I tried to post this discussion on facebook but apparently it was too long. SO I ‘m going to move this to my blog for the world to see . . . heh heh
I’m completely open to conversation/comments as long as they are respectful. I understand this can be a touchy subject but its important to me because its a part of who I am.
This is in response to a few questions about NEW photographers. Why they charge so little. What it usually means. And why it gets under my skin. And probably the skin of most professional photographers.
Here are my thoughts and experience.
Its kind of a catch 22. On one hand I want to be disgusted when I see a beautiful “newborn session” completely ruined because the photographer clearly has no idea how to operate their camera to produce quality images. Not to mention has little to no skill in photoshop. If that same photographer actually accepted money (indicating that they are a business) for such poor quality workmanship, its very frustrating. People are going to be biased to their images no matter what because its their family. Its personal. So no matter how much a photographer has botched a session, there is still going to be a part of that client who loves their images because its their family. Its hard for a professional photographer to respect fauxtographers (or shoot and burn photogs) because 1) its clear in their images that they don’t know how to use their camera or are shooting in AUTO with pop up flash and claiming to be a pro 2) most of them go around and offer cheap sessions, and cheap work making people believe that they’ve found a great deal. When in fact, they have not found a great deal. They’ve found someone who will take mediocre images with no CLUE what they’re doing. Or very little clue. So sadly, once its over, the family is left with images that anyone could have taken. And it shows.
The “catch 22″ part for me is, there IS a point where a new photographer SHOULD charge for their work. And a new photographer NEEDS experience in order to improve.
The world we live in, is such that people tend to go where there is a good deal. I’m no different. I bargain shop. I look for a good price. Its nature. Its how I’m wired. Its probably how MOST people are wired. Sadly, quality IS lost when you bargain shop for a photographer. Guaranteed. NO professional photographer would give their work away for peanuts if they valued their time, their knowledge, their work and their passion for the industry. No one.
Its a slippery slope and no ones journey into a photography business is perfect or “the right way” but it disheartens me when I see a fairly new photographer, view their work (lots of glairing NO NO’s (out of focus images, full sun squinting, dappled light, under and over exposed images, dear in the headlights FLASH) and see that they’re offering wedding photography. I have been in business for three years and I still won’t take on a wedding because I value my potential clients THAT much. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to shoot a wedding. I do. But there are certain things that I have always promised to myself as a photographer and one was to ALWAYS offer only the very best quality in my work and my products. And I won’t shoot a wedding until I am ready. My nerves keep me from that place of readiness.
However, Bobbi-Sue (fictitious name) who just got a new DSLR and wants to go into business, is already booking weddings for the upcoming wedding season, lol. I see this ALLLL the time. ITs terrible!!!! You just hope that the bride and groom to be did some research.
So someone asked, well . . . how DO you do it then?
I think that its important to start with the basics. KNOW YOUR CAMERA INSIDE AND OUT. Know the manual modes on your camera and if you don’t know them, what they do, why you use them and how they apply to other modes, then you need to take the time to play with it and learn it. Its actually important.
Secondly, PRACTICE!!!!!!!!! Practice on your children. Practice on your pets. Practice on your family, you mom/dad, sisters, WHO EVER!!!! Find a friend, go out and play around. Go home, find your style (this doesn’t come overnight. I’m only just starting to find my groove)
This is where that fine line seems to sit. At what point do you charge someone for the Practicing you are doing? In my opinion . . . YOU DON’T!!!!! You take this opportunity to gain a bit of confidence in your ability. In your work. In the knowledge YOU have about photography. About post processing. Besides, you don’t charge your mom/dad/sister/kids to be your model so you can practice. Its just tacky.
At some point while you are enjoying your practicing, because TRUST ME, if you love photography . . . you will love practicing. Someone will ask you if you will do their friends pictures. “so and so is looking for some pictures, loves mine, wants you to do hers. will you? how much?”
Meet the fine line.
1* You should be paid for your time and your product
2* But you don’t want to charge a LOT because you aren’t confident that you can pull it off.
