a necessity that you have professional looking business cards on hand to leave with the person/people that you’re meeting.

Business cards should look professional, not printed at home on card stock, and have a simple layout with all your relevant information clearly visible (address, phone number, email address).

Also, try putting your picture, preferably a nice business portrait, on your business cards. It’s much harder for someone to throw away a business card with a picture on it and it also reminds that person of you.

One mistake that youth sports photographers make when trying to book new business is that they put down their competition. Never be negative about a competitor. This makes you look unprofessional and can cost you the shoot in the end.

Don’t assume that the coach/organization is unhappy with their current photographer. You want to expand upon what your competition is doing and present yourself as a better solution to their needs.

Some other important things to consider:

Continuity is important. Everything should be branded with your company name and logo.

No tobacco use in or around school property or the meeting area. Also, no visible tattoos or unacceptable piercings should be showing.

Smile! Be a cheerleader for your business.

Have a professional way to show samples.

Presenting your samples electronically, on an iPad or Laptop, perhaps even with projector, will help you save money on physical samples.

However, you will want to have physical samples of any specialty products that you offer.

When making your presentation to a group of people be sure to have copies of your presentation to pass out. For a one on one meeting, having a single page flyer that outlines your services will suffice.

Know your products and offers thoroughly. Have pricing available that will fit people and areas from all walks of life.

Have a calendar and scheduling agreements with you, in case they want to book with you on the spot.

Everything is about expectations.

Make sure that your expectations regarding a shoot line up with theirs

Do what you say you’re going to do when you’re going to do it.

Your professional image says a lot about you and your business and it can mean the difference between booking a shoot or watching your competition collect the sales.

April 22, 2012

Safe at 3rd

Sports Photography by Cincinnati and Dayton Sports Photographer Vincent Rush

The Delivery

Sports Photograph by Ohio Sports Photographer Vincent Rush

March 31, 2012

LynxSafe by Lynx Telematics

March 27, 2012

Lynx Telematics presents LynxSafe for Parents of Teenage Drivers

Lynx Safe 2 from Moonbeam Studios on Vimeo.

The newest Lynxsafe commercial produced by Moonbeam studios in Cincinnati, Ohio

Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

February 24, 2012

Lynx Telematics presents LynxSafe for Parents of Teenage Drivers

LynxSafe by Lynx Telematics Safe Driving Monitor for Teens

February 6, 2012

You’re Charging Too Much For Your Photography

By scottbourne

Well not really – but I needed a catchy headline. Chances are you are charging too little. Let me explain.

(Please note this post is written from the perspective of a professional photographer. If you want to do photography for charity or use it to provide social outreach or pure art, this post may not be something you’ll care to read. Thank you.)

Every time – every single time – someone says – “Your price is too high,” it means that you have the wrong prospect. You don’t have the wrong product or price. You have the wrong prospect.
A man with $2000 in his pocket out to buy a car walks into a Jaguar dealership, sees a lovely XJL sedan and says, “I like that. How much is it?” The salesman replies, “$120,000 sir.” The man says, “That’s too much.” Is it? Obviously the problem here is not that the Jaguar isn’t a nice car or that it costs too much. The problem is that the man simply can’t afford a car in this price range. He’s not the right prospect. There will never be a meeting of the minds here.

So this illustrates part one of this problem. Wrong prospect always leads to no sale.

What is the solution? Is the solution to sell a different product or reduce the price? Absolutely not. The solution is to find the person who can afford that price and wants that product.

Photographers often charge too little because they have an “opinion” based on their own experience about what the market will stand for. But that’s the core problem. The photographer isn’t the buyer. The photographer doesn’t necessarily represent the market. You should be aiming higher than your own income bracket if you want to grow your business so find clients who CAN afford your higher prices and sell to them.

Most often it’s your opinion that is the problem. It’s not the price. It’s not the product. It’s your opinion about what the market will stand for.

Let me give you another example. If you live in a world where the average income is $50,000 a year, you probably haven’t considered adding a Rolls-Royce Phantom to your garage. This may lead you to believe that since you can’t afford it, nobody can. But that’s wrong-headed thinking. Want proof? Rolls-Royce sells a model called the Phantom. It’s $380,000. Now they also sell a special edition of the Phantom called the “Year of the Dragon” edition. That version of the car costs $1.2 million. Guess what. They completely sold out of those cars – worldwide – in 60 days. So while you may not be able to afford that car, it doesn’t mean someone else can’t.

There are people in this world – in fact in your neighborhood – who can write $100,000 checks without even asking their spouse for permission. There’s plenty of money around, even in a bad economy. You just have to find it.

