how does one go about getting photographer work?

Ainekav

hello im a student doing a course which involves photography although its not a photography course. however ultimately id like to concentrate on photography. i want to put an ad in the local newspaper advertising amateur student photographer services for a lesser fee than a pro. i want to do this mostly for the experience. i need to know is there any sort of demand for this? like, if i didnt want to shell out on a pro id take a student on, but thats just me..

also wats the going rate for say, event photographers?
ive no idea...

any advice would be helpful...

Paulw

You want to know the going rate so you can undercut people? Hmm. Will selling your services cheap do you any good in the long run?

Why not see if you can team up with a professional to gain experience?

Also, if you do produce substandard work for a client, don't forget that they can actually take you to court, as has happened many times. You would want full insurance, including public liability.

You must also declare your photography earnings, for tax reasons.

It's never as easy as people seem to think.

sheesh

ask a pro to take you on for free if you only want the experience probably more useful.

build up your portfolio of portraits, gig, sports, street photography

Ainekav

alright chill out there paul, as i said i have no idea and it was just an idea.
i have no intentions of undercutting anyone.
and i would hope not to produce substandard work.
i was just asking a question, no need to get on your high horse.

sheesh yeah i think maybe thatd be the best idea. its just that around where i live, theres a certain person who kinda handles all the community events.

stewiegriffin08

Remember, If a company or person asks for a photographer, and they are too cheap... they will not hire them, I heard of this happening before. Try to make some business cards, advertise in small places at a time. Or even go on here and try to get into some weddings and stuff like that, for free at first... Just to you get ebough practice

DjDangerousDave

Paulw wrote: »

You want to know the going rate so you can undercut people? Hmm. Will selling your services cheap do you any good in the long run?

Why not see if you can team up with a professional to gain experience?

Also, if you do produce substandard work for a client, don't forget that they can actually take you to court, as has happened many times. You would want full insurance, including public liability.

You must also declare your photography earnings, for tax reasons.

It's never as easy as people seem to think.

He could just check your website

http://www.photography.paul-walsh.net/rate_sport.html
http://www.photography.paul-walsh.net/lifestyle.html

Paulw

DjDangerousDave wrote: »

He could just check your website

Checking rates is easy enough. There are plenty of sites/photographers who quote rates. I based my rates on what others charge. Of course, rates very much change depending on client and task.

By far the best way to get experience is to work with someone who is already established, or just go shoot for experience.

I doubt it works well to offer a cheap service. You very much leave yourself open to exploitation.

And, if your work is not up to scratch, this is what could happen. Article from DigitalBeginners

DjDangerousDave

Paulw wrote: »

Checking rates is easy enough. There are plenty of sites/photographers who quote rates. I based my rates on what others charge. Of course, rates very much change depending on client and task.

By far the best way to get experience is to work with someone who is already established, or just go shoot for experience.

I doubt it works well to offer a cheap service. You very much leave yourself open to exploitation.

And, if your work is not up to scratch, this is what could happen. Article from DigitalBeginners

She complained about the quality then handed over the €1200 balance. Thats smart. And the photographer owns the copyright of any images taken so she was not entitled to the orignals. The courts could not order that they be handed over. Its really sad when good hard working people get screwed like this though, she should be refunded all the money she paid.

What was the outcome of that case? It just said the judge included an order to get the negatives. Nothing about damages being awarded.

Paulw

DjDangerousDave wrote: »

What was the outcome of that case? It just said the judge included an order to get the negatives. Nothing about damages being awarded.

She won the case, so was awarded the €1700 she claimed. There are no damages claims in small claims court.

DjDangerousDave

Paulw wrote: »

She won the case, so was awarded the €1700 she claimed. There are no damages claims in small claims court.

I ment damages with regard to the 1700, not the correct wording. Thats why I'm a code monkey.

Say if I was to do a wedding gig for someone and told them I was not going to be charging them. Then the main photographer puled out and I was left doing it on my own and all my pics turned out to be poor. Would I have any liability?

