thanks for the tips. I have never done my own taxes. i guess i am a chicken or something. maybe though, i will have to try it out. love the giveaway, thanks.
If it is decided and agreed upon that my actions were thievery, then so be it.
Although, it certainly wasn't my intention to be a thief; I thought I was doing something that needed to be done. I won't shy away from it though. Only you (each person reading this) can decide if thief is how I should be labeled (along with speeder, j-walker, etc). But now that I understand more of the details about copyright infringement (of written words rather than photographs, which I know a fair amount about), I will need to make a decision about how I think I should respond to my actions.
Scoobizier-
Yes, and this photographer also drove 5 miles over the speed limit yesterday too. The reality is that we choose which laws to observe and which to ignore, and part of that decision is based on our individual prejudices (among other things). And we do this on a regular basis; every civilized one of us.
My reason for copying and posting that story wasn't about money (unlike the motivation of the author of that story), or the condemnation of the author or her actions (despite what that quoted commentor may think). I just thought the article was important and didn't want to see it disappear, especially because of how much reaction it was getting here and at The Online Photographer. In fact, because it is available as a Google cached page (for some limited time), which is where I copied it from (a copy of a copy), and the main purpose of me copying and posting it was for the sake of critique/critcism (which you *can* do with photographs without needing permission), it didn't even occur to me that there would be a problem with this. That's right, it never occurred to me that it would be a copyright issue.
BTW Scoobizier,
did you get permission to use that person's quote? It was copied verbetim, minus just one word (my name). If you think that I'm condemning you, well... I'm not. Just a little tit-for-tat.
Anybody interested in what else I might think about this issue can view the comments using the link Scoobizier provided.
I always try to travel with a spoon, fork, paring knife (in a sheath) and a bowl tucked into checked luggage. I will also toss in a few packets of instant add-water-and-stir type oatmeal or cup-a-soups... you'd be surprised how many times I get to a hotel at odd hours and am unable to order in anything.... the tummy clock can run on different time from local time, and the oatmeal is a welcome filler. Many places have kettles in the room, or at least a coffee maker that you can use to heat water.
Like many have already stated, the local markets can be wonderful places to buy interesting, unusual and fresh foodstuffs. Who doesn't love a picnic?!? There is nothing quite like a meal of pita bread from the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.... piping hot and puffed up into a pillow when they package it for you, wrapped up with some fresh local cheese, a couple of slices of perfect sunripened tomatoes.
I also like the soup idea, and have followed it in a number of places. Very vivid and wonderful memories of amazing tomato soup made from scratch of course, served with cheese naan during my travels to Rajasthan.
Another money-saving site is http://BlogDividends.com Almost to the bottom of the page is a list of gift cards that can be purchased less than face value from people trying to rid themselves of presents they don’t want. It’s a great way to get a Friday night dinner out at a discount! Scroll down toward the bottom of the page for a list of retailers that can be searched.
I love this post. It has many good ideas. I'd like to share some thoughts.
Many types of support While money doesn't solve every problem, for most nonprofits, donations are what keep the lights on and the doors open - not volunteering your time or passing along used things.
Workplace Giving Workplace giving not only allows me to access my employer match, it spurs me to give more. Every year we review our giving choices in light of our values. We go online to learn more about the organizations in the campaign and their management practices (www.guidestar is one source for this info). We planfully increase our gifts. This allows us to say no to organizations that are less in line with our values and minimizes guilt.
Charity and Justice Because we take a planful approach, we mix our giving - local and international, money and time, charity and justice. Charity is a short-term solution and it's essential to improve the lives of individuals, but only justice creates change.
Smile Train is one of my favorite charities - my own child had cleft lip.
So I know the impact it can have and I know that cleft lip can be caused by environmental pollution. I give money to Smile Train because it provides life-changing surgery one child at a time. But I'd rather not see children born deformed so I also give money to organizations that challenge polluters and empower local communities to seek environmental justice.
Thinking in terms of both charity and justice is one way we strive to be effective givers.
A photographer copied this entire article on his website, and placed a link to it at the comments section of The Online Photographer. Some of the other commenters quickly pointed out that this is a copyright violation. One of them asked:
"did you seriously just copy an entire article verbatim from someone else's web site in an attempt to condemn the theft of intellectual property?"