So study demographics. Which zip code in your area is the most affluent? Where are the country clubs? These are the places where your prospects for high-end photography exist.

Not everyone cares about making a great deal of money in their photography business. Some prefer the social nature of the job or the artistic nature of the job. For them, this isn’t going to resonate. But for those of you who would like to make more money, start thinking about finding the RIGHT prospects – the ones who can value and afford what you do.

An article by Scott Bourne posted on Twitter on Feb 6th, 2012

Re-Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

February 5, 2012

The New Nikon D4

January 29, 2012

Congrats to Dan Fleming of LaSalle on win number 335

By: Nick Chaney of The Enquierer

LaSalle coach Dan Fleming became the winningest basketball coach in school history as the Lancers (14-1, 7-0 GCLS) beat St. Xavier 39-22. Fleming won the 335th game of his career, passing Bill Cady (334) on the all-time list.

LaSalle forced 14 turnovers in the win while only committing five of its own. The win reflected the type of play the Lancers have been known for under Fleming.

“We’ve got a bunch of tough guys who are all about winning and competing,” said Fleming. “It’s not always pretty, but the majority of the time we’ve been able to come out on top.”

“(Cady) really got it started here at LaSalle. It’s an honor to be mentioned in the same sentence as him,” said Fleming. “He’s a fine coach and an even better person.”

LaSalle senior guards Josh Lemons and Tyler Vogelpohl led the way for the Lancers. Lemons scored a game-high 15 points while Vogelpohl was the only other player in double digits with 11.

LaSalle took control of the GCL South race after last week’s win over Moeller. The Lancers take a break from league play tonight with a game against Northmont. Even after his record-setting win, that was Coach Fleming’s priority.

“(The record has) never been an issue,” Fleming said. “It’s always been about getting better for the next day, the next practice, the next game. Passing Bill Cady is nice, but we’re just trying to get better for tomorrow.”

Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

January 13, 2012

Making Money in Photography

Making Money With Photography — 10 Surefire Ideas To Help You Make Money With Photography

February 1, 2011

in Photography Tips

Money

Here are 10 ways to make a good start at making money with photography. Some pursue photography as a hobby or interest. However as any other field of art, photography is a good way to make money while you are at it. It may not be one of the most promising and money making stream to choose as a career, done wisely it can prove to be a stable and reliable income stream . In the days of film, the number of people pursuing photography as a career was limited to few gifted people, but in the days of digital photography, the art of photography has reached its zenith. It has become a promising income stream with some effort involving internet marketing and creativity to blow-off the common man’s expectations with outstanding photographs.

Make Money With Event Coverage
Events are a huge source of making money with photography. Be it weddings, sports events, company meetings, graduation ceremony, school activities, etc all require to be documented in forms of photographs. The organizations hire the professional photographers for covering the events and pay them like anything. On an average basis, a wedding photographer charges $2000 to $5000 per wedding. Similarly, sports photography is also a huge market of making money.

Sports Photography
Make Money Online
One of the best ways to make money with photography is to establish online presence as the photographer. Internet is the easiest source of reaching to large masses and gaining popularity (and eventually gaining the benefits of “word of mouth”). Become the part of the viral internet marketing through:
- Stock Photography: Stock photography provides an excellent platform to the buyers and the sellers of the photographs. The stock photography sites encourage the photographers to submit their best works (and maintain the online portfolio) and provides the best deals to the buyers.
- Building Web Gallery: The other smart way to showcase your work to the world is to create a web gallery. You can either build your own website or a photo-blog to display your photographs or can choose from Picsengine or Wix.com which help in building the online portfolios without the hassles of maintaining the website.
- Social Networking And Sharing Sites: Social networking sites are an effective way of gaining popularity. Upload your photographs to the social networking sites and offer the photo-services to attract the potential customers. Apart from the social sharing sites, there are some sites like Demotix.com which pays you for submitting the newsworthy images.
Life On The Road
Specialize In “What Sells”
To make money with photography, you need to look at the commercial aspect of photography. Get an overview of the market stats to know what sells the most. You have to be thorough with this one. Find out what sells the most not only in terms of the subject, but in terms of image quality, concept and license (royalty-free, rights-managed or copyrighted images). Once you are done with the ground work, you gain an insight into what is favored by the audience and likewise you can start working in that direction for providing the photographs which are liked by the masses.
Creativity Is The Key To Making Money
Your creativity, vision, imagination and the presentation skills provide you an edge over the other photographers. The stock photography sites, the web designers, entrepreneurs, advertisers, etc mostly avoid picking up the common photographs. The photographs they pick and choose reflect the brand and convey some specific message and thus, each of them is looking for something unusual, different and striking. If you can offer the creative photographs which convey the message or highlight the concept, nothing like it. So, even though you specialize in what sells the most, the one thing which gives you an edge over the others and of course help you draw money is your creativity.

