mmalore

ah, much better. gotcha.

TS4F

Years ago I read an interesting article by a UW Architecture professor, talking about newspaper ads where the classified advertiser was looking to get cheap architecture work done "in return for using it in your portfolio." The professor pointed out that the $10/hour offered sounded pretty good to a student, but was undermining the ability of graduates to get work at prevailing wages. Nobody will hire a professional architect at $50/hour if they can get the same work from a starving grad student at $10/hour. Unfortunately, the grad student then graduates, posts his rate at $50/hour, and gets no business because the next graduate student is doing it for $10/hour.

If you don't have a portfolio, it's reasonable do a few free shoots so you can develop your skills and get some stuff to show off. After that, you have to start charging. Otherwise, you'll never make any money off it.

mmalore

i mean i want to make $ off of my photography, but it seems like nobody understands the time and work that goes in to photographing AND editing one single image. to do an image that I am happy with, it takes a MINIMUM of 15 minutes to edit. factor in editing out an entire on-car camera rig and you're closer to 30-40 minutes. then factor in my time, gear, etc, and it starts to add up. however, i don't expect to make millions doing this, but if people understood what goes into it, i feel like they would be more willing to donate some cash. just my $.02

schwank

It's a personal value equation right now. LEss money to spend means people pick their expenditures much more carefully.

mmalore

oh, yeah, no worries man. didn't take it personally.

TS4F

I used to work full-time at a job I loved. The bottom dropped out of the business when hobbyists started doing it "for fun" without regard to profit. The business owner went bankrupt, and I had to take a job I didn't enjoy nearly as much.

If your photography is bad, it's not worth anything. If it's good, it's worth way more than $100. Your $200 is much better, and as you improve and develop a deeper portfolio, that number can double again.

TS4F

His target market is people willing to pay a fair rate for a lot of work.


I'm not saying you're unfair, I'm just saying that there's no point in him going into business for $5 an hour -- he can do better flipping burgers, and make photography a hobby.

Jdog35

are way easy though compared to video, so at least you've got that going for you.

I own a business that does sports filming and photography. I'm always getting it from people that it's either too expensive, or I'm not even close to charging enough. I happen to think we are very good at what we do, and my clients/customers do too. Each year we've doubled our rates (roughly). That sounds like a lot, but we started way too low

If you have the chops, and are willing to put the work in, you can do well with it. But be ready 'cause it's not an easy business and 9-out-of-10 go under quickly. Plus, if you start getting upgradeitis for your equipment, you'll spend 50x what you make

Jesster

Shoot me an email and we can chat a bit... jessterk20@gmail.com

Blake@NWAutoSalon

Seems low even for a extremely well shot image. Unless for some reason you have a MF Digi Back.