Classic.
To his credit, the editor of The Online Photographer removed the link to the infringing website almost immediately.
We've tried many times to develop and then stick with a budget. It always falls apart. While my significant other is exceptional in many areas, when it comes to numbers on a piece of paper, he sees them as graphic designs. On the other hand, dollar bills in an envelope are tangible. We've created envelopes for our problem areas: food and recreation. We also have an envelope for carpooling because we need cash. Now, no matter how abstract $20 may be on paper, when there are no more $20s in the food envelope, food buying must stop.
This method does work better for us... but now I've got to problem solve how to get a month's worth of cash out at one time (ATM won't give that much) when our wonderful credit union is not nearby and is not open during the hours we can get there :(
Firstly, I think it's hard to disagree with the argument running through this thread - namely, that there is a large market out there, so you are free to find a photographer that suits your budget and expectations for product. Once engaged in a contract with that professional, you are obliged to honour it; anything else is not merely illegal, but immoral.
I'm posting to talk about a specific issue, though; I'm a semi-pro who shoots about 10-15 weddings a year. I have shot portrait sessions before, but I found the fight against the established model to be too hard to overcome. With weddings, I charge an upfront fee, then am happy to sell the negatives or charge an extremely reasonable fee for reprints - the cost of printing plus a nominal markup to cover the costs of the extra time, but no more than a few percent. As far as I am concerned, the customer has a clear choice - employ me at a reasonable rate to take care of their printing needs (which affords me a small profit commensurate with the effort), or buy the digital files from me, whereby I put a reasonable price on the product, of which the customer is fully aware before engaging my services.
I have attempted to apply this logic, which appears reasonable to me, to portrait photography, i.e. charging a higher fee for my time and expertise for the session, and then providing printing services for a price close to cost. However, I repeatedly found that people balked at my proposed fee; the market has evolved so that the customer, under these circumstances, expected a low cost, or even free, sitting, then for the photographer, or studio, to recover costs and make profits on the prints, the prices of which are frequently opaque before the sitting. As a result, people perceived my prives as being extrotionate, despite the fact the total cost of the package would be many hundreds of pounds less than if they walked into Olan Mills, or any other photo-by-numbers high street chain. I found that I was unwilling to follow the market model, as I have no interest in upselling something after I've promised something else. Therefore, I have dropped out of that particular market to let me concentrate on what I consider to be a more honest way of doing business.
So, in response - the model is there, and consumers are more than free to test it and find a reasonable alternative - photographers will come round to whatever is sustainable according to what the market dictates, or stop if they can't stomach either the change or the existing practice. Do some research, and in a market of so many providers, you're sure to find someone that meets your needs. Just do the right thing and honour the contract that you sign.
I agree that it's not really fair to delete the original article but leave the comments. While it is definitely stealing when clients scan professional prints only to make their own, I do think there have been very valid points made throughout this discussion from both sides of the argument.
I meant to say the same thing about high session fees and just charging for everything upfront. While that sounds like a great idea in theory, it is not necessarily the most successful business model either. People do not really want to pay us for our time. They want something tangible for their money, and I can absolutely understand this point of view.
But I personally hate preset photo packages. They always contain sizes I don't want in quantities I can't use. So that's why I prefer to bundle a print credit with my session fee. I am not opposed to selling digital files, but it won't be for some of the reasons mentioned in this discussion.
Yes, clients have Photoshop Elements or other photo editing products. But that doesn't mean they actually know how to use them and use them well. I spend a lot of time on my photos, and I would hate to see someone play around with one of my files in Photoshop and then slap it up on MySpace. It's no longer my work, is it? That's why I still love being able to provide my clients with high quality professional prints.
And again, I keep seeing the argument that clients should be able to do whatever they want with photos. Well you can if you take the pictures yourselves, right? Like I said before, there is obviously still a need for professional photographers or this discussion would be moot.