Here Comes The Sun
Post-processing As A Medium For Making Money
In the course of learning photography, the photographers eventually turn out to be the masters of the post-processing skills. Right from making some crucial post-processing adjustments for correcting the color cast, contrast, saturation, sharpness, etc to introducing some special effects in the photographs, the photographers can make a good income by utilizing their post-processing skills (also termed as the photo-finishing skills). You can easily make money by offering post-processing services like creating a realistic torn photo-frame effect, converting the colored photographs to black and white, restoring the old pictures (and resurrect the faded color in Photoshop), etc.
Photo-Journalism Is A Great Source Of Making Money
Photography is as diverse as its applications. Ranging from street photography to conceptual / story telling photographs, you can make good money by offering your photographs for editorial purposes to magazines and newspapers. This gives you an opportunity to make money as a freelancer (as a hobbyists or an enthusiast). Instead of just offering the photographs to the magazines, you can earn a good income by selling the stories with the photographs shot by you. All you need to do is to invest in some creative effort to wrap the photographs around the content like photographing streets, customs, traditions, buildings, people, etc when traveling to some distant city / state with the intent of presenting it as a documentation sells well with the magazines.

Family Cycle Train
Shoot For The Advertisement Campaigns
Marketing is the evergreen stream of income and shooting for an advertisement campaign alone can help you make good money. But getting the offer for an advertising campaign requires a lot of effort on your part; where the major role is played by the contacts at your disposal and the richness of your portfolio. It requires you to be a technical expert (having sound knowledge of the basic concepts of photography and command over the equipment) to produce the sharp, creative and impressive photographs required by the advertising agencies.
Join A Professional Photographer As An Assistant
Joining a professional photographer as an assistant serves a dual purpose. Firstly, it enables you to make a living with the salary offered by the photographer and secondly, it helps in gaining experience and exposure. Working on various projects with a professional / freelancer photographer comes in handy for understanding the issues between clients & photographers and helps you in exploring the opportunities as a beginner.
Make Money With A Home Studio
Economically speaking, the best of way of earning money is to cut down the costs. Instead of investing in a full-fledged studio, its better to maintain a simple home-based studio with bare necessities. It just takes a DSLR, a tripod and the artificial lights to get started with a decent business with home studios. This kind of set-up comes in handy for photographing the table-top products ranging from a pencil or pen to the textured walls (and balls, fruits, etc) which help in contributing to your online portfolio with stock photography sites (or can make way to owned website galleries). A home studio set-up opens up the opportunities for experimenting with various subjects at your disposal.

Pencil
Find The Business Interested In Your Kind Of Photography
Every business needs photos for various purposes —for brochures, websites, company events and meetings, advertisements, etc. These photographs reflect the brand of the company and gives recognition to the products and the services they offer. Owing to the above said facts, the companies tend to hire the photographers permanently and pay them huge sums for the photographs which speak about the company at large. Apart from this, the businesses dealing in real estates also offer good deals to the photographers for photographing the property and portraying the houses and flats as attractive as possible.

Which one of these works for you the best?

*Re posted from APN
10 Surefire Ideas To Help You Make Money With Photography

Posted by Monroe Ohio photographer Vincent Rush, Cincinnati Sports Photography and Dayton Sports Photography of Monroe Ohio. Vince Rush can be contacted by phone at (877) 858-6295 or by email at vrush@rushintl.com or visit http://CincinnatiSportsPhotography.com Check out my about.me profile!

November 19, 2011

Senior Portraits by Vincent Rush

Monroe Senior Baseball Catcher Dakota Fischer, photographed by Dayton and Cincinnati Photographer Vincent Rush at the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame

About Me

June 29, 2012

June 11, 2012

Written by Dan Messerschmidt Telegraph-Forum

New sport

Ready for college

Next step

May 3, 2012

April 22, 2012

March 31, 2012

March 27, 2012

February 24, 2012

February 6, 2012

You’re Charging Too Much For Your Photography

February 5, 2012

January 29, 2012

January 13, 2012

Making Money With Photography — 10 Surefire Ideas To Help You Make Money With Photography

Make Money With Event Coverage

Make Money Online

Specialize In “What Sells”

Creativity Is The Key To Making Money

Post-processing As A Medium For Making Money

Photo-Journalism Is A Great Source Of Making Money

Shoot For The Advertisement Campaigns

Join A Professional Photographer As An Assistant

Make Money With A Home Studio

Find The Business Interested In Your Kind Of Photography

November 19, 2011

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