shatterkiss
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 p.2 #13 · Video dSLRs & Event Photography | |
Mike Mahoney wrote:
Sorry mate, but I'm 100% right .. based on the clips I've seen so far they are more than adequate for my purpose. Which is short clips of selected parts of a wedding such as the recessional, etc.
Hey, I hope you're right if it's something you're planning on investing in. It's something I'd be pleased to be wrong about, as that'd mean it might be valuable in my own business. But my experience simply says otherwise.
And for once can you make a simple comment without hauling out the resume
I believe in qualified comments and advice. FM and every similar online forum is full of armchair quarterbacking - folks giving authoritative advice without anything to back it up. I prefer to know the context for advice I listen to and will give it to qualify my own comments. If someone walks up to you on the street and gives you advice without context or qualification, do you lend it the same weight that you do a source that's not anonymous and has earned some sort of credibility with you? Doesn't every "expert advice" column in a magazine give its author's credentials to prove that he/she has earned credibility? It's not ego - I'm the first to say that there are far, far more experienced and successful folks on FM. I've sat down to meals with some of them and consider myself firmly in their fan clubs.
.. here you have 17 years experience as a videographer, on another current thread (now an argument) on computers you claim to have countless years experience in the IT field.
Yes. Don't believe in cross-training, or jack-of-all-trades? I'm 34 years old, will be 35 in two months. I started college at 16 and paid for much of it by working as a camera operator for television and a PA and 2nd AC for film and television. In my last two years of school I was in classes 3 days/week while shooting for PBS, Bravo and documentaries or being a grunt PA the other 4 days. I started to split my time with still photography, mostly for the music industry, when I was 22 but I continued to work in television at the same time for another couple of years as it was more lucrative. I started producing and directing broadcast events for the music industry a few years later, but had a lot of trouble making ends meet in NYC on purely freelance income. I spent most of '98-'01 working in technology for a couple of dot-com creative agencies, notably servicing Ford Motor Company in both the US and the UK, as the lure of steady income was appealing at the time. I continued to freelance as a still photographer throughout that and was also the video expert at the agencies, working on accounts for Ford and the US Open/IBM, among others. After 9/11 I went back to the media world exclusively, producing/directing broadcast events around the world as well as shooting event stills, corporate exec portraiture, actor headshots, model portfolios, fashion lookbooks, whatever else came my way. That's continued to be the case until now.
Not to mention the continual references to your studios revenue, supposedly in the many hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I'm set to end 2008 with a gross revenue of between $320,000 and ~$400,000, depending on whether certain contracts come through before the end of the fiscal year or not. That's really not that much money, all said and done. Do those numbers seem strange to you? Like I said, there are folks on FM making a lot more than that and with much higher levels of profitability. I'm probably netting $160k on the above, which is barely enough to support a family on in NYC. Our health insurance alone is over $15,000/year. You may feel it's gauche to be explicit about money, and I have mixed feelings about it myself. If you look at the PDN "50 States" annual issue you'll see that maybe half the photographers choose to not answer the question about their gross billings or rates. I guess I fall on the other half.
And I'm not a "studio". I'm one guy who is incorporated as a production company and employs a couple other people for maybe 3 months of the year and hires freelancers or subs out work on a regular basis. When I'm not on the road working for clients I'm sitting at a crappy little Ikea desk 20' from my bedroom, like I am now. Having grosses in the hundreds of thousands really doesn't mean anything - as a business owner you should understand that. It's all about the net.
We get the point .. Shatterkiss is a big, big, playa across many different disciplines therefore his opinion is worth more.
That's not the case at all. I am pretty experienced and have learned a lot in the time I've spent working for several different industries. Working on both sides of the client/vendor equation, as well as both within agencies and servicing them, has given me some really valuable insights. I also do my best to read trade publications and attend professional workshops when I can, which I don't understand why more folks in this forum don't take advantage of. But I'm not a big player - I'm just keeping my head above water in a very, very competitive and difficult business.
Do I feel like my opinion is worth more than yours in an area where I have quite a bit of experience and you have very little? Yes, I do. I assume that you think your accountant's opinion is worth more than yours when it comes to finance and your lawyer's is worth more than yours when it comes to legal matters. We all know experience matters. I really don't understand what issue you take with that.
I used to respect your opinion around here quite a bit, but lately your bias is showing. Badly.
I'd like to know what bias you feel that is? We've all got our biases (I think mayonnaise is vile, for instance, and think professional sports are the opiate of the masses) but I've always felt my advice on FM was fairly even-handed. It's been a source of personal pride thinking that I've been able to provide valuable information or perspective to folks on FM. If that isn't the case, I'd like to know.
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