Paulw

In short, I've no idea. I'm not a solicitor.

From your scenario, then I would gather that yes, they could take court action against you.

The couple in the other article could have taken a case to the district court, and looked for a lot more money - for the service and also damages.

The small claims court is restricted as to what you can claim for, but is much cheaper and much faster to get a result. I've used the small claims court myself and found it brilliant (won my case obviously).

DjDangerousDave

I have been tempted to take a few issues there myself.

One time my father was brought there by a customer that was not inclined to ring up and ask for a refund. First he knew of the customer not being happy was a letter from the small claims court. We just sent them a cheque for the money. Was a strange one.

Sorry getting a bit off topic.

Jemmy

DjDangerousDave wrote: »

I ment damages with regard to the 1700, not the correct wording. Thats why I'm a code monkey.

Say if I was to do a wedding gig for someone and told them I was not going to be charging them. Then the main photographer puled out and I was left doing it on my own and all my pics turned out to be poor. Would I have any liability?

Surely if you werent charging them they cant take you to court, im not a solicitor either but your not providing a service your doing it as a favour for free!

DjDangerousDave

Jemmy wrote: »

Surely if you werent charging them they cant take you to court, im not a solicitor either but your not providing a service your doing it as a favour for free!

Thats how I would see the situation also. Id say doing weddings is hard work though. Long hours.

Paulw

Jemmy wrote: »

Surely if you werent charging them they cant take you to court, im not a solicitor either but your not providing a service your doing it as a favour for free!

Just because you are not charging, doesn't mean you're not contracted to provide a service.

They are giving you permission to photograph the wedding (and I would assume permission to use the images in your portfolio) and in exchange you are giving them prints for their use. Those are enough parts to form a contract, and hence they would have the right to take court action.

Sometimes it really pays to think through the potential situation, and actually have a signed contract, giving explicit details of what you are providing and what they get in return.

I, by choice, won't do weddings, because it is a minefield, especially if something goes wrong. But, if you have the proper insurance, and enough backup, you should be well covered. The vast majority of times, everything goes right, and everyone is happy. But, it's better to be prepared than to fail and end up in court. People only have one wedding day (usually).

quickg

This whole debate just puts things into perspective. Especially with regard to the proliferation of cowboy operators out there whom go and buy DSLR and announce themselves as a professional photographer.
In relation to making a mess of someone's wedding and as another poster said, usually a couple only have one wedding, you would need to be complete incompetent with a camera and not have a clue if you were not able get some decent shots at a wedding. After all, with digital cameras, almost anyone can take pictures.
It demonstrates the absolute professionalism that established film photographers over the years taking pictures which they would not see til at least the next day. They had to know the shot was in the bag. There was no LCD screen or no histogram to check exposure. There was no post processing of images if a cock up was made of exposure.

There was no second chance.

They had to know their equipment inside out and had to trust it implicitly. They were real photographers. They would put most of the current crop of digital wedding photographers to shame with their skills.

Any member here whom has done a wedding on film knows what I'm talking about.

Paulw

quickg wrote: »

This whole debate just puts things into perspective. Especially with regard to the proliferation of cowboy operators out there whom go and buy DSLR and announce themselves as a professional photographer.
In relation to making a mess of someone's wedding and as another poster said, usually a couple only have one wedding, you would need to be complete incompetent with a camera and not have a clue if you were not able get some decent shots at a wedding. After all, with digital cameras, almost anyone can take pictures.
It demonstrates the absolute professionalism that established film photographers over the years taking pictures which they would not see til at least the next day.

They were real photographers. They would put most of the current crop of digital wedding photographers to shame with their skills.

I disagree with you there. Yes, anyone can take a photo with digital, but not anyone can take a quality photo. A camera is only as good as it's operator. With light conditions in a church, or in a hotel, your camera will generally struggle to get correct exposure.

Just like film photographers, digital photographers only have that moment in time to capture the image.

Quality photographers, or as you say, real photographers, are just the same, be it digital or film. They know their kit, and know their art. Composition at weddings is a major part of the photography, not just having the people in the photo.