I think most of us would be willing to negotiate things with our clients, but it needs to be a two-way street, folks.
well the lady in the story admitted she paid $600 with prints...I'm not saying it's going to be easy to have a business model- if it was, everybody would be in business, but one thing i've learned in my line of work, people like to get packages so you could say something like "with this package, If you order this many prints from me at this cost, I'll include a CD that has the originals in it also. If you just want prints, it's $xx per picture ". Offering them the CD at least gives many of the ones who were thinking of scanning the pictures to think twice and want the higher quality originals.
You sound like a very smart kid. Please forgive me if you're a 42-year-old returning-to-school sorta guy, but you do sound like a 'kid' to someone like me who is right around 40. I'm a psychologist who typically deals with people who are in a world of mess because they aren't being smart with their money and have worked themselves into very un-workable conditions. Keep up the great work!
There lies the misconception. In order to be paid for my time, including the consultation, customer service, and day of a portrait session plus the post-processing hours after the session, I would have to charge $500 for a session to eek out a living with zero print sales.
How many people are willing to pay $500 for a portrait session with unedited digital files as the only product included? Not me. That seems a little tacky.
If I pay that much, I expect to have a beautifully retouched portrait to hang on my wall.
High session fees drive people to Walmart where there is no session fee. You have to price your sessions in a range that people are willing to pay or risk having no business.
Setting up a business model is not as easy as many of you make it out to be.
Why do you think photographers shouldnt be compensated for their time and talent? They should offer everything at cost without taking into consideration their overhead.
How many other businesses are able to do that? Photographers don't deserve to make a living wage because their job is perceived as "easy"?
I guess I just don't get it. How many of you work 40-60 hours a week for a paycheck that barely pays the bills? If that was the case, wouldnt you find a new job?
To say that photographers don't deserve to make a living like everyone else is mind-blowing.
"car insurance, renter's insurance, tax payments, my annual fitness center membership, car maintenance, shoes, coats, clothes, vet bills, and vacations"
When you are attempting to deal with irregular but expected bills, I find starting a freedom fund to be most helpful. There is no reason to be caught in the lurch dealing with an annual bill that you knew was coming.
It basically works like this. You take your bills that are not monthly and add them up. You should be able to estimate what your annual car insurance, renter's insurance, fitness center membership, life insurance, etc. costs are.
Now divide that by 12. That is the monthly deposit required to fund your freedom fund. It takes a few months to get this going but it is well worth the effort as you no longer have to plan having enough cash for some huge bill that creeps up once a year. The nice thing is that it is a rolling fund. Money comes in at a regular pace every month and it goes out when the bills arrive. The goal is not to save up the 12 month number, the goal is to just put in the monthly amount and the account takes care of itself.
Anything you can estimate an annual cost for can be added to the freedom fund. Car maintenance, vet bills, clothes budget, etc. I include car maintenance in mine but not my clothes budget.
And please note, this is *NOT* an emergency fund (although you could raid it if your situation is dire). It is not meant to handle unexpected costs, only things you expect to spend in a given year. So if you have auto maintenance included, you can pay for your oil change with it, but you should probably use your separate E-Fund to pay for the new transmission (because who saw that coming?!).
By leveling your irregular bills to a set monthly charge, you simplify things because you don't need to worry about where the money will come from to pay the real estate taxes next month. The money will be there. And with more regular expenses, you can budget around them more easily.
I agree with Erica. People feel cheated if they already thought they've paid for the photographer's time and find out he's really making his money off prints instead. Whether they actually paid for the photographer's time is a different story but this shows how flawed this business model is.
On the other hand, if the photographer charges enough for their time and gives them the digital negatives with the advice that "You can take these to Target to get printed if you want, you've already paid me for my time, but if you let me print them they will cost a little more but be printed on high quality paper/booklet/frame and cropped and adjusted correctly", chances are the customer is going to at least get the more expensive larger prints from you because they know they can't do a good enough job themselves.
You get paid and they get what they want. Why is that so hard? What is this obession with taking negatives to the grave with you?
Here's what you should do if you feel guilty about stealing from a photographer - Get out your camera and take pictures yourself. Then you will be the owner of the digital negatives/files and can print them and share them however you see fit.
Or why not buy a painting from someone and then have it reprinted on canvas and give it away for free to your friends and family so that the artist only makes money off of the canvas they sold to you.
It's stealing.
