chez wrote:
Not to mention under cutting each other to get the work.
If the professional has to worry about some armature competition...good luck buddy.
It's far worse than that, many commercial shooters are being undercut by amateurs trying to get their foot in the door. Every working pro has to deal with this. Many won't charge a licensing fee, are inexperienced and don't have nearly the equipment they need for the job at hand. As an example, I had a location shoot a few weeks ago that required 8 heads, 4 packs and tons of flags and scrims. This wasn't something that was just put it up and shoot, the lighting took 5 hours to set up and get fine tuned. The image looks spectacular, but how many amateurs are going to go that route? How many have enough equipment to pull it off?
Sadly, in this day and age, many customers looking to cut cost will go the cheapest route. I lose a few customers a year to lowballers, some come back, some don't. I certainly don't "give away" any work, in fact I'm on the high side of pricing for the area. I have extensive experience in lighting anything from small tabletop work to semis and have earned the right to charge for my experience.
Erie Patsellis wrote:
The image looks spectacular, but how many amateurs are going to go that route? How many have enough equipment to pull it off?
Zero amateurs have that equipment or knowledge, which is why I don't understand why you are worried. If you are having trouble finding more work that expects that level of expertise, it's probably more due to the economy being weak and advertising budgets being slashed rather than some dude who kinda knows how to use his Canon 50D.
Erie Patsellis wrote:
It's far worse than that, many commercial shooters are being undercut by amateurs trying to get their foot in the door. Every working pro has to deal with this. Many won't charge a licensing fee, are inexperienced and don't have nearly the equipment they need for the job at hand. As an example, I had a location shoot a few weeks ago that required 8 heads, 4 packs and tons of flags and scrims. This wasn't something that was just put it up and shoot, the lighting took 5 hours to set up and get fine tuned. The image looks spectacular, but how many amateurs are going to go that route? How many have enough equipment to pull it off?
Sadly, in this day and age, many customers looking to cut cost will go the cheapest route. I lose a few customers a year to lowballers, some come back, some don't. I certainly don't "give away" any work, in fact I'm on the high side of pricing for the area. I have extensive experience in lighting anything from small tabletop work to semis and have earned the right to charge for my experience.
TTLKurtis wrote:
Well you're going to have to SHOW US the results of all your work... I mean, c'mon.
No, he doesn't have to show *us* his work. Clients can examine his past results and can interview him about his expertise and experience. The sad thing is how many potential clients don't know the value of professional work and don't even seek it.
There have always been plenty of people who look for the lowest price beyond any other factors. This may be more of a problem in the photography business recently than it used to be, but making clients aware of the value of what you do is always a challenge.
Reading forum posts by "professional" photographers, I sometimes wonder if some of them don't think the definition of "amateur" is anyone who charges less than they do...
My idea of a professional is someone who doesn't have the time to spend all day surfing photo forums.
Photon wrote:
No, he doesn't have to show *us* his work. Clients can examine his past results and can interview him about his expertise and experience. The sad thing is how many potential clients don't know the value of professional work and don't even seek it.
There have always been plenty of people who look for the lowest price beyond any other factors. This may be more of a problem in the photography business recently than it used to be, but making clients aware of the value of what you do is always a challenge.
It is up to the photographer to show the client their value over the competition. If the photographer cannot do that...don't blame the low baller...blame yourself.
What are you guys talking about? I'm just saying I WANT TO SEE IT lol. Not because I think he sucks or I want him to prove himself, I'm just freaking curious to see what this 5 hour setup shot looks like, jesus lol.
If you are lighting something that takes 5 hours I kinda doubt an 'amateur' could or would have done it. The question is , does the client care or know the difference between your spectacular shot and the amateur's shot? You may be over-producing for that particular client. I mean my dog would eat a steak if I gave it to him but he's also happy eating dog food. I have always thought that if you're losing jobs to amateurs its time to upgrade to new and better clients, upgrade your work so the better clients will hire you. The economy sucks and the middle ground of the photo biz is a lot smaller than only 5 years ago. The lower end has always been attractive to the many new photographers it's just that there seems to be a lot more of them these days.
The clients are all looking for a bargain too. Getting something is more important than getting something done well.
For many clients "good enough" has taken over.
Micky Bill wrote:
If you are lighting something that takes 5 hours I kinda doubt an 'amateur' could or would have done it. The question is , does the client care or know the difference between your spectacular shot and the amateur's shot? You may be over-producing for that particular client. I mean my dog would eat a steak if I gave it to him but he's also happy eating dog food. I have always thought that if you're losing jobs to amateurs its time to upgrade to new and better clients, upgrade your work so the better clients will hire you. The economy sucks and the middle ground of the photo biz is a lot smaller than only 5 years ago. The lower end has always been attractive to the many new photographers it's just that there seems to be a lot more of them these days.