I think it is quite insulting to good digital wedding photographers to say that only film photographers are real photographers. It's elitism. In many ways, it shouldn't matter at all if the photographer uses film or digital. It's the photography that counts, and then end prints.

There are some excellent wedding photographers here on boards, people that I have recommended to friends, and people I would hire for any major event.

Calina

quickg wrote: »

This whole debate just puts things into perspective. Especially with regard to the proliferation of cowboy operators out there whom go and buy DSLR and announce themselves as a professional photographer.
In relation to making a mess of someone's wedding and as another poster said, usually a couple only have one wedding, you would need to be complete incompetent with a camera and not have a clue if you were not able get some decent shots at a wedding. After all, with digital cameras, almost anyone can take pictures.
It demonstrates the absolute professionalism that established film photographers over the years taking pictures which they would not see til at least the next day. They had to know the shot was in the bag. There was no LCD screen or no histogram to check exposure. There was no post processing of images if a cock up was made of exposure.

There was no second chance.

They had to know their equipment inside out and had to trust it implicitly. They were real photographers. They would put most of the current crop of digital wedding photographers to shame with their skills.

Any member here whom has done a wedding on film knows what I'm talking about.

I have just a couple of comments on this subject which I've also, interestingly enough, seen fought out on a surf photography forum.

Film versus digital is uhem...boring. After all, if you want, I was an ultimate purist because for a long time, I wouldn't touch autofocus, even in film terms. Fully manual me.

Now, I'm nto married and not about to get married but on the subject of hiring someone to take wedding photographs and paying them quite a sum of money, I actually don't want decent shots as per "anyone can take decent shots at a wedding". A point and shoot in the right hands will take decent shots. I'd want amazing shots and I'll be blunt, there were many photographers out there with film SLRs who took decent shots but who weren't ever going to be in the amazing tranche of photography. The difference really isn't in the tools, digital or analogue, it's in the end product. the issue with digital SLR is that it's ubiquitous. Much of the beauty of film SLR for a lot of people came from printing and developing themselves. That wasn't always an option for the great unwashed, photographically speaking.

What digital did was democratise that process quite a bit. Doesn't matter what the speciality was, there were a lot more people doing it suddenly.

Now the problem is that you'll always have brilliant, brilliant photographers regardless of the tools - certainly the wedding photographer where I grew up was a) extremely expensive compared to everyone else and b) fully booked out all the freaking time and c) far better than any other photographer within 30 miles. This is the way the world works sometimes - it's called "you get what you pay for".

Any amazing photographer is going to be able to turn any camera to his/her advantage because the talent is in the photographer, not in the machinery. The machinery is just tools; it's how you use it.

Me, I like digital. It has opened options to me that I could only dream about 5 and 6 years ago when I was shooting film. Those options are both technical and creative. To make the best use of them you have to a) be not afraid to fail and b) able to see what you can do with them.

Decent photographs don't cut it. One of my friends got married lately and I had a chance to look at what they got. Decent isn't the word. Amazing is not the word. Superlative is in the ballpark. The guy was using a top end digital Nikon - I'm not fully au fait with their models but I'm pretty sure it was a D2.

_______________________________________

To the OP, you need to do a couple of things. a) find stuff you're interested in b) take photographs and see if you're any good at it c) find out if there's much competition (eg you can forget about earning much of a living from gig photography by the looks of things) and put a portfolio together. Any local newspapers about you can fling stuff at?