I am so thoroughly disappointed in Wise Bread for pulling this post. Thankfully, I got to read it in my news reader before it was pulled, but others might not be so lucky. Leaving the comments vilifying the author up without the actual text is tacky, for one. The variety of comments illustrates that whether it is in fact right or wrong to do what the author did, there is a dialog between photographers and those who employ their services that is not happening.
I don't think you could call me a professional photographer, but I think you could call me a photographer. I've done a handful of portrait sittings, a wedding, and a smattering of other work for paying clients. I find the nominal-fee-for-sitting plus hugely-inflated-fees-for-prints model to be distasteful, because it feels dishonest: it's like telling my clients that the real value of my work is in the piece of paper, and not in the composition on it. Because of this, when contracted I charge for my time - during consultation, shooting, editing, and any package preparation. If there are concrete products (prints, DVDs, etc.) I charge for materials at a competitive rate. Then, at the end, I provide the finalized digital files. That's what they're buying. The images. And I feel that's honest. I feel that's a business model that's more appropriate, particularly given the low cost of reproduction these days.
Ultimately, though, I'm not upset because I agree with the author. I'm upset because redaction is for newspapers. This is the internet. If you believe that you're wrong, somehow, make a visible edit or addendum. Making the post just disappear is bad net-business.
Bring the post back. Leave the replacement text as an edit. If it's appropriate and genuine on the part of the author, she can apologize; if not, a statement indicating support for her original statements would be appropriate. If she's made any sort of arrangement with the photographer to compensate for the duplicated prints in order to comply with law, that would be appropriate to mention as well.
To your first point, I have no problem with people doing things they believe will help the planet. My OPINION was that the unhealthy option of using personal items at public places did not outweigh the utilization of a clean paper cup, the elimination of which would not save the world.
To your second point, a non sequitur to be sure, I have no problem with fighting a war for oil, for land, or simply to live the way I want to live. I would fight for the right to go to church and the right not to, and I would definitely fight for my family’s safety and well-being. American men and women are dying today for many of these very reasons and your attempt to trivialize their sacrifice simply to score a political point is very sad, indeed.
And to your final point, or more accurately, I guess it was mine, Environmentalism is a religion. Believers attest to things that are not proven, based on faith, using science speculatively to support their belief system and proselytize to others. Finally, eternal doom and death to all living things is predicted if we do not alter significantly our current way of life. Those that refuse to do so are treated as stupid, out of touch or as you put it, “in denial”.
I don’t think we should waste things. I think we should be good stewards of what we own or borrow. But if it’s okay with you, I’ll take my coffee in a nice clean paper cup and then toss it in the trash when I’m through.
Go-to customers. Um yeah. Strip club clients and photography clients are not even in the same ballpark. I wonder how many of my clients I could convince to pay for professional portraits every week or even every month. Not very likely.
The people who hire us don't have the time to make their own photography products. If they do have free time, they don't want to sit and crop prints and design albums with it. They come to us because they have the luxury of being able to afford to pay others to make those products for them.
If you prefer to diy, more power to you. If you don't like the prices of professionals, please diy or go to Sears studios where you can get print prices that make sense to you.
If you don't value photography, it's simple. Don't hire the photographer who charges more than you're willing to pay for their work.
It is unethical to hire an expensive photographer only to steal from them.
Go-to customers. Um yeah. Strip club clients and photography clients are not even in the same ballpark. I wonder how many of my clients I could convince to pay for professional portraits every week or even every month. Not very likely.
The people who hire us don't have the time to make their own photography products. If they do have free time, they don't want to sit and crop prints and design albums with it. They come to us because they have the luxury of being able to afford to pay others to make those products for them.
If you prefer to diy, more power to you. If you don't like the prices of professionals, please diy or go to Sears studios where you can get print prices that make sense to you.
If you don't value photography, it's simple. Don't hire the photographer who charges more than you're willing to pay for their work.
It is unethical to hire an expensive photographer only to steal from them.
Love this blog! Love the giveaway, too. Thanks.
thanks for the tips. I have never done my own taxes. i guess i am a chicken or something. maybe though, i will have to try it out. love the giveaway, thanks.
But sticking white notes with a pen on fridge so far is still the very best solution for me and my family.
