Amateurs making money out of photography has been the dispute of a life time in photography. The Kodak Brownie practicly made the amateur photography. Later the 35mm format made “photographers to bums and bums to photographers.” The digital era has not changed a thing but the dispute is now online.
Due to various coicidences I’ve been asked to shoot couple of weddings this summer. And I’ve been concerned about one thing and one thing only. The quality of my work. Will it be good enough for me to accept money for it? For me, not for the client. You can arque that if they pay you, its good enough or if you hesitate you are not ready for it. But thats not the case at all. Im nervous as one should be concidering doing their first gigs.
There are couple of big issues that I think need to be adressed and they hit very close to someone like me, thinking of doing money with the camera. Enthusiasm is crucial, but it also leads to blindness. Trust me, I’ve been there.
In order to know where Im and trying to figure out ‘the level of my photography’ I have to look ton of pictures, good and bad. I spend great deal of time looking at the pictures online and offline. Flickrrive, Xposure, deviant, photoforums, blogs, books, facebook, magazines, newspapers, posters, adds, billboards. All of the stuff from a teenagers selfportraits to highend fashion and comercial photography. Watching Peter van Impes wedding photos or Borrisovs b&w beauty shots makes me weep infont of my cataloge. Its dismal but it has to be done.
Crawling through thousands of pictures that aren’t necessarily inspiration nore pain, it is education. This is the only way to build up knowledge of the level of a photography I need to meet in order to advertice myself as a photographer. Looking at the work of my superiors anwers one question, how good do I have to be to get 1500e for a wedding gig, but how about if I’m asking 250 euros?
The worst case scenario is not me failing at a job. Its me getting away with it. Here is the deal.
Photogs ’scam’ the clients unintentionaly just because they don’t know better and I sincerely hope they just don’t know better! And Im talking about photographers here, not the clients. I see a lot of pictures on the webpages that would have no place in the magazines and yet there is the pricing page: “300 euros for a model portfolio. 100 images, 5 photoshopped! 1 print of your choise!”
On a TFCD-shoot with a model I make 200-400 RAW-images. Out of those model recieves 5-20 images. All retouched to best of my abilities! (tfcd = time for cd, i get to shoot model get the pics, no money traffic involved.)
These fellow accept money for work that just is not good enough. Who gave these guys the premision to go ‘pro?’ The lighting might be good as a car head lights and postprocessing all too blurry without a hint of a layer mask. They get a away with it because people do not know what they are intitled to when they pay for the pictures. Wannabe model does not know how to tell a bad picture from a good picture. Lit and blured is good enough for her and thats the whole problem. Photog get a away with a bad pic, or even get a pad in the back for the beautiful pics.
I’ve been asked to shoot worse than I could and got shout because I said no. “Go to someone else if you want overexposed pics with hevy surface blurr on top.” was my reply. I’ve also been asked to ship way more pictures than I wanted to and refused also.
The quality of my work will not increase with these posts but they make me think. The Dirty secret of photography by Chase Jarvis is: “you have to shoot a ton of images.” He does not mean the same portrait a hundred times. He means the same face from thousand different angle and light. He also mentioned in one of his post that when the client said “thats good” is not the end of a session. Its the start of the shoot. That says a lot and I could not agree more. This is the only way to get better at photography: Shoot and think, a lot and then couple more. It will increase the quality of our work, but it has to mesured somehow.
Magzine and newspaper shooters have a editors to tell them they shot poorly or they shot good. We the hobbiest do not have that luxury. We can post some pics to critique forums, but we can run all of our work that way. Then nothing would get published. As a hobbiest my eyes are my only quality meter and making them better is essential. The work I hand out does not see another pair of eyes before I hit publish thus I have to very critical of what I show in the blog. The self-criticism need to practiced and tuned. Photoshop gone hell is worse than no postprocessign at all but if the shooter lacks the ability to understand it, to see that his methods made the pic worse.
Mistakes I’ve done? All of them. Plastic paint in PS, tilted images, double shadows, you name it I’ve done it. I’ve even done awfull cross shadows from the models nose and posted the pics proudly on the forum. I did it wrong because I did not understand it. After all this I do not blame pro shooters for the “free is killing” attitude, but its not the whole story. There has to be something inbetween. Someplace where I fall right now!
