Still don’t understand how photographers are doing this

Emma Jayne said

I find it funny how the OP is complaining about apparently 'inexperienced' people making money from modelling/photography, yet I can see he's recently put out a TF casting looking for experienced models to help him rebuild his portfolio.

So let me get this straight, you don't think people should be making money so early on in the game, yet you think its acceptable to expect experienced models to work for free to help you achieve a better portfolio? Bearing in mind you currently only have 6 positive refs and a very limited portfolio. It goes without saying, you should be offering money for the casting. 

On the rare occasion I shoot TF, I look for photographers with similar experience levels to myself. If you're looking for a TF model, I'd say you should be looking to work with newbie/amateur models as in my view, that would reflect the current status of your portfolio. 

Not quite, also casting for a photographer to collaborate for free on shoots to teach him how to do it...... so he can charge others and create an income.

Your comment in bold, suggesting working with newer/amateur models..... IMHO Those models need to find a top photographer to collaborate with or they're going nowhere, and costing them time and travel costs too.

Alan Ewart said

Hi Raphael, 

You are right, this is an interesting topic and you have made some interesting observations.

I am a full-time photographer and make my living from photography.  To make a living I don't think that you have to do the things you suggest.  I certainly don't kiss anyone's ass and have never bought  social media followers (indeed I don't make much use of social media.) I can't even remember when I last posted on Instagram, when I did it was probably a phone snapshot of my local area when I was out walking my dogs.

What is really needed to become a full-time photographer is a lot of hard work, networking, advertising, and chasing down leads.  To be fair, I also invested in myself.  I completed a few photography courses at my then local university and went on to study full-time for a Master's Degree in commercial photography.  I joined the Royal Photographic Society as my Master's degree entitled me to be an associate of the RPS.  

One huge benefit of my studies was that they gave me access to successful commercial photographers, publishers, gallery curators, mentors, and photographer's agents.  These people have been very generous with their time, advice, and assistance.  I also spent some time as an assisting photographer with some high-profile photographers.  

PP is a place to have fun, it is not a place for photographers to find clients.  My most recent commercial job was with an international food company, they wanted industrial photographs of an updated processing facility and of staff working there, unsurprisingly they didn't find me through Purpleport.  

The point I am trying to make is that you need to identify your market and then ensure that people in that market know that you exist and what you can provide at a price they are willing to pay.  It really is that simple, but many of those who want to make a living with their camera seem not to understand the market, even when it is pointed out to them time and time again.

Strongly agree with the bits in bold. If you are a small service business of any kind, a lot of it is the networking and chasing leads - the work rarely lands in your lap, and when it does that's the result of work you've done in the past. One of the reasons I didn't start a photography business when I had a generous redundancy cheque was I knew that I don't really like networking, or the "sales" part of any job - so photography was one of many short-gig businesses where I would fail. 

When you are the business, investing in yourself is investing in the business, and as much being in business as a photographer might make you think you need to learn more photography, actually things that help with the how-to-be-in-business side probably matter more. Getting that as a by-product of studying photography sounds like a win-win. 

Identify the market, ensure people find their way to you, and that the product and price are what they want - it sounds simple (they're the core questions in my simple business plan) and yet there are small businesses failing all the time because the founder didn't do them. 

I am starting to think this guy is actually just a troll.

He has started many threads asking for help and has received a lot of good, solid advice.
He appears to ignore it all and just comes back with more naive questions.

He has blocked me (for trying to help him!) so I can not see if he is improving what was a pretty uninspiring folio.
Perhaps he considered those comments as unasked for criticism, though how we could offer the advice he asked for without so doing, is beyond me.

MidgePhoto said

80% of many things is business, 20% is the craft/art.

 

Which I think sums up most of the discussions above about starting or running a photographic business?

