Photo Scam Warning

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There are several e-mail scams aimed at photographers. Most start with the sender of the e-mail saying that they came upon the photographer’s web site and they love the pictures. The person will have some sort of urgent photo assignment in the photographer’s area and wants to hire the photographer right away. The person will offer to pay in full in advance.

If the photographer falls for this, the scammer will send a payment cheque for far too much money. When the honest photographer points out this “mistake,” the scammer will apologize and ask the photographer to refund the excess money as quickly as possible. The trusting photographer will be told to wire the money asap. The scammer’s original cheque will later bounce and the photographer will lose whatever money they sent to the scammer.

Another version of this scam is that after the scammer has sent a (fake) cheque, they will say the event has been cancelled and they need the money wired back to them as quickly as possible.
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Make Sense

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A few things that don’t seem to make sense:

• If you order a $1.49 precooked and prepackaged hamburger at a fast-food joint, you have to pay before they give you the food.

But if you order an $85 steak dinner at a restaurant, you don’t have to pay until after the food has been cooked, served and eaten.

 

• Why do some amateur photographers spend many thousands of dollars buying top-of-the-line camera gear just to photograph things that a $400 camera could do equally as well?

 

• Why do some professional photographers like to brag how they used a cheap toy camera to shoot a multi-thousand-dollar assignment?

 

• Why would a company spend about $47,000 to buy five full-page B+W ads in a Toronto tabloid newspaper and then budget less than $500 for the photography for those ads?

Why not budget $25,000 for five half-page ads and then budget, say, $2,500 for the photography? Not only would this save the company thousands of dollars but the better quality photography will earn the company more attention.

 

Annoying pop-ups

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Attention photographers. This is why you never use those silly, big flash brackets while standing in front of other photographers:

I’m standing in the second row – on a 20-inch riser – at a Toronto entertainment event. I’m shooting overtop a front row of standing photographers. 

Notice that you can’t see the front row of standing photographers nor can you see their cameras or flashes. Except . . .

Except that one guy, in the front row, using one those big flash brackets. In the front row. In every single picture.

The musicians are standing 17 feet away and they’re fully lit by two large front lights and two hair lights, all supplied by the event. These four large lights were specifically colour-balanced to match the existing eight overhead lights, (ISO 1000, f5.6 at 1/160). Why even use a flash?

News and entertainment events are not weddings. In these situations, big flash brackets serve no purpose other than to block other photographers.

 

How to find the right photographer

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It should be easy to find the right photographer for your business photography, right? After all, every city has many, many professional photographers.

Recently, I was reading a web site for photographers who are new to running a photo business. These amateur(?) photographers were apparently hired by various clients to shoot corporate work, advertisements, business marketing or editorial assignments. Yet these photographers didn’t know how to price their work or, in some cases, even how to do the assignment. Why would any business hire an amateur photographer?

How should a business find the right professional photographer?

The best way is by referral from another business or a colleague. If this isn’t possible then a search engine is your best friend (or enemy).
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Better than nothing?

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Earlier this week, British journal Occupational Environmental Medicine published an  article with the catchy title: “The psychosocial quality of work determines whether employment has benefits for mental health: results from a longitudinal national household panel survey”.

This Australian study looked at the relationship between the mental health of 7,155 people and the quality of their employment. The study suggests that a bad job may be worse than no job at all:

Overall, unemployed respondents had poorer mental health than those who were employed. However the mental health of those who were unemployed was comparable or superior to those in jobs of the poorest psychosocial quality.

The study concluded:

Work of poor psychosocial quality does not bestow the same mental health benefits as employment in jobs with high psychosocial quality.

Of course, most photographers already knew this.

This is why professional photographers don’t accept bad contracts or ridiculously low-paying jobs. It’s never wrong to turn down a bad deal. Bad deal => bitter photographer => stress and poor mental health.

Photographers, who love what they do, must respect their profession by charging proper fees. Doing anything less harms the photographer both financially and mentally.

 

Lower the bridge or raise the water?

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Having to lower your price is the penalty you pay for not having raised your value.

If a photographer can’t sell value then they may have no choice but to sell (low) price. Choosing to lower prices is a business strategy that will follow that business for a long time. For example, WalMart will always be associated with “cheap” and everyone knows cheap isn’t any good because good isn’t cheap.

Remember that value is in the eye of the client. Extra prints or fancy leather albums may have value to retail customers (e.g. weddings and family portraits) but they won’t have any value to commercial or corporate clients.

Part of the job for commercial photographers and corporate photographers is to understand what their business clients need, what has value to them.

Low prices might be okay if the photographer can compensate with a continuous high sales volume. But a high sales volume means a high work volume. To support a low-price business strategy, a photographer has no choice but to work more and more.

Makes no cents.

 

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