Colin Joss
East Lothian, Haddington
United Kingdom
If it is decided and agreed upon that my actions were thievery, then so be it.
Although, it certainly wasn't my intention to be a thief; I thought I was doing something that needed to be done. I won't shy away from it though. Only you (each person reading this) can decide if thief is how I should be labeled (along with speeder, j-walker, etc). But now that I understand more of the details about copyright infringement (of written words rather than photographs, which I know a fair amount about), I will need to make a decision about how I think I should respond to my actions.
Scoobizier-
Yes, and this photographer also drove 5 miles over the speed limit yesterday too. The reality is that we choose which laws to observe and which to ignore, and part of that decision is based on our individual prejudices (among other things). And we do this on a regular basis; every civilized one of us.
My reason for copying and posting that story wasn't about money (unlike the motivation of the author of that story), or the condemnation of the author or her actions (despite what that quoted commentor may think). I just thought the article was important and didn't want to see it disappear, especially because of how much reaction it was getting here and at The Online Photographer. In fact, because it is available as a Google cached page (for some limited time), which is where I copied it from (a copy of a copy), and the main purpose of me copying and posting it was for the sake of critique/critcism (which you *can* do with photographs without needing permission), it didn't even occur to me that there would be a problem with this. That's right, it never occurred to me that it would be a copyright issue.
BTW Scoobizier,
did you get permission to use that person's quote? It was copied verbetim, minus just one word (my name). If you think that I'm condemning you, well... I'm not. Just a little tit-for-tat.
Anybody interested in what else I might think about this issue can view the comments using the link Scoobizier provided.
Thief. Thief. Thief. Thief.
Mention to them your green credentials, or if you have the same item every time, stick it on a post it on the cup.
I always try to travel with a spoon, fork, paring knife (in a sheath) and a bowl tucked into checked luggage. I will also toss in a few packets of instant add-water-and-stir type oatmeal or cup-a-soups... you'd be surprised how many times I get to a hotel at odd hours and am unable to order in anything.... the tummy clock can run on different time from local time, and the oatmeal is a welcome filler. Many places have kettles in the room, or at least a coffee maker that you can use to heat water.
Like many have already stated, the local markets can be wonderful places to buy interesting, unusual and fresh foodstuffs. Who doesn't love a picnic?!? There is nothing quite like a meal of pita bread from the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem.... piping hot and puffed up into a pillow when they package it for you, wrapped up with some fresh local cheese, a couple of slices of perfect sunripened tomatoes.
I also like the soup idea, and have followed it in a number of places. Very vivid and wonderful memories of amazing tomato soup made from scratch of course, served with cheese naan during my travels to Rajasthan.
Another money-saving site is http://BlogDividends.com Almost to the bottom of the page is a list of gift cards that can be purchased less than face value from people trying to rid themselves of presents they don’t want. It’s a great way to get a Friday night dinner out at a discount! Scroll down toward the bottom of the page for a list of retailers that can be searched.
I love this post. It has many good ideas. I'd like to share some thoughts.
Many types of support While money doesn't solve every problem, for most nonprofits, donations are what keep the lights on and the doors open - not volunteering your time or passing along used things.
Workplace Giving Workplace giving not only allows me to access my employer match, it spurs me to give more. Every year we review our giving choices in light of our values. We go online to learn more about the organizations in the campaign and their management practices (www.guidestar is one source for this info). We planfully increase our gifts. This allows us to say no to organizations that are less in line with our values and minimizes guilt.
Charity and Justice Because we take a planful approach, we mix our giving - local and international, money and time, charity and justice. Charity is a short-term solution and it's essential to improve the lives of individuals, but only justice creates change.
Smile Train is one of my favorite charities - my own child had cleft lip.
So I know the impact it can have and I know that cleft lip can be caused by environmental pollution. I give money to Smile Train because it provides life-changing surgery one child at a time. But I'd rather not see children born deformed so I also give money to organizations that challenge polluters and empower local communities to seek environmental justice.
Thinking in terms of both charity and justice is one way we strive to be effective givers.