RaphaelPhoto said

This is an interesting topic and to be honest I also wondered many times how some photographers manage to make a living of that, I am not talking specifically about PP here.
For me, portrait photography is a hobby and I never thought of it as a business opportunity.
Sure, I could you use some additional money to realise my dream, which is to buy a nice cosy property in the centre of Edinburgh… But I digress.
The fact is that some togs manage to live exclusively of that. Take a photographer like Sagaj for instance (you can find him on Instagram), apart from the fact that all his models, at least the ones he features, are teenagers who are all exceptionally gifted look-wise, I personally find that his work is nothing special if not very uninspired and repetitive, in my opinion he’s even processing it too much to the point where his models look like dolls and not human beings, it’s really too much, one could argue that it’s exactly what women want to look like nowadays and that he’s selling what the buyer wants… But I digress again.
So this guy is travelling the world, posting where he will be at which date and telling people to contact him for work If interested (and I can only assume that his rates are not low).
Thing is, people are obviously queuing to pay for his work… And, talking with models in my area, to some extent the same happens here as well. Then you look at that specific tog’s work and you’re not impressed.
Anyway, my point is, it’s obviously not only the quality of work that comes into play here. I see some tog works around that are inspired, of great quality and technic but also very emotional and original but they could never do what this guy does. Speaking of myself, the best compliment about my work I ever received is to have models whom main purpose is not to make money to ask to work with me again. I received a few (and I insist on “a few” here) proposals to work TF but that’s about it. I’ve been doing that for five years now and it never happened that someone proposed to retribute me for my work, not even once. Again, I don’t care, but in the light of that, it’s clear that the togs on here who think they will make a living from that are delusional at best, at least in my opinion.
So, to get back to the main topic. What is really needed to become a full-time portrait photographer? Kissing asses around, buying followers so people think you’re popular, changing your artist name to something more fancy? Shooting popular people so more people see your work and they think they will become popular too?
What are your thoughts about that?

I'd consider his work to be of a very high standard and he does workshops which probably makes up a lot of his income. Jason Lanier does workshops and is also an ambassador for Sony and rotolight, yet his portfolio is nowhere near as good Sagaj's. I think the images lit with those rotolights look horrible, but he has made a great career for himself despite having substandard work.

Gothic Image said

MidgePhoto said

80% of many things is business, 20% is the craft/art.

 

Which I think sums up most of the discussions above about starting or running a photographic business?

Indeed.

Also, contractors or whatever photographers are are often selected on the priorities in order of

Availability, affability, ability.

It presupposes some minimum level of each.

Dave McDermott said

RaphaelPhoto said

This is an interesting topi..........

I'd consider his work to be of a very high standard and he does workshops which probably makes up a lot of his income. Jason Lanier does workshops and is also an ambassador for Sony and rotolight, yet his portfolio is nowhere near as good Sagaj's. I think the images lit with those rotolights look horrible, but he has made a great career for himself despite having substandard work.

The trouble with statements like that is that art is subjective, one person's substandard is another's perfection, photography would be a very dull world if we all shot to exactly the same template/tastes...

Fortunately as a hobbyist I don't have to shoot to anyone's standards but my own. 

I still get offers of payment by models and I would say I'm an average photographer. Haven't shot in nearly 2 years and was messaged last week! go figure?

MidgePhoto said

Gothic Image said

MidgePhoto said

80% of many things is business, 20% is the craft/art.

 

Which I think sums up most of the discussions above about starting or running a photographic business?

Indeed.

Also, contractors or whatever photographers are are often selected on the priorities in order of

Availability, affability, ability.

It presupposes some minimum level of each.

The father of my daughter's best friend was a big noise in advertising in Canada.

He summed up the breaking-in problem like this.

"You are up against Bert.
Bert always produces work that is 80% of perfect (where our cut off is 70%).
He has never been late.
He has always arrived in the office by 10.00 on Tuesday morning.
The deadline is 21.00 on Wednesday.
He has never failed to produce.
He has never reinterpreted the brief.
He has never been off brief.
Bert always delivers."

You are capable of producing work that is 90% of perfect.
You intend to be reliable.
You have checks and balances in place to ensure that you will never be late or fail to produce.