The answer is different for everyone. For me, I did it for free. I did a few sessions for people I didn’t know and I didn’t charge them. I gave them a disc of images. (My professional self would despise my Starting out self) But in my heart of hearts, that was fair. I lacked MAJOR confidence and I wasn’t positive I could produce what I considered to be great amazing quality. So I didn’t want to disappoint people so I thought that if I didn’t charge them, they really couldn’t be disappointed. And this is how it was. I only did this though for a couple of months. And only for a few select individuals. And MOST of them, I knew. A friend of a friend. So-and-so’s sister. You know? Once I decided that I was consistently producing a solid 15+ image gallery, I knew I couldn’t do it for free any more and that I’d have to make the jump from disc to prints. This scared me more than even seems reasonable.
SO, I set my prices out for what I wanted to charge and then I discounted the HECK out of it. So, I advertised on my website that I had a session fee of $50 (don’t get me started but we all start somewhere) and then I listed my print prices. And for my first year in business I discounted the HECK out of my prices. I waived ALL session fees that year, and also offered 50% off prints.
At the end of that year I attended a workshop of a VERY talented photographer who I deeply respect and admire. She looked at my work and went over my pricing and I have never been SO embarrassed in my life! She went up one side of me and down the other. She viewed my work. She critiqued it and then LAUGHED at me. Ok, not ME exactly but at the value I had placed on my work. She was BANG on. If I don’t value my time and my work and the quality of my work, then why should I expect someone else to value it? I was charging $50 for a session. (ok, I wasn’t even though as I was waiving it at the time) Thats $50 for a 1-2 hour session, shooting outdoors. Then I would come home and sit for 14-18 hours (straight time) and edit. When she put it like that, I was a joke. Its not that I set out to MAKE money in my business but lets be honest, you can’t keep up with the equipment, the expenses of having a legitimate business, without taking money in exchange for product. Period.
I came home from her workshop and went on a two month hiatus where I banged my head on my desk for days/weeks trying to work out my pricing happy place. I couldn’t enjoy this business if I was taking time away from my family for sessions and editing without being able to get some compensation. It was hard. To me, photography was a hobby. A hobby I was passionate about. How can I take money for something I love? Then I saw how many hours I put into it. Learning. Trying new things. New equipment so I could get the effects I was aiming for in my work. Programs, insurance, marketing, business cards, websites. Hosting. Fees. Ughhhhhh . . . this hobby was getting expensive. I had to do something about it or I’d end up hating it in a year.
And I did. I started to respect my time. My work. My clients wants for quality products. Sometimes people will say, how come you charge almost $30 for an 8×10 when I can go to Walmart and pay $3.00. I want to shake my head and say, “seriously?” I’m not charging $30 for the print. I’m charging $30 for the work that went into the print. The 2-3 hour custom session. The experience. The way your session was customized to your wants. Your needs. Its the work that goes into the image. Did you know that one image can take me up to 25 minutes to edit? ONE IMAGE~ 25 minutes. And I usually edit 20-30 in a full gallery. Every single detail, painstakingly edited. One mouse click at a time. That makes my 8×10, worth more than $3.00. Period.
SOOOO, (what were we talking about again?) lol
I get a little frustrated to see a new photographer claiming to be a professional photographer but only charging $75.00 for a session plus 10 prints plus a disc. Its a slippery slope. Usually it means they are new. They need practice and don’t value their worth. Maybe they don’t have a lot of worth yet. But if that is the case, they need to advertise that fact.
“NEW Photographer in need of practice sessions. Lots of discounts”. This way people (being the client) know what they are getting. Without a doubt. And I think this is where I get angry. Its ok to charge that when you’re starting but you shouldn’t be in business with business cards and flyers when you are at this stage of the game.
I use to schedule sessions around shade. I’d only book a session for a certain location based on when I could shoot in shade. Shade was safe. Aside from a little blue/and adjusting accordingly, it was safe. I hit a point somewhere between 09/10 where I knew I could increase my prices because my product had greatly improved. My confidence went through the roof. I still struggle with my comfort level since I’m a very shy person. But instead of hoping for overcast, I started begging for sunlight. Begging for a beautiful sunset. I knew when this happened, that I had turned a major corner in my journey. A journey that still continues. Every. Single. Day.
Has ANY Of this made sense? I think I’ll copy and paste it to my blog. Feel free to comment on either and if you have any questions for me, I’m completely open to respectful conversation.
I’m going to go pull up a few of my images from early days. Should be fun to see.