A photographer copied this entire article on his website, and placed a link to it at the comments section of The Online Photographer. Some of the other commenters quickly pointed out that this is a copyright violation. One of them asked:
"did you seriously just copy an entire article verbatim from someone else's web site in an attempt to condemn the theft of intellectual property?"
Classic.
To his credit, the editor of The Online Photographer removed the link to the infringing website almost immediately.
We've tried many times to develop and then stick with a budget. It always falls apart. While my significant other is exceptional in many areas, when it comes to numbers on a piece of paper, he sees them as graphic designs. On the other hand, dollar bills in an envelope are tangible. We've created envelopes for our problem areas: food and recreation. We also have an envelope for carpooling because we need cash. Now, no matter how abstract $20 may be on paper, when there are no more $20s in the food envelope, food buying must stop.
This method does work better for us... but now I've got to problem solve how to get a month's worth of cash out at one time (ATM won't give that much) when our wonderful credit union is not nearby and is not open during the hours we can get there :(
Firstly, I think it's hard to disagree with the argument running through this thread - namely, that there is a large market out there, so you are free to find a photographer that suits your budget and expectations for product. Once engaged in a contract with that professional, you are obliged to honour it; anything else is not merely illegal, but immoral.
I'm posting to talk about a specific issue, though; I'm a semi-pro who shoots about 10-15 weddings a year. I have shot portrait sessions before, but I found the fight against the established model to be too hard to overcome. With weddings, I charge an upfront fee, then am happy to sell the negatives or charge an extremely reasonable fee for reprints - the cost of printing plus a nominal markup to cover the costs of the extra time, but no more than a few percent. As far as I am concerned, the customer has a clear choice - employ me at a reasonable rate to take care of their printing needs (which affords me a small profit commensurate with the effort), or buy the digital files from me, whereby I put a reasonable price on the product, of which the customer is fully aware before engaging my services.
I have attempted to apply this logic, which appears reasonable to me, to portrait photography, i.e. charging a higher fee for my time and expertise for the session, and then providing printing services for a price close to cost. However, I repeatedly found that people balked at my proposed fee; the market has evolved so that the customer, under these circumstances, expected a low cost, or even free, sitting, then for the photographer, or studio, to recover costs and make profits on the prints, the prices of which are frequently opaque before the sitting. As a result, people perceived my prives as being extrotionate, despite the fact the total cost of the package would be many hundreds of pounds less than if they walked into Olan Mills, or any other photo-by-numbers high street chain. I found that I was unwilling to follow the market model, as I have no interest in upselling something after I've promised something else. Therefore, I have dropped out of that particular market to let me concentrate on what I consider to be a more honest way of doing business.
So, in response - the model is there, and consumers are more than free to test it and find a reasonable alternative - photographers will come round to whatever is sustainable according to what the market dictates, or stop if they can't stomach either the change or the existing practice. Do some research, and in a market of so many providers, you're sure to find someone that meets your needs. Just do the right thing and honour the contract that you sign.
I agree that it's not really fair to delete the original article but leave the comments. While it is definitely stealing when clients scan professional prints only to make their own, I do think there have been very valid points made throughout this discussion from both sides of the argument.
I meant to say the same thing about high session fees and just charging for everything upfront. While that sounds like a great idea in theory, it is not necessarily the most successful business model either. People do not really want to pay us for our time. They want something tangible for their money, and I can absolutely understand this point of view.
But I personally hate preset photo packages. They always contain sizes I don't want in quantities I can't use. So that's why I prefer to bundle a print credit with my session fee. I am not opposed to selling digital files, but it won't be for some of the reasons mentioned in this discussion.
Yes, clients have Photoshop Elements or other photo editing products. But that doesn't mean they actually know how to use them and use them well. I spend a lot of time on my photos, and I would hate to see someone play around with one of my files in Photoshop and then slap it up on MySpace. It's no longer my work, is it? That's why I still love being able to provide my clients with high quality professional prints.
And again, I keep seeing the argument that clients should be able to do whatever they want with photos. Well you can if you take the pictures yourselves, right? Like I said before, there is obviously still a need for professional photographers or this discussion would be moot.
