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Capturing the Champions of Tomorrow: A Guide to Youth Sports Photography Portrait Shoots and Team Photos

Capturing the Champions of Tomorrow: A Guide to Youth Sports Photography Portrait Shoots and Team Photos

Youth sports photography is all about capturing the energy, passion, and camaraderie of young athletes as they embark on their journey to greatness. In this blog post, we'll share tips for getting started in youth sports portrait photography and team photos, and how NowCandid can help you achieve success in this exciting niche.

  1. Build Trust and Rapport with Athletes and Their Families:
    Young athletes may be nervous or shy in front of the camera, so it's essential to build trust and rapport with them and their families. Communicate openly, listen to their preferences, and share your enthusiasm for their achievements. Remember, your role as a photographer is to create a fun, positive experience for all involved.
  2. Choose the Right Location and Background:
    Select a location that showcases the sport's essence and complements the athletes' uniforms and team colors. Opt for natural settings such as fields or courts, or use a portable backdrop for a clean, professional look. Ensure the background is uncluttered and free from distractions to keep the focus on the young athletes.
  3. Master the Art of Posing and Composition:
    Like a superhero assembling their squad, guide your subjects into flattering and dynamic poses that showcase their personality and athleticism. Experiment with individual and group poses, ensuring each athlete's face and uniform are visible. Use a mix of traditional and creative compositions to create a diverse and visually engaging portfolio.
  4. Utilize Natural Light and Flash Techniques:
    Youth sports portrait photography often takes place outdoors, so make the most of natural light. Shoot during the golden hour for soft, warm lighting, and use a reflector to bounce light onto your subjects. For indoor shoots, invest in a portable flash kit to create well-lit, professional-looking images.
  5. Offer Customized Products and Packages:
    Offer a range of customizable products and packages to appeal to various clients and budgets. From prints and digital files to keychains and plaques, showcase your photos on a wide variety of products to provide a valuable service for your clients.
  6. Partner with NowCandid to Streamline Your Business:
    As Doc Brown from "Back to the Future" once said, "The future is whatever you make it, so make it a good one." NowCandid's powerful platform helps you make that good future for yourself. It can do a lot for youth sports photographers, like streamline their workflow, handle customer support, deal with all order fulfillment, and boost sales. By integrating NowCandid into your business, you can focus on capturing the champions of tomorrow while enjoying a seamless and efficient process from start to finish.

Youth sports portrait photography offers a unique opportunity to capture the passion and determination of young athletes as they strive for greatness. By following these tips and harnessing the power of NowCandid, you'll be well on your way to building a successful career in this exciting and rewarding niche. Now, go forth and capture the future legends of the sports world!

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Big News: Introducing GroupTags for SportsPics! 🌟
Feature Updates
September 12, 2024

Big News: Introducing GroupTags for SportsPics! 🌟

5
 minutes read
Hey, sports photographers!

Candy here, and I’m super excited to share a brand-new feature designed to make your SportsPics Events even easier to manage—introducing GroupTags! 🎉⚽🏀⚾

So, what exactly are GroupTags? 🤔


GroupTags is a feature made specifically for our SportsPics Program!

When you’re managing a big sports shoot with group photos, GroupTags helps you stay organized and deliver a smoother experience for your clients.

Here’s how it works:

1. Before your Event

You can set up as many GroupTags as you need within an Event. These GroupTags could be team names, league divisions, or even different sports if you're covering all of one school's teams over the same weekend. 🏆

2. Once you’ve started photographing

Anytime you mark a photo as a Group Photo (either on the Capture & Upload App, or on the Web Dashboard), you’ll have the option to assign a GroupTag to it. 📸

3. Once They Visit the Retail Site

Your subjects will be able to choose from the GroupTags you set up, and easily find their group shots!

As soon as they arrive to the retail site via their person gallery link, they'll be prompted to choose a GroupTag.

4. Mission Accomplished!

And once they select a GroupTag, they'll see their personal images, in addition to their Group Photos!

How does this help your clients?

To recap:


When your customers open the link to their personal gallery, they’ll be prompted to select their GroupTag—whether that’s a team name, division, or whatever you’ve set up for the Event.

With their GroupTag selected, their Group Photos will show up right alongside their individual images, making it super easy for them to see everything at once! 🖼️

Plus! GroupTags automatically fill in the GroupTag Name on products like Memory Mates, Bag Tags, and more when ordering. How cool is that? ✨

Need to make changes? No problem!


