Getting On Base

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A recent article in a Canadian photo magazine gives advice on how to become a professional sports photographer. The article talks about the excitement of being at sports events and blasting away at ten frames per second. A look at the author’s web site shows many fantastic photos . . . of weddings and portraits.

The author’s advice for wannabe sports photographers is to call sports events and ask for a free “photo pass.” If necessary, the photographer should offer free photos in exchange for said pass. Later, when the photographer has gained some experience, they can sell pictures to the event and enter the exciting world of sports photography.

This information is wrong.
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Back in the darkroom

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Over the past few years, almost all photography-related software has taken a turn for the worse. Such software has adopted a dark-coloured user interface along with either reverse type (white text on a dark background), dark text on a dark background, or even grey text on a grey background.

Some software companies don’t seem to understand how our eyes work. Since reading a computer monitor is known to be more difficult than reading a piece of paper, one would think that software companies would take this into consideration.
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Budgeting for an investment

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Earlier today, I received a call from a company asking for a quote to produce seven business portraits. After I sent my quote ($1,640 plus tax), the person said they had received quotes from three other photographers.

All four photographers, including myself, had quoted prices around $1,500. Unfortunately, the person continued, the company’s budget was “well under $500.”

 

Everyone has a camera built into their cell phone. Push a button and the picture appears instantly. Photography is seemingly free. This is the downside to digital cameras.
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Worst Job Ever

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The worst job in the country?

According to CareerCast’s just released 2013 annual job ratings comparing 200 jobs, “newspaper reporter” is the worst job around.

In 2010, “newspaper reporter” was ranked 184th; in 2011, it was 188th; in 2012, it was 196th. Notice a trend?

This year, “photojournalist” ranks 188th. That’s right, dishwasher and maid are both better jobs than photojournalist.

In 2010, “photojournalist” was ranked 189th; in 2011, it was 185th; in 2012, it was 166th.

The job of “photographer” is slightly better at position 172. But “photographer” is apparently a worse job than cashier, carpet installer, garbage collector, bus driver and janitor.

In 2010, “photographer” was rated 126th; in 2011, it was 144th; in 2012, it was 147th. Hmm, a downward trend.

Best jobs? Actuary, biomedical engineer, and software engineer.

Of course, reports like this are meant for “water cooler conversation” – something that folks can chat about while standing at the water cooler. Today’s water coolers are blogs, Facebook pages and Tweets.

 

Bad Driving

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A Montreal photographer last week did an assignment for The Globe and Mail about an Olympic athlete and the car she drives. The athlete lives in Laval, Quebec, and she happens to drive a BMW Mini vehicle.

A Laval BMW Mini dealership saw the story and contacted the photographer to ask permission to use the picture for its Facebook marketing. The luxury car dealer offered the photographer a credit line.

Instead, the photographer asked for a nominal $150.

The car dealership refused and then just took the photo from the newspaper’s web site and reused it without any credit line.
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Business Licence

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Earlier today, someone requested a quote for a few pictures to be used on their clothing store’s web site. So I sent a quote for a few pictures to be used on their web site. The person replied that it was “silly” that the quoted price didn’t include all rights, for all the pictures taken, for all eternity.

Photographers are running a business. The purpose of every business is to make money. Photographers make money either by selling pictures or licensing pictures.

Many photographers would be happy to sell all rights to their pictures. But the price would range from thousands of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars and maybe even much higher. Really.
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More Is More

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In almost all occupations, the person with more experience or more expertise gets paid more. No surprise, right?

But the big surprise for many people is that this also applies to photographers.

Photographers with more experience and/or more expertise cost more than those without the same level of experience or expertise.

If one photographer charges $95 for a business portrait and another charges $600, there’s a reason why. If one photographer quotes $450 for some corporate photography and another quotes $1600, there’s a reason why.

The customer has to decide how important an experienced photographer is to their project. If a customer doesn’t care about the outcome of their project or the pictures aren’t that important, then hiring the cheapest photographer is the best option.

But when a customer needs to trust the photographer to produce pictures with a high level of quality and service because the photos are important to their project, then hiring an experienced photographer is the only option.

It’s not what you pay, it’s what you get that’s important.

 

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