I think most of us would be willing to negotiate things with our clients, but it needs to be a two-way street, folks.
well the lady in the story admitted she paid $600 with prints...I'm not saying it's going to be easy to have a business model- if it was, everybody would be in business, but one thing i've learned in my line of work, people like to get packages so you could say something like "with this package, If you order this many prints from me at this cost, I'll include a CD that has the originals in it also. If you just want prints, it's $xx per picture ". Offering them the CD at least gives many of the ones who were thinking of scanning the pictures to think twice and want the higher quality originals.
Anthony,
You sound like a very smart kid. Please forgive me if you're a 42-year-old returning-to-school sorta guy, but you do sound like a 'kid' to someone like me who is right around 40. I'm a psychologist who typically deals with people who are in a world of mess because they aren't being smart with their money and have worked themselves into very un-workable conditions. Keep up the great work!
There lies the misconception. In order to be paid for my time, including the consultation, customer service, and day of a portrait session plus the post-processing hours after the session, I would have to charge $500 for a session to eek out a living with zero print sales.
How many people are willing to pay $500 for a portrait session with unedited digital files as the only product included? Not me. That seems a little tacky.
If I pay that much, I expect to have a beautifully retouched portrait to hang on my wall.
High session fees drive people to Walmart where there is no session fee. You have to price your sessions in a range that people are willing to pay or risk having no business.
Setting up a business model is not as easy as many of you make it out to be.
Why do you think photographers shouldnt be compensated for their time and talent? They should offer everything at cost without taking into consideration their overhead.
How many other businesses are able to do that? Photographers don't deserve to make a living wage because their job is perceived as "easy"?
I guess I just don't get it. How many of you work 40-60 hours a week for a paycheck that barely pays the bills? If that was the case, wouldnt you find a new job?
To say that photographers don't deserve to make a living like everyone else is mind-blowing.
"car insurance, renter's insurance, tax payments, my annual fitness center membership, car maintenance, shoes, coats, clothes, vet bills, and vacations"
When you are attempting to deal with irregular but expected bills, I find starting a freedom fund to be most helpful. There is no reason to be caught in the lurch dealing with an annual bill that you knew was coming.
It basically works like this. You take your bills that are not monthly and add them up. You should be able to estimate what your annual car insurance, renter's insurance, fitness center membership, life insurance, etc. costs are.
Now divide that by 12. That is the monthly deposit required to fund your freedom fund. It takes a few months to get this going but it is well worth the effort as you no longer have to plan having enough cash for some huge bill that creeps up once a year. The nice thing is that it is a rolling fund. Money comes in at a regular pace every month and it goes out when the bills arrive. The goal is not to save up the 12 month number, the goal is to just put in the monthly amount and the account takes care of itself.
Anything you can estimate an annual cost for can be added to the freedom fund. Car maintenance, vet bills, clothes budget, etc. I include car maintenance in mine but not my clothes budget.
And please note, this is *NOT* an emergency fund (although you could raid it if your situation is dire). It is not meant to handle unexpected costs, only things you expect to spend in a given year. So if you have auto maintenance included, you can pay for your oil change with it, but you should probably use your separate E-Fund to pay for the new transmission (because who saw that coming?!).
By leveling your irregular bills to a set monthly charge, you simplify things because you don't need to worry about where the money will come from to pay the real estate taxes next month. The money will be there. And with more regular expenses, you can budget around them more easily.
I agree with Erica. People feel cheated if they already thought they've paid for the photographer's time and find out he's really making his money off prints instead. Whether they actually paid for the photographer's time is a different story but this shows how flawed this business model is.
On the other hand, if the photographer charges enough for their time and gives them the digital negatives with the advice that "You can take these to Target to get printed if you want, you've already paid me for my time, but if you let me print them they will cost a little more but be printed on high quality paper/booklet/frame and cropped and adjusted correctly", chances are the customer is going to at least get the more expensive larger prints from you because they know they can't do a good enough job themselves.
You get paid and they get what they want. Why is that so hard? What is this obession with taking negatives to the grave with you?
Here's what you should do if you feel guilty about stealing from a photographer - Get out your camera and take pictures yourself. Then you will be the owner of the digital negatives/files and can print them and share them however you see fit.
Or why not buy a painting from someone and then have it reprinted on canvas and give it away for free to your friends and family so that the artist only makes money off of the canvas they sold to you.