GroupTags are easy to edit after the Event if you need to fix a mistake or assign a Group Photo to multiple GroupTags. And don’t worry—if there’s ever a typo or minor error, your customers can still browse and shop while you fix it in the background! 🛍️

Works with all Workflows!


Whether you’re using Face Matching or Positive ID Workflows, GroupTags are a fantastic way to organize your Group Photos for large sports leagues or any big SportsPics Event. ⚡

Quick Recap:

As a reminder, marking a photo as a Group Photo will only allow it to be purchased on Group Photo Products, allowing you to sell them on different prints at different prices, prevent the sale of digital downloads for Group Photos, and allow them to be selected on multi-image products like Memory Mates.

We hope GroupTags makes your next SportsPics Event even smoother!

As always, feel free to reach out with any questions. 💌

Until next time, happy shooting! 🏅📸

Cheers and sparkles,


Candy 🍬

Big News: Introducing QuicPics GO! 🌟
Feature Updates
August 30, 2024

Big News: Introducing QuicPics GO! 🌟

4
 minutes read
Hey, fabulous photographers! 🎉

Candy here with some sparkling news about a brand-new program that's just been added to the NowCandid family—introducing QuicPics GO! 🚀

You all know and love our QuicPics program, where you get paid upfront by an event organizer and deliver free downloads to your photo subjects throughout the event, all while still offering them the option to purchase physical products. It’s a fan favorite for those looking to provide an engaging, modern experience!

So, what’s new with QuicPics GO? 🤔

Well, the “GO” in QuicPics GO stands for Gallery Only! That’s right, this new program is designed to streamline the process by delivering just the image gallery link to your subjects—no individual MMS image files sent directly to them.

The QuicPics GO Gallery provides multiple ways for your subjects to download their free images, as well as the opportunity to purchase optional photo products, making sure they still have plenty of options to enjoy and share their favorite moments! 🎁

While this may be a less flashy approach, it’s perfect for those who are looking for a more cost-conscious solution, while still utilizing NowCandid's convenient Workflows & technologies to deliver free downloads to guests. 📷✨

Why choose QuicPics GO?

Affordable Pricing:

QuicPics GO offers a budget-friendly option with a fee of only 6 cents per image at this time of launch — that’s significantly lower than the 20 cents per image fee for standard QuicPics. Perfect for events where cost-conscious clients are looking for a great value!

Simple Experience:

While QuicPics provides that cool, interactive experience of receiving images via MMS throughout the event, QuicPics GO keeps it simple with just one link to the image gallery. It’s less flashy, but it gets the job done!

So whether you're working with a budget-conscious client or just looking for a way to offer a simpler service, QuicPics GO is here to provide that perfect middle ground. 🎈

Important Note:

Just like with QuicPics, you’ll need to have a credit card on file with your NowCandid account to use QuicPics GO. This ensures a smooth, hassle-free experience for everyone involved. 💳

Streamlined Free Checkout for QuicPics GO! 🚀

We’ve made grabbing your free QuicPics images easier than ever! While easy downloads are available directly from the site, we’ve also simplified the checkout process for those who prefer it. 🎉

Now, instead of filling out billing and shipping info for a $0 cart, all your subjects need is a cell phone number and email address to complete the free checkout.

Quick, convenient, and hassle-free—just the way it should be! 🖼️📲

We’re thrilled to bring you this new addition, and we can’t wait to see how you’ll make the most of it!

As always, if you have any questions or need a little help, just reach out. We’re here for you! 💌

Cheers and sparkles,


Candy 🍬

Big News: Introducing NowCandid’s All-New Web Dashboard! 🌟💻
Feature Updates
August 23, 2024

Big News: Introducing NowCandid’s All-New Web Dashboard! 🌟💻

9
 minutes read
Hey there, amazing photographers!

Candy here with the latest and greatest update in our “Big News” series. We’re thrilled to announce the launch of Web Dashboard 2.0—the final piece in our massive overhaul of the entire NowCandid platform this year.

With this release, we’ve essentially delivered completely new versions of every aspect of NowCandid, including the Web Dashboard, Mobile Dashboard App, Capture & Upload App, and Retail Site. Welcome to a new era of NowCandid! 🎉

Want to check it out yourself? Head to (app.nowcandid.com) and log in!

