Pro Photographers MUST Understand This
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- Опубликовано: 4 мар 2024
- Find out the harsh reality of photographer's salaries and why they are often paid poorly. In this video, we'll discuss the reasons behind low photographer salaries and how we can work to change it. If you're a photographer or considering a career in photography, this is a must-watch to understand the challenges and solutions for fair compensation in the industry.
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"People know the price of everything, and the value of nothing."
Well said
Oscar Wilde’s definition of a cynic.
There are different clients for different photographers, this is the reality. Some clients have big budgets and can afford one from a higher price bracket and, possibly, better skills, but not necessarily. Price does not always reflect quality but earnings can have a toll on the quality of work a photographer can deliver. This is because he experiences a lesser life quality that ultimately will affect his health, feelings, mood.
Does that mean all photographers should suddenly get expensive purely on their work quality? No! Absolutely not! Because he can't get the asking fees from decent people that cannot afford them and you lose some nice work that could have helped you earn more clients. It's that simple! You go outside London, prices plumets because people are not earning London salaries, because clients are small, their company is maybe a family one and so on.
Now, if you play your cards well, you could get some better paid jobs from higher end clients that ultimately will expose you to other big clients, but as you said earlier, up there winds are strong. If you fail there, the fall will be harder on you. Then, the competition is fiercer there. so much that some photographers would deliberately prefer smaller earnings but more jobs with less responsibility and stress.
I started work for a business that was used to charging bottom prices that did not value the photographer, and wanted a camera operator (both business and clients). Those existing clients it is hard to get them to buy a better product, as they are used to photos, and it'll do.
I am slowly trying to turn this around and move away from the bargain basement photography (the business is not just photography, luckily).
But one thing that is a stumbling block I find is also location, I'm in an area of the UK that is one of the poorest, and unfortunately for both people and business photography is not a high priority.
I love your brutal honesty!! I also call that first category of photographers "button pressers" 😃 People who buy a camera, and think they are photographers!
I am great and I know it, but you are absolutely right. I am not in the right crowd. Where the hell do I find the right crowd is the question...
Like many things, you don't know what you don't know when you start. Many careers have maps that can be followed with some certainty, career maps for photography are as varied as there are photographers. It takes time and maturity to figure that out and accept it.
I have a name in photography now that I can say yes or no to any job. It's taken me 30+years to get to that place. Just keep moving forward and work at being the best you can be!
It's hard to soar like an eagle when you work with turkeys.
I’m a fashion photographer, I’m in somewhat in a space now where I understand the business and value component. It’s helped me a lot, but I still get some rejections when I name my price. But as you said, this is mainly because the people I’m connecting with don’t have the money. It’s been mixed.
All 5 points I reckon. The sum of the whole. Got to tick every box.
Where there's fear, there's money. I'm a specialist painter in the local dairy industry. Paint milking parlours on farms. Often find multiple failed paint jobs and farmers sick of botched jobs, and willing to pay serious money for quality solutions. I solve that problem for them.
Weather it's painting, photography, singing or surgery, pick something most practitioners are scared of, that you've got talent at, then become outstandingly good at it. Work really hard at it.
Help your clients appear good amongst their peers, and you'll get the best jobs.
Sounds like the truth to me.
Respect, for saying it.
I've been the guy, "Steve's got a camera", "Can you take some photos for this event, Steve? I'll give you £200." Usually a friend/aquaintance. I had the time, I needed the money.
The only decent job I had was to photograph The Dark Season Blues Festival at Longyearbyen on Svalbard. "The most northerly music festival on the planet. They paid for my flights, hotel and food, in return for just 5 images. No cash. But a great experience.
To be honest, I'm not trying to be a pro photographer. I'm 63 years old and in poor health. For me, it's only about creating an image, a story, evoking a reaction, a reaction for me as much as any viewer. It doesn't matter how I go about getting the image, it's simply a case of finding it. My life feels easier, calmer, clearer, if I do it. It's something about flow, as others have spoken about. I'm still trying to find what i want to say. So, in the few years I have left I am in a fortunate position where I can do that. I can play, if you will. No more little jobs.