quickg

@ Calina @Paulw,

You are pushing an open door there with you reply. I am totally coverted to digital. I have been taking pics since I was 11yrs using a Kodak instamatic circa 1969 and started developing and printing b/w since then. But, I now can do things with digital that I could only dream of back then. And yes, if a DSLR is in the hands of a talented person, they can produce amazing results. I know people whose introduction to photography was through their mobile phone and have gone on to be very capable photographers. Yes, digital has democratised photography.
Good photographers can compose a shot photo with anything, whether it be a Kodak instamatic, Hasselblad, D3 or disposable camera.
My point was that film photographers did not have the luxury of instant playback. Their playback was in their imagination. They knew what the shot was going to be like before they took it. Thats because they had to. If thats not real talent, I dont know what is.
By the way, most established film photographers have gone down the route of digital because it is much easier know to the control workflow. There are some diehards out there whom expose on film, get high res scans, do post processing in PS and print the results to maintain the film look and get a very distinct look.
I am not knocking digital, I love it. I havent put a roll of film in my camera in over 2yrs and I have access to film processing where I work.
And PaulW, no need to get precious over this. Please do not take it upon yourself to say people would be insulted. Established photographers would not be insulted. They would know what I was talking about.

Calina

quickg wrote: »

My point was that film photographers did not have the luxury of instant playback. Their playback was in their imagination. They knew what the shot was going to be like before they took it. Thats because they had to. If thats not real talent, I dont know what is.

It's not the fact that film forced them to see it before they took it that is a marker of real talent. It is the fact that they could see it before hand at all that is a marker of talent.

Real talent lies is producing the photograph, regardless of the tools, not in the disadvantages of one tool over another.

Ainekav

well talk anout opening a can of worms..

i have a kindof portfolio- its just a big notebook of my best shots that i submitted into the tutors in college. theres three newspapers in sligo yeah. wat kind of stuff would i give in? just for free like?

i like a bit of landscape, i like taking photos of people out havin fun- ive been known to get out the camera in the nightclub.
different things. id like to do parties and events i def wouldnt go near any weddings yet.. unless with a professional. ill be lookin for proper photography work next summer, im workin in a hotel this summer.

to be fair, ive received compliments on my photography and i leaned towards it in college.

i tired to upload photos but it didnt work for me on this..

Paulw

Ainekav wrote: »

i have a kindof portfolio- its just a big notebook of my best shots that i submitted into the tutors in college. theres three newspapers in sligo yeah. wat kind of stuff would i give in? just for free like?

Contact the papers and ask about submissions. It is seldom in your interest to give images for free. This has come back to bite other members on here. Papers normally have a standard rate for published images. Ask about their rates.

Ainekav wrote: »

i like a bit of landscape, i like taking photos of people out havin fun- ive been known to get out the camera in the nightclub.
different things. id like to do parties and events

Parties/events would either be editorial work (if for the papers), or else would be contract work, if you're covering the event/party for someone. The latter would have the same conditions as a wedding photographer, so watch out. You would again need proper insurance, public liability, and also permission from the venue to take images for a commercial purpose.

Best of luck with your choice.

eamonhonda

im lookin to get some modelling shots done for my portfolio would u be interested in doing these for me aine im also in the sligo area

DjDangerousDave

Paulw wrote: »

I think it is quite insulting to good digital wedding photographers to say that only film photographers are real photographers. It's elitism. In many ways, it shouldn't matter at all if the photographer uses film or digital. It's the photography that counts, and then end prints.

Same deal for me as a DJ, I was one of the first Dj's in dublin to start performing live with a laptop and Ableton Live. People thought that the laptop was doing all the work. That was partly true, but the fact was I could already DJ with my eyes closed so the fact that the laptop was doing the "Hard" part did not advantage me much. The advantage was that I could now put all my effort into picking the songs that would get the crowd going and playing the best set I could.

Same for photography, If you are good you are good. No matter what the tools are.

melekalikimaka

I was about to suggest rates... tho reading through i dunno now....

basically dont sell yourself short, i did and learnt the hard way, you wont go anywhere if you market yourself cheap. I'd reccommend going to public events with photographers, watch them...ask them and inquire how they formulate rates, i think most kinda make up their own, but it seems they end up all being similar enough

Ainekav

well i just got a chance to look at davids and pauls websites and im a bit overwhelmed tbh! amazin work.. but nevertheless im gonna get my blog thingy sorted out and post the link here in a few days to see wat kinda response i get from people. thanks for all the advice i will take it on board and i may stalk some of ye on this come september to let me follow ye around for a day!