Oh man. I just collapsed on my keyboard reading this one. You are getting dangerously wise with your thoughts. Worst of all, now you got ME thinking and I am not suited for that… it makes my head hurt.
Nailed it perfect!
For example, I got two dilemmas – I need to finance my shooting with commercial gigs every now and then cause when I shoot for fun it tends to be hazardous for my gear, extreme temperatures, speeds, light stands falling down, sometimes getting to the spot is more dangerous for my gear than shooting itself.
The problem is that I want to charge the client enough. Enough not to take someone else’s income – but at the same time I’d want to bring my prices down just to get the gig and the experience. You know, charging a client with half the price you intended gets you more money than not getting the gig with your regular price.
Also, getting paid more than you feel your skills deserve, makes you try harder – I don’t mean shooting double the frames as normally – but with more thought, patience.
Exactly..
I think its unavoidable to step on someones toes here.
I have say I don’t feel bad about it if they charge three times the money I would, but fail to produce 3 times better images!
The issue of quality is way too often over looked and many shooters seem to live in a photograpic delerium. And I do not want to fall in the same pit.
I know Im not mcnally, and so neither are my rates..
But than again, so does the art scene..
http://www.hs.fi/verkkolehti/kulttuuri/artikkeli/Valokuvaaja+viihtyy+turkoosissa/1135252589799
Good points there but in the end it’s good to remember that especially in wedding business, it’s all about providing a service. It doesn’t matter for the client how well your photos stand against other freelancers/pro shooters. Regular clients don’t care about the standards or professional criteria of the scene. They want to look at the photos and remember the dear moments of their wedding day. If you can accomplish that, you have provided the service they have wanted. Of course you can compare prices and portfolios forever and criticize yourself but being overly humble seldom gets you anywhere. It’s not what you can’t do, it’s what you CAN.
If you understand what customer needs are and can stand to those standards (NOT YOURS), and know that your price tag is reasonable, just go for it. Don’t use the photos in your portfolio if you’re not completely happy with them.
Things that customers seldom think of (and what is your job to think of as a paid photographer) are things like redundancy with your gear for example and taking the responsibility about the whole photo-shooting, planning and organizing. Providing a valuable service is much more than just the end product.
Who gives a permission? Well, you don’t need a permission.
Like someone said, it’s a service. It’s a business. If I can do it and a client is willing to pay a certain price for it, no one gets fooled. Everyone is free to browse the web, compare the quality of work by differents photogs, compare prices, and choose.
What makes a pro? A formal education? How ’bout 10 years of self-education? How about being able to make money with your photos? (How come Finland’s no one wedding photog started taking just a couple of years ago? Why many of the successful photogs (that I see on web at least) are amateurs turned pros?)
Pricing. It’s based on perceived value by the customer. Someone thinks photography is worth 100 bucks, someone is willing to pay 5000 for nice images and great service – or just for feeling special. Ever wonder why works of art are sold for millions? Perceived value.
So, bottom line as I see it: photography is a business just like any other. You don’t need a permission to be a writer, painter, software designer… whatever. It’s an open market and with internet more transparent and fair for everybody than ever.
First, thanks to all for your views! Its really nice to get some feedback.
Maybe I’m overthinking the whole thing. Like Tomi said with the internet the busines is really transparent. I posted a wedding gallery online for the enquirers to show what to expect from me.
I get my living from IT-industry and I haven’t heard of a single business who achieved a stable market by whining to it’s competitors for providing a similar service for lower prices. This kind of behaviour is unique to photographing community :)
Photography has its unique place most likely because its quite easy. Umberella lit photo is not exactly rocket sciense now is it.
I understand the pros when they cry about us hobbiest doing their jobs for free or with ridicelous prices and it happens alot.
Im trying to find the line between.. The starting point, to get couple gigs without ruining someones living unintentionaly.
I do not feel bad though if I take some “pros” gig because Im cheaper and can produce better pictures.
Like Darwin said, it’s survival of the fittest. Not the strongest but the most suitable for the environment. This is the main point to understand for profitable business as well.
Hyvä kirjoitus!. Tykkään muutenkin lukea tätä sun blogia. Jatka vaan kirjoittamista…