Some might say, "Photography is just a hobby for you, you're not the sort of person that Scott is talking to..." And there, right there, you get a glimmer of my problem; I'm doing other peoples thinking for them, I'm beginning conversations, in my head, with people that aren't even present; and that's why I need to take/find images... It helps keep me sane, it helps me notice the little things, it enables me to stay in the now, to be present, it helps keep me clear.
Sorry, I didn't intend to write so much when I began this comment...
Ho - Hum...
Empathy!
“You are a camera operator.” Another A-grade truth bomb!😂
The subject that terrifies so many! Not me, look forward to this video!
I think the last part is the most important one... so many of us... just take bad pictures... and actual critique and learning is hard to come by because most of us didn't go to Art school... but then you shoot a portrait of a pretty lady on the streets get 200 likes on instagram and you suddenly think you're a good photographer... Portrait Photography might be the hardest discipline of Photography there is... because the difference between a terrible boring uninspired portrait and something absolutely amazing is tiny... just look at Martin Schoellers work... it looks like anyone could do it... but we can't
Interesting outlook. Thank you for sharing this!
Best five 5min advice!
Good one! Love the straight-talking approach.
The photographers who really get the short end of the stick are photojournalists, still or video for all of the reasons in the video. They get generally get paid by the hour in the US at a rate of $15/hour, if they are lucky. A 'stringer' might get $80-$200/month for any number of photos they get in print. Unless you are lucky enough to work for a really big paper assignment, the news media values photographers somewhere below burger flippers at McDonald's and panhandlers.
As ever.... so cogent..! And, in so many ways, an essential kick up the arse!
Honest and clear, great advice
You are 100% correct in every word 👍🏻
I will add a number 6, too many photographers start undermining the clients' confidence by talking about a lack of gear or experience. So client expectations are low and are looking for faults in your work. But if you are confident and make the client feel good about the shoot and work the client will be eager and happy. To add to your points you are only as good as your last shot. Too many photographers like to flood the zone with images instead of only sending their best work to the client.
Yeah, no 1 is me at times. I do good sports stuff, which pays badly, but anything that I pick up outside of that is just camera operation. Good guidance- thanks
Great advice, nuff said.
Right people and good focus.
Real truth! Love it! I need to be in front of the right people. I turn down jobs because I am not where the people with the higher budgets are. I need to refocus where I am heading.
I've been asked to do a handful of wedding photography jobs and have said no because I'm not a wedding photographer plus only have 4 lenses being 2 kit(18-55mm, 55-250mm) a 30mm and a 14-20mm for my nightscapes, and have been asked twice to do photography for 1: a tractor pull event, 2: car event and said no to both because I'm not an event photographer. I'm a nightscape photographer who diddles in taking random photos and who is shit at finding compositions in general landscape photography. Friends recommend or ask me because of exactly your first point, i have a camera and take photos
curating the portfolio is 1000% overlooked by so many.
Haven't got to point #5 yet but #1 was a doozy already!
Spot on
I love the title.
all all true!
"Your work sucks!" That is why I have the desire to improve, to get better.
1) I suck
2) I’m marketing to the wrong people
Currently working really hard on both.
Please make a review of Brooklyn Beckham's book "What I See" 😬 I'll get some popcorn...
Thank you Doctor….
Same time next week 🤪😎
May the Horse
be with you.🌀
Jim🌀
(-: :-)
Can you do a video on tips for stay in touch with the ever-evolving zeitgeist? Thanks!
I’ll be honest, my biggest icks in photography are:
1. Seeing substandard work on billboards. Whether it’s ham-fisted retouching or photographs that are fundamentally poor quality, it pisses me off.
2. Too much in the commercial world is self-aggrandizing, play-safe and boring. Very very little of it will endure like the very best journalistic photography, street photography or portrait photography and residence beyond its remit to ‘sell a thing’ , but that is the nature of the corporate world. It’s a largely soulless place and it wheels in creatives to try and inject some humanity into the latest, conflict-mineral smartphone or obesity-inducing energy drink or burger.