It's stealing.
I am so thoroughly disappointed in Wise Bread for pulling this post. Thankfully, I got to read it in my news reader before it was pulled, but others might not be so lucky. Leaving the comments vilifying the author up without the actual text is tacky, for one. The variety of comments illustrates that whether it is in fact right or wrong to do what the author did, there is a dialog between photographers and those who employ their services that is not happening.
I don't think you could call me a professional photographer, but I think you could call me a photographer. I've done a handful of portrait sittings, a wedding, and a smattering of other work for paying clients. I find the nominal-fee-for-sitting plus hugely-inflated-fees-for-prints model to be distasteful, because it feels dishonest: it's like telling my clients that the real value of my work is in the piece of paper, and not in the composition on it. Because of this, when contracted I charge for my time - during consultation, shooting, editing, and any package preparation. If there are concrete products (prints, DVDs, etc.) I charge for materials at a competitive rate. Then, at the end, I provide the finalized digital files. That's what they're buying. The images. And I feel that's honest. I feel that's a business model that's more appropriate, particularly given the low cost of reproduction these days.
Ultimately, though, I'm not upset because I agree with the author. I'm upset because redaction is for newspapers. This is the internet. If you believe that you're wrong, somehow, make a visible edit or addendum. Making the post just disappear is bad net-business.
Bring the post back. Leave the replacement text as an edit. If it's appropriate and genuine on the part of the author, she can apologize; if not, a statement indicating support for her original statements would be appropriate. If she's made any sort of arrangement with the photographer to compensate for the duplicated prints in order to comply with law, that would be appropriate to mention as well.
Let the conversation continue. Please.
Linh,
To your first point, I have no problem with people doing things they believe will help the planet. My OPINION was that the unhealthy option of using personal items at public places did not outweigh the utilization of a clean paper cup, the elimination of which would not save the world.
To your second point, a non sequitur to be sure, I have no problem with fighting a war for oil, for land, or simply to live the way I want to live. I would fight for the right to go to church and the right not to, and I would definitely fight for my family’s safety and well-being. American men and women are dying today for many of these very reasons and your attempt to trivialize their sacrifice simply to score a political point is very sad, indeed.
And to your final point, or more accurately, I guess it was mine, Environmentalism is a religion. Believers attest to things that are not proven, based on faith, using science speculatively to support their belief system and proselytize to others. Finally, eternal doom and death to all living things is predicted if we do not alter significantly our current way of life. Those that refuse to do so are treated as stupid, out of touch or as you put it, “in denial”.
I don’t think we should waste things. I think we should be good stewards of what we own or borrow. But if it’s okay with you, I’ll take my coffee in a nice clean paper cup and then toss it in the trash when I’m through.
Ron
I wouldn't torture a vet by having them call O'Reilley. But thanks for the link to National Coalition for Homeless Veterans info.
Go-to customers. Um yeah. Strip club clients and photography clients are not even in the same ballpark. I wonder how many of my clients I could convince to pay for professional portraits every week or even every month. Not very likely.
The people who hire us don't have the time to make their own photography products. If they do have free time, they don't want to sit and crop prints and design albums with it. They come to us because they have the luxury of being able to afford to pay others to make those products for them.
If you prefer to diy, more power to you. If you don't like the prices of professionals, please diy or go to Sears studios where you can get print prices that make sense to you.
If you don't value photography, it's simple. Don't hire the photographer who charges more than you're willing to pay for their work.
It is unethical to hire an expensive photographer only to steal from them.
Go-to customers. Um yeah. Strip club clients and photography clients are not even in the same ballpark. I wonder how many of my clients I could convince to pay for professional portraits every week or even every month. Not very likely.
The people who hire us don't have the time to make their own photography products. If they do have free time, they don't want to sit and crop prints and design albums with it. They come to us because they have the luxury of being able to afford to pay others to make those products for them.
If you prefer to diy, more power to you. If you don't like the prices of professionals, please diy or go to Sears studios where you can get print prices that make sense to you.
If you don't value photography, it's simple. Don't hire the photographer who charges more than you're willing to pay for their work.
It is unethical to hire an expensive photographer only to steal from them.