The clients are all looking for a bargain too. Getting something is more important than getting something done well.
For many clients "good enough" has taken over....Show more →
In this particular case, definately not over produced. This particular product is a new composite artificial granite/recycled glass material fabricated into a 6' wide prefabricated shower enclosure (with glass doors installed).
There was a combination of soft overall light, using a 8'x14' lightbank I use for onsite work of larger objects.(similar to Chimera F2 lightbanks, but of our own construction) Specular light was also needed to bring out the glass "bits". This was shot on location, in a warehouse, with both a scan back and 8x10 chrome (at the designer's insistence, was kind of nice for a change) for a double truck ad in a national trade publication and for use in their promotional brochures. Getting 90% of the way there was fairly easy, it was the extra 10% that took a few hours. (I was happy after setting the specular lights, the AD insisted we keep going, until he got the look he had in his head. He signs the approval form and it's his call, I booked an entire day regardless) As soon as we were done and had a processed chrome in hand, the item was crated and put on a truck for delivery.
This AD and I have worked together on many similar projects of this type in the past, and I have been involved with this project since the conceptualization phase, so I knew exactly what was needed going in. While on the low end, there's always some work lost, at the upper end, where I prefer to work, I have no concerns about amateurs taking any work away. 20 years ago, it was the tabletop work that paid the bills and the bigger work that was what you looked forward to. Now the tabletop work is so underbid, it's hard to even recoup production costs, much less profit. Yes, I still quote them, but don't get nearly what I did years ago, in quantity or price.
What I meant was over-produced for a particular client for example giving them a $10 shot when they wanted and expected a $2 shot. Not everyone wants a $10 shot. (insert your price). In your previous post you mentioned amateurs getting work from photographers but the example used is not a job an amateur would be doing so I guess I agree with you...
FYI your WWW link goes to a realestate placeholder site...
Yes, damn squatters...fyi, never let your domain registration expire, I'm working on a different website/domain name and should have my sig updated w/in a few weeks.
Getting back to the OP...........this thing's been around for some time now and while it's somewhat entertaining it doesn't set a good example for professional behavior. Ridiculing and cursing potential business contacts vs taking a moment to discuss things politely is a good way to alienate yourself from people who can pay you. If you do a little reading on the guy it looks like he is doing just that.
It gets to a point to where it doesn't matter how much talent you have, if you are a flaming A-hole people will stop calling you. Pompous asses are not in short supply nor high demand
snaptie2002 wrote:
Getting back to the OP...........this thing's been around for some time now and while it's somewhat entertaining it doesn't set a good example for professional behavior. Ridiculing and cursing potential business contacts vs taking a moment to discuss things politely is a good way to alienate yourself from people who can pay you. If you do a little reading on the guy it looks like he is doing just that.
It gets to a point to where it doesn't matter how much talent you have, if you are a flaming A-hole people will stop calling you. Pompous asses are not in short supply nor high demand
TTLKurtis wrote:
What are you guys talking about? I'm just saying I WANT TO SEE IT lol. Not because I think he sucks or I want him to prove himself, I'm just freaking curious to see what this 5 hour setup shot looks like, jesus lol.
The mood can grow a little bit tense in the Pro forum sometimes ...
Marty Bingham wrote:
Getting back to the OP...........this thing's been around for some time now and while it's somewhat entertaining it doesn't set a good example for professional behavior. Ridiculing and cursing potential business contacts vs taking a moment to discuss things politely is a good way to alienate yourself from people who can pay you. If you do a little reading on the guy it looks like he is doing just that.
It gets to a point to where it doesn't matter how much talent you have, if you are a flaming A-hole people will stop calling you. Pompous asses are not in short supply nor high demand
, Ellison has been a "pompous ass" for about 50 years, and it doesn't seem to have harmed either his bank account or his job prospects in all that time.
This video has to be comprehended in the proper context.
Ellison's rant isn't about amateurs at all. It's about major corporations thinking they have the right to take unfair advantage of everyone because would-be professionals allow it. In this case, a major commercial production company expected him--an extremely well-respected writer who has been at the top of his genre for decades--to work "for exposure."
The irony is that they want him for the project because of his name recognition...he doesn't need them, they need him. He recognizes that he would be the only person on the project not being paid--the cameraman is getting paid, the executives are getting paid, the stockholders are getting paid, even the coffee boy is getting paid.
These major corporations feel they can stiff the writer because so many would-be professional writers have been willing to allow major corporations to profit on their give-away labor. So he's angry, and justifiably so.