But, it IS where the money is at! Sooooooo…
I am autistic so my issues are a lack of communication skills, anxiety, and depression.
I laughed out loud at no.4. In Dublin we call them a 'f##king plumber'. - Someone who won't shut up about how lucky the client is that hired them.
This has nothing to do with business, but more the artistic side of things. No one can have their camera with them all the time. There are images that would've been great had I only had my camera with my, but it just isn't realistic to always have one's camera. But I still remember well those shots that could've been. There's no going back. For instance, one night I was out and there was a store employee mopping up the store at closing. I didn't have my camera, but it was such a scene that it would've made such a great shot that image is seared in my mind. Just the lighting of that place and such. Those types of situations is why I took up oil painting. In that sense, one can go back and "get" those shots.
Wow... That sounds SO Edward Hopper! I know exactly what you mean. Carrying an iPhone just isn't the same! Though I do snatch what I can on the phone... and wish I had the big baby with me!
Pet peeve: People like my work and attribute that to my good camera ...
I will add one more reason: living in a low income country... 😅
but i agree with every point..
How did you work around Point #4? @scott
Rankin made a usp out of number 4!
Doing a bit of everything - guilty as charged, but for now I have other primary job, and most of time I do event photography and cosplayer portraits. It is a way for me to let people know that I can more than take a picture, but to take a picture with a value. I consider it a TFP photography, but people are literally forcing on me money or discounts :).
Doing and sharing cheap work - again guilty as charged. Mostly TFP cosplay events/portraits. Most of the time its costume and makeup work of somebody else, mine is color grading. I am starting to have an idea what is "mine" in that process and no other photographer can do that.
On Small Jobs - definitely true, I literally have to move to a different city to get different kind of jobs. At the moment I am still working on improving my work, expanding portfolio and developing techniques which are my own.
Difficult to work with - apparently exact opposite. People are looking for me because they like to work with me, both personally and on creative level.
On being bad - Its usually me who says "i dont like it, lets do the reshoot".
Id rather work as a butcher then professional photographer... at least there i can eat. Doing small gigs and get money for what i enjoy is nice tho. Do they value the pictures? Idk... maybe but at least they give me opportunity to practis and total freedom (which i value so much that i think no.4 could suffer if i didnt have it).
You said "ick"
Camera operator 😂
Real Talk.
I see heaps of great photographers lose out on bigger paydays cause they charge too cheep. Ad an extra zero onto your figure and you might be pleasantly surprised.
Little mouse brains, ‘Ooh he expensive. Must be good. We get him.’
Precisely. When a photographer takes pictures of everything, he is actually taking pictures of nothing.
1. Finding your niche. 2. Being noticed. Anyone wants to be a photographer
I think customers, or potential customers, shortchange themselves by that attitude. So what if someone shoots a christening? If the photographs are high quality it shouldn't matter. A band that wants great shots for their career is foolish to use a photographer of lesser quality just because the higher quality photographer has shots of babies. This is a problem in the business world more broadly, and photography IS part of the business world. This insistence on having a resume (CV for those of you in Europe) in a specific format that frequently changes. Hiring managers say they toss resumes that aren't formatted according to the latest format. If one has a business manager with years of experience or an engineer with a history of solving sticky technical problems one should look at that instead of this foolish insistence of form over substance. Perhaps they don't even know that the "acceptable" form for a resume has changed. Of all the concerns people have in life and adding that to it? Surely their business skills or that they keep up to date on their technical knowledge and skills is more important whether a business manager, engineer or a....photographer.
I get where you are coming from , but it's not up to our customers to work out the merits of our photography for themselves - we need to show them how we are of value to them , and using images of similar projects would be the best way
You a diva?... I just can't picture it
If you’re just a button presser, don’t be surprised if you never get the big jobs. Cause there’s a thousand other button pressers out there.