PHOTO LIFE

Sunday, March 8, 2009

The Sad Truth

Photography jobs are taken less seriously and the pay reflects. As a photographer I am often asked from people that I hardly know if I will do some photos for them for free, or for trade.

Trade how can you determine what it's worth to you if you don't need it. You need my service but I don't need yours, sorry. This is the joys of being a photographer. Always always always being hit up for free work.

If it's not free then it's demeaning the amount they want to pay you. They want gold for the price of shit. Maybe I'm being to harsh. The sad truth of it all is that I can find a job (not a career but a p.o.s. job) that will pay more and requires less.

You maybe thinking that this is because of the recession. No, this has being going on for years now, and not just where I currently live. There is no standard for this profession. I've seen wedding photographers from as cheap as $500 to as cheap as $1200. Not only is there no standard for price but there is no standard for quality.

I used to work at a photo lab, and an older gentleman came in getting some digital prints. He told me that he did product photography. He showed me the photos of the products he was shooting and I was shocked. They were shit on a stick. I couldn't believe what I saw. He told me that he just picked up the camera and recently became a photographer. He was using a point and shoot camera, and said that he can get fantastic images from this camera then any proffesional camera. (Fine if you have an eye you can make the best out of any camera, but the quality of the image and pixels it shoots does not compare.)

This is just an example of the fall of quality in photography. The industry is accepting less quality.

I could be being too harsh, you tell me.

Maybe I'm wrong, but just maybe, it could be a scary, I'm right.