Ta – daaaaaaa
I’m going to critique my own work right here for you all to see 
These images I am about to share were taken when I was just starting out. I actually had probably been at it for a little bit but these are my own kids. So I wasn’t ruining anyones family portraits, ya know? And I certainly wasn’t even contemplating a business venture at this point…
So above is Luke. Probably one of the very first pictures I took with my first dslr. A Canon Rebel XTi. Great starter camera for me. See the little pinlights in his eyes? RED FLAG RED FLAG. Smack in the middle of the pupil like that? The culprit is likely those pesky pop up flashes. Other than that, this image is pretty focus perfect. I was quite impressed with myself that day and so I should have been. It was a great picture of my sweet little boy. His color is a little off but there was plenty of time for learning. Why? Because I wasn’t passing myself off as a professional photographer
My oldest baby. Justin. Oh Lord, I loved this picture when I took it. He looked so ruggedly handsome. He is, he still is. What you can’t see in this image (or maybe you can, I don’t know) is that this picture is terribly out of focus. To the average eye though you might not be able to tell. Small like this you probably can’t tell. To the trained eye, its soft. I would scrap this image and not include it in a gallery for a client because my clients deserve the very best. I would find another image that was spot on focus-wise. Attention to details. And focus, is a MAJOR detail. Yet time and time again, I see images that are soft. Sometimes fauxtographers soften the picture on purpose so that it has a soft look. Some do this to mask the fact that they botched up the focus. Just sayin,
My color in that image is very cool. He looks blue. Thats because he’s in the shade. Remember? I obviously didn’t know how to counter this in editing at the time. That would take long hard hours/weeks/months online with some of the best photographers around the world to help me with skin tone and white balance . . . ughhhh.
At this point I believe I was still working on focus. Focus is a pretty big deal for a photographer. It can make or break an image. Sometimes you can finish a whole session only to come home and find your whole memory card is nothing but soft shots. Then you hope that no one notices. People shouldnt be in business if they can’t master focus. That doesn’t mean I don’t get soft shots. I do. I’d say during one session, I have about 85-90% focused shots and aobut 10-15% might be soft. Usually kids sessions I might have more soft shots because they move! A LOT!
So with this image ….. first of all he is under exposed. He is blue and underexposed. This image is a smidge soft but not much. It still wouldn’t make my gallery for a client. If I loved it and wanted it, I could make it work because I know that a non professional photographer wouldn’t notice its slightly out of focus. Again, SHADE!!!! Oh how I loved thee shade
God love me for trying. Seriously. I thought I ROCKED this shot. I think I had just gotten my external flash and was practicing. Whatever I was doing, I wasn’t doing it properly. I didnt know at the time though but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t a professional photographer offering quality sessions. I wasn’t offering any sessions at all actually. Just shooting my kids and their friends for the heck of it. First of all he’s so overexposed he’s ghostly. Its bizarre. Aside from the fact that his face is dirty, I can’t make out any pigment in his skin, you can also see where I did something funky over his shoulder. I was probably trying to eliminate the HUGE SHADOW around his head from the effects of flash. See behind his ears? The one on my right? Shadow. I must have also just been learning photoshop. But it didn’t matter. These were my own kids. Not someone else who was excited to capture their child during a session.
This image was one of my favorites. FOCUS : BANG ON! Exposure: BANG ON. Everything about this image, excited me. Plus it was my own
Now I will share two more images. Recent sessions. Actually from the fall of 2010. I would have shared really recent ones but they’re on here anyways blogged and since its cold as HECK, most of my recent work is indoors. I’m sharing these so you will see I am no longer limited by the sunlight. OH, and I rock my focus
Ahhhh a gorgeous yummy early evening sun……
Love this one too. All i have to say is, Thank you A.H.
Anyways, I hope this has been somewhat helpful
Edited to add: Today on facebook I saw the following post:
“Good hard hat criticism is the only thing that will make you better. None of this tiptoeing around and trying to put it nice so you don’t hurt feelings. The flip side is true as well. If you can’t take brutal honesty without getting your panties in a knot then the photography biz isn’t for you” Seemed fitting. I’ve taken a LOT of hard hat criticism. Still do. I call those people my teachers and some of my very best friends.
