Over the years while photographing my children/grandkids games, I've been asked to take pictures of other peoples participating child in their spoting event which I have done and given them a printed copy. But as of late I have been getting more parents from both teams asking me if I could photograph their child. I look at it and usually comply since I already have the camera set up. But my wife is now saying that their taking advantage of me since I'm not watching my grandchild play but paying attention to someone elses child.

Question I have is, since I'm already at my grandkids games taking photos of them would it be rude/mean to take photos of their child, when asked, and post them on a site that they could purchase copies of them participating in their activity. If it's not rude/mean, where/how would I find a site that would allow me to do this. Being retired, this might be some pocket change and keep the wife off my back asking why I'm spending so much time on the computer and printer. Photo paper isn't cheap, neither are the ink cartridges. I was also approached by my grandsons Wrestling and Golf teams to take photos of the team during matches. The yearbook teacher asked for some of my photos. Any suggestions?

Over the years while photographing my children/grandkids games, I've been asked to take pictures of other peoples participating child in their spoting event which I have done and given them a printed copy. But as of late I have been getting more parents from both teams asking me if I could photograph their child. I look at it and usually comply since I already have the camera set up. But my wife is now saying that their taking advantage of me since I'm not watching my grandchild play but paying attention to someone elses child.

Question I have is, since I'm already at my grandkids games taking photos of them would it be rude/mean to take photos of their child, when asked, and post them on a site that they could purchase copies of them participating in their activity. If it's not rude/mean, where/how would I find a site that would allow me to do this. Being retired, this might be some pocket change and keep the wife off my back asking why I'm spending so much time on the computer and printer. Photo paper isn't cheap, neither are the ink cartridges. I was also approached by my grandsons Wrestling and Golf teams to take photos of the team during matches. The yearbook teacher asked for some of my photos. Any suggestions?

I think you'll find that no one wants to "buy" your pictures, they just want to have them. As soon as you start putting a price on them, the requests will die off, and there will be a lot of gossip to the tune of "can you believe that guy, he wants to charge ME for a photo! The nerve . . ." So, I would suggest just saying no, or making a formal arrangement with the team(s) to be the official photographer, then you'll need to get permission from the venue, insurance, model releases (just because they are kids and parents can be prickly about their kids being photographed), and you may be asked to kickback some $$ to the teams and venue. I doubt that $35 for an 8x10 is going to net you any pocket change, unless you sell 100s of them.

I sometimes second shoot for a friend who does equine hunter/jumper competitions. We'll take 3,000 shots during a busy day. He may get $500 worth of orders. And the people who participate have lots and lots of $$$$$$$.

You could use Zenfolio, or Smugmug, but don't expect to sell a lot.

I would agree that $35 for an 8x10 won't make LOT of money, but I would make $250-$450 per meet. One reason is that I only shot by request. I did not take random images and hope someone would buy them. Parents had to ask me to take their kid's action shots, so they knew up front they would be buying images. They knew the prices. They knew if they did not like the images there was no charge. Seldom did a family buy one image as they would get at least one from each of the four strokes.

It also was not rare to sell a 10x20 of a good butterfly image. I think I charged around $100 for that. Sample attached.

This also led to a great many high school senior portraits sessions as all the kids grew up.

No model release was ever needed since the parents asked me to take the images. I did not post them to a site, but emailed the parents with low-res watermarked proofs. While I do carry insurance only one venue asked for proof and that was a pool owned by the city - club pools never cared.

So while one will not get rich, it CAN be profitable, but as your point out, it has to be approached as business and grandpa who was giving away image suddenly charging will probably just tick of the other parents.

Over the years while photographing my children/grandkids games, I've been asked to take pictures of other peoples participating child in their spoting event which I have done and given them a printed copy. But as of late I have been getting more parents from both teams asking me if I could photograph their child. I look at it and usually comply since I already have the camera set up. But my wife is now saying that their taking advantage of me since I'm not watching my grandchild play but paying attention to someone elses child.

Question I have is, since I'm already at my grandkids games taking photos of them would it be rude/mean to take photos of their child, when asked, and post them on a site that they could purchase copies of them participating in their activity. If it's not rude/mean, where/how would I find a site that would allow me to do this. Being retired, this might be some pocket change and keep the wife off my back asking why I'm spending so much time on the computer and printer. Photo paper isn't cheap, neither are the ink cartridges. I was also approached by my grandsons Wrestling and Golf teams to take photos of the team during matches. The yearbook teacher asked for some of my photos. Any suggestions?