Woot, paid gig!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)
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  • #2625
    Farktographer
    Participant

    Got my first paid job tomorrow 😀 It’s nothing glamorous at all (some profile photos for my school’s website), but at ?15 an hour, and the fact I’ll be shooting…well, I’ll only be shooting for about an hour, so I’ll only make ?15, but STILL, first paid gig! I think it’s a brief test in part, because they hinted that there could be more…artistic…work that I might be allowed to get into later.

    #45687
    ravnostic
    Participant

    Congrats! Do post something here from the set!!

    //a gig is a gig. Almost had one of those, once!

    #45688
    Farktographer
    Participant

    The “set” will be my portable umbrella system and a blank wall (once I tear down some posters) in one of the lecture theatres, but I’ll still post a photo anyways 😉

    #45689
    Curious
    Participant

    hey paid work is paid work and builds the portfolio and resume.

    #45682
    Farktographer
    Participant

    Okay, for those who have any experience with this, I need some suggestions. The work was agreed as an hourly rate, but no more specifics than that. I ended up being at the site across two days for a total of about 5 hours. Additionally, I put in 2 hours of edits. Based on experience, are fees figured only on shooting time, or also on the processing side? Obviously I want to get the most out of this, but since it’s my university and my first gig, I want to make a good impression (hey, look, cheap labour!) to keep getting brought back in.

    #45685
    chupathingie
    Participant

    w00t, indeed! Congrats! 🙂

    #45684
    CauseISaidSo
    Participant

    … (hey, look, cheap labour!) …

    We’re too late. They’ve already got to him. 🙁 Damn England and their overabundance of u’s! 😉

    #45683
    Farktographer
    Participant

    …and absolute lack of z’s! I’ll never call aluminum by the “proper” aluminium they’re trying to get me to. Nevar!

    #45691
    Farktographer
    Participant

    Sooooooo….back to the question I asked earlier, if anyone might be so kind as to input their opinion – when being paid by the hour, do you consider it by hour of shooting, or by hour of work (shooting + processing)? Trying to figure out how to bill the university…

    Rav, here’s some shots from a couple different gigs:

    The first one wanted plain (BORING!) white background passport-style photos of people. I did get a chance to use my umbrella flash setup, though:

    These are the types of photos that will end up in brochures for incoming students:

    Afterwards was some fun though – a series of shots aimed specifically at people coming into the school of chemistry:

    Now, for an entirely DIFFERENT series, this was from a group of staff a website wanted photographed. They specified, “light, airy, casual style photographs” so I tried the best I could for them. I like this style more than the others (I got to choose the backgrounds in the building and got them more posed to fit their facial features and lighting – the passport-styles are so boring compared to these).

    I took the time to get these people relaxed, chatting with each of them a bit before shooting them and trying to make them laugh. I *hope* I made a good impression.

    An example of me playing with the pose (took a surprising amount of courage to tell someone what to do, pretending like I knew what I was talking about). I wasn’t liking how the light hit her face, and I wanted to have a more relaxed look, so instead of her looking straight into the camera, I told her to angle her chin down and to the side a bit. I like how this turned out much more than the photos leading up to it when she was looking straight-on.

    Similarly with this guy, I played with his posing. He’s the head of the branch and one of the founders, so I wanted something a bit more bold and in charge, so I had him tilt his chin up ever so slightly to give a more dominant jawline, and had him face slightly away from the lighting to light up more of his face.

    This woman was extremely shy and it took her a while to even smile. Also the only shot I had to touch up with photoshop – there was a strand of hair coming across her face that I lopped off.

    Finally, the standard group shot:

    Any suggestions/criticisms warmly welcomed!

    #45692
    ravnostic
    Participant

    I love the casual portraiture! Everyone looks natural and approachable.

    You’re so lucky; I keep having people who *swear* they want pictures, then after they get me excited about taking them, back out or avoid me. Still hoping that’s not a comment on my photography, but it sure is disappointing.

    #45693
    ennuipoet
    Participant

    Billing: I have a simple ratio for that based on who and what I am asked to do. I take my hourly salary at my “real” job, double it and add $10, I always bill a minimum of four hours even if the shoot is short. (For shoots under four hours, I don’t charge “darkroom” time, for longer shoots I charge 1/2 the total time for processing. ) I have a day rate which is usually 25 to 50 less than a full eight hours of the hourly rate plus two hours of dark room time. While I’ve only used this formula for a few short shoots, I find it gives me a solid working number to estimate costs with and it is easily explainable when someone asked how I come up with number. It also makes coming up with solid numbers for a contract easy. If I were a full time pro, it also makes tax calculation simple.

    I always do an estimate and a contract (always meaning the two times I’ve done this) for the shoot, you can find them online and personalize them easily. I have the client sign the estimate when they book and the contract in the day of the shoot. If you are traveling, I include transportation in the estimate and put it in the shoot contract. (This has never been an issue for me…yet).

    If your client wants prints, decide on a price up front and create an estimate for the print costs with your original estimate…I actually do an estimate for a few simple package prices for prints (I use a formula based on the price of the Ink Jet Paper for size and number of prints, I then factor 1/2 of a full replacement of my printer ink plus my hourly rate, then I knock off whatever feels right for the size of the job as this can quickly become a significant number money wise. For large format prints that I need to send to the lab, I take the print cost and shipping, double it and add my hourly rate, usually one to two hours. I NEVER offer the client the ability to print directly from my online printer. Sorry, Charlie, I own the print and I am in control of the printing. DVD’s of low res images are usually chipped in free with a watermark.

    On the pic side, nice job on the mix between flash and natural light! It’s tough to do that!

    /I know TLDR 😀

    #45690
    fluffybunny
    Participant

    /I know TLDR 😀

    Quite the opposite, I printed this as a PDF for future reference. Thank you for sharing.

    #45686
    Farktographer
    Participant

    /I know TLDR 😀

    Quite the opposite, I printed this as a PDF for future reference. Thank you for sharing.

    Ditto! Well, not literally – bookmarked it though for future reference. Thanks for sharing a good billing system 🙂

    #45694
    Yoyo
    Participant

    Love the bokeh on the redhead in blue.

    #45695
    ravnostic
    Participant

    /I know TLDR 😀

    Quite the opposite, I printed this as a PDF for future reference. Thank you for sharing.

    Ditto! Well, not literally – bookmarked it though for future reference. Thanks for sharing a good billing system 🙂

    Joining in on the chorus! Egg-cell-ent!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 18 total)
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