NOW PROVE IT, BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF YOU AND WE GET FIVE LIKE YOU IN THE OFFICE EVERY WEEK.

We will continue to use Bert, because we know him and we do not know you.
He comes to our Christmas party and sings for us.

I had a client who imported nuts and dried fruit etc.
I was asked to produce further examples of what he had been using as box top illustrations.
These consisted of a simple close ups of a melange of the product.
Half walnuts, brazil nuts... Fine you can see at a glance what they are.

I shot all the products he asked for. Including some gateux topping. Which was crushed peanuts that had been sugar coated.
Shot in the manner he asked, the product could have been any of 100 different nuts or even a gravel sample from the local quarry.

They looked awful, as I knew they would.
So I also, at my expense, bought in some fancy glass bowls and wine glasses.
Into those I put ice cream onto which I poured coloured sauce and then plenty of gateux topping.

When I took the shots in to give them to the MD, I put my still-life at the bottom of the pile.
He was going through the trannies (5" x 4" E6) and I could see him becoming discomforted as he realised what he had got.
He then got to the last one and went, "Wow... Right I want you to invoice me for everything you have done so far. I will pay that straight away.
Then we will have another meeting and go through the whole of the product list and I want you to photographe every product your way."

Sorry Bert. It CAN happen that way but remember I had already got my feet under the table in being asked to shoot the duff batch.

Jerome Razoir said

MidgePhoto said

Indeed.

Also, contractors or whatever photographers are are often selected on the priorities in order of

Availability, affability, ability.

The father of my daughter's best friend was a big noise in advertising in Canada.

He summed up the breaking-in problem like this.

"You are up against Bert.
Bert always produces work that is 80% of perfect (where our cut off is 70%).
He has never been late.
He has always arrived in the office by 10.00 on Tuesday morning.
The deadline is 21.00 on Wednesday.
He has never failed to produce.
He has never reinterpreted the brief.
He has never been off brief.
Bert always delivers."

<good story snipped>

I keep going back to this from Neil Gaiman

People keep working, in a freelance world

and more and more of today's world is freelance -

because the work is good

and because they're easy to get along with

and because they deliver the work on time.

And you don't even need all three.

Two out of three is fine.

People will tolerate how unpleasant you are

if your work is good and you deliver it on time.

People will forgive the lateness of your work

if it's good and they like you.

And you don't have to be as good as everyone else

if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Zella Whitfield I can assure you I didn’t ignore you. I would of said I don’t pay travel for TFP Shoots. I also only presume a shoot is canceled if a model doesn’t respond to me

Repzee Photography thanks for the message on Instagram 😂 I've actually sent a screenshot back so you can see that you ignored me for over a week, and I therefore had to cancel.

Actually the OP has got quite alot of stick over this post and the other one in the portfolio review for not listening to suggestions and implementing changes but actually this time he has. He's followed a suggestion I made and I think his port looks better for it and he's also put a new casting up looking for experienced models to help him rebuild his portfolio.

None of us are perfect but it does take some guts to ask where you are going wrong on a public forum then implement or try to, some of the advice. I know I couldn't do it.

So you know, fair play to the bloke for doing that, it isn't easy to do.

Zella Whitfield as I’ve stated you cancelled as I wouldn’t pay travel for TFP so felt no need to reply

Sis Benedict thank you bro.

I always get the same advice, I didn’t want to put this on here, but I don’t have financial funds to pay models that’s why I offer TFP. I haven’t stated this before because I didn’t want to get the response “well if you can’t afford it then you shouldn’t be doing it” or “save then” I’m on minimum wage I’m not able to save money.

Every other part of advice I’ve tried maybe it’s worked maybe it hasn’t, I know I need to work on lighting as some of you know I had multiple triggers with my speed light couldn’t get them to work I’ve still got the soft box and stand. I’ve tried working with natural lighting and I prefer flash. With editing I know that needs improving too I do try an improve my editing I try different techniques of editing after every shoot.