Scooter News Photos Now Available

After many years of not making them available, prints of Southwest Scooter News photographs are now available for purchase through a new online service.

Photos available include images that appear in Scooter News, and other photos that do not appear in print.

“We generally have many more photos from a given event or activity than we can print in Scooter News,” said Scooter News editor Tim Anderson. “We’ve never really made any of the photos generally available because we didn’t really have an efficient way to do it, and the sheer volume of photographs we collect makes it a daunting task. We now have a system in place to handle the volume, and get quality prints out to customers within 72 hours of them being ordered.”

The photo print service is part of the ongoing Scooter News website redesign. Photos can be simply viewed, or prints purchased with a credit card through the website. The site is secure and reliable, and the photos are high-quality prints.

“The photo site is pretty cool,” Anderson explained. “You can check out the shots, much like the old site, but now if there is one you like or want, you can order it right there. We even offer several different printing options—different sizes, different borders or no border, a color/black and white option, and even a little cropping adjustment. Anyone can make those adjustments to any photo and see what it looks like right there on the site before ordering. Once the order is confirmed, prints are generally shipped within about three business days. We like it.”

To see the photos, or order prints, visit the Scooter News website at www.scooternews.net and then click on “photo galleries.”

The site is similar to several other well-known photo fulfillment websites, according to Anderson, except everything is handled locally.

“It was important to us that we be able to do this locally,” Anderson said. “That way it’s easier to deal with any problems that might pop up, and we still have some control over the quality and how things work.”

All of the photos available are intended for personal use only, and no professional or reprint rights are granted with the purchase of a photo. While the online images are watermarked, purchased prints will not include the watermark.

“For the most part, we do not make our photos available to other publications or online sites,” Anderson said. “Some of our photographers do, and that’s something they deal with. Scooter News does not. We will enforce our copyrights. We’re putting these up for the people in the pictures, their friends, and the people who enjoy the biker lifestyle. This is not a clearinghouse for lazy or unscrupulous publications or websites.”

Anderson said the site is starting by presenting recent events—from about August 2010—and will continually update with new event images. There is also a section of specialized prints, and from time to time, photos from old events will be made available on the site.

“We have a lot of great stuff we’ve shot over the years, much of it on film,” Anderson said. “As we convert some of those images to a digital format, we’ll put those up for everyone to enjoy.”

Anderson said each gallery would stay up for varying lengths of time, depending on what kind of traffic each section sees. Some will be available for only a couple months, while others will stay up longer.

“We’ll leave stuff up long enough for anyone who wants to look at the pics to get a chance to do that,” Anderson said. “And we’ll put out updates from time to time when we’ve added something special. But in most cases, we’ll be putting up photos from the events we cover within a few days of the event taking place; sometimes it might even be the same day, it just depends on the workload we have at the time. I’m really interested in posting some of the older photos we have. That could be fun. So, people will want to check back just to see what we’ve come up with. Plus, I’m sure we’ll publish updates of new postings every month in Scooter News”