A Whole New Experience 🚀

With Web Dashboard 2.0, you’ll notice a fresh, intuitive interface and a host of new features designed to make managing your photography business easier and more efficient.

Offer Creation is one of the biggest additions to the new Dashboard, but since we’ve already covered that in a previous blog post (click here to read that blog post), let’s dive into the other exciting updates! 🌐

New Home Tab: Stay on Top of Everything 🏠

Your new Home Tab provides an at-a-glance overview of recent activity in your account. You can quickly see orders, sales, and upcoming, active, or recent Events. We’ve also rebuilt the Sales & Events reports from the ground up.

These reports now include more filter options and can be easily downloaded, giving you the data you need, when you need it.

Expanded Event Management Tools 🎛️

Event creation may feel familiar, but there are now way more tools at your disposal for managing Events. Let’s dive into each of these new features!

Marketing History 📊

Now you can view the full marketing history for each Event directly from the dashboard. This lets you track all your promotional efforts and ensure things are running smoothly as your Event progresses.

Participant Management 👥

Participants are now fully visible and editable in the dashboard. You can also access and share their personal gallery links directly from this section, making it easier to manage and support your clients.

Roster Uploads 📋

Got a list of participants? You can now upload rosters directly to your Event, streamlining the process of adding participants manually and enabling NowCandid's (Name Lookup Workflow)

Full-Resolution Image Downloads 📸

Need to pull an image for a customer or event organizer? You can now download your full-resolution images directly from the Manage Images section of the dashboard.

Image Uploader Improvements 🖼️

The image uploader now checks all images for compatibility before uploading them. This includes checking for correct file type, DPI, color profile, and more, helping you (and us!) avoid production and support issues before they arise.

Custom Backgrounds 🌈

Add a personal touch to your Events with our new Custom Backgrounds feature. You can upload up to 4 custom backgrounds per Event, allowing your clients to choose a backdrop that suits their style.

Learn more in our (Custom Backgrounds blog post)

Full Frame Overlays 🎨

Our new Full Frame Overlay feature lets you apply full-frame graphics to your photos, giving them a unique, professional look.

Explore how this can enhance your photos in our (Full Frame Overlay blog post)

"Greek" Keyboard 🇬🇷

Now you can use a Greek keyboard when adding text titles to your photos, offering more personalization to Text Overlays for your fraternity and sorority clients.

Customizable QuicPics Texts ✉️

The “Your images are arriving soon” text that gets sent via QuicPics is now customizable! Tailor your messaging to better suit the tone and style of your Event, or even promote an Event's sponsor!

Event Management Portal: Selective Access for Photographers 🔑

Introducing the new Event Management Portal! This tool allows you to provide selective access to your Events for lead photographers without giving them full access to your account.

The portal uses the same email + passcode login as the Capture & Upload App and grants the user access to the following settings and features:

  • Image Viewing & Retail Image Visibility Settings
  • Manual Image Uploading
  • Participant Editing & Manual Participant Adding
  • All Gallery Access & Personal Galleries Access
  • LiveLoop URL Access
  • Image File Downloading
  • QR Code Access

This is perfect for giving your photographers the tools they need without compromising the security of your entire account. The portal can be accessed at (www.quic.pics/portal), so it doesn’t even mention NowCandid—keeping things sleek and professional.

Private Shareable Gallery URL 🌐

Need to share Event photos with an organizer? We’ve got you covered with a new private shareable downloadable gallery URL.

This makes it easy to provide event organizers with any photos they need, all in one convenient place, without transmitting hundreds of large image files via Dropbox, Google Drive, or similar services.

New Image Upload Tester 🧪

Worried about compatibility issues? The new image upload tester allows you to test a single image before even trying to upload it to your Event.

It checks for issues like color profile, DPI, file size, file type, and incompatible characters in the file name—making sure everything runs smoothly.

Rebuilt UI for Key Pages 🎨

We’ve also rebuilt the Account Settings, Resources, and FaceMatch Import pages from the ground up with a fresh new UI. These updates ensure a more intuitive and efficient experience across the (dash)board!

And More to Come… 🔮

We’re not done yet, folks! There’s more exciting stuff on the way, so stay tuned for future updates.

We can’t wait to see how you use our new Web Dashboard to take your photography business to the next level.

As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, we’re here to help!

Cheers and sparkles,


Candy 🍬

Let’s get in touch

If you’re a photographer looking to add NowCandid services to your wheelhouse – set up a call by clicking the button below.

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