And my response:

I’m not sure why Kirk felt he ‘had to try’.

You don’t walk into a restaurant and say to the owner ‘look, I’d like the best meal you have. I can’t pay, but I will tell all my friends about how great it was’.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am open to providing photography services pro bono, however they need to meet the criteria set down in this post I previously wrote, titled Free Photography.

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1. We could be sitting in a cubicle right now processing paperwork….for the rest of our lives.
2. Seeing something that no one else sees.
3. Looking at people for an extremely long amount of time and not having to feel creepy about it.
4. The sound of a shutter…and someone not noticing.
5. Realizing my entire portfolio adds up to about 10 seconds worth of life.

See the complete list of 100 things completely right about our jobs on Chip Litherland’s site.

I first read this list back in 2007. It was gold back then. Today, I think this may be one of my favourite posts ever about being a photographer.

Rock on Chip!

Related Posts:

Photography and Failure

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While I received a number of responses, this one response reproduced below, really stood out:

“Thomas, I want your life.”

This will sound trite, I know, but when you do what you do, day in and day out, you can easily get swept up in just getting on with life and sort of forgetting how amazing your life can be (touch wood).

While it has been tough carving out my space in the ultra-competitive world of photography, I feel incredibly privileged to have the life I have. I could say a lot more, but it would just sound so self serving.

The funny thing, is how relative it all is. Only this morning I was looking at Dave Collyer’s photos from a recent Mentawai Surf Charter trip, thinking ‘man, I want to shoot what you shoot’.

Thanks to the person who sent me that email – it made my week. And thanks to Dave for continued surfing inspiration through his stunning surfing / travel photography from Indonesia.

Links:

Dave Collyer Commercial Photographer

Related Posts

On Honing a Vision

A Five Point Photography Road Map

Photography and Failure

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1. Go, make something happen.

2. Do work you’re proud of.

3. Treat people with respect.

4. Make big promises and keep them.

5. Ship it out the door.

When in doubt, see #1.

Seth Godin’s Simple five step plan for just about everyone and everything.

Translation for photographers’:

1. Decide on what you want to photograph and why.

2. Go and photograph it and do it really well.

3. Don’t be one of those photographers who is hard to deal with. Keep it light and real.

4. A big promise can be to yourself or to a client.

5. Shipping it out the door is imperative. Connect with the right people and get your work in front of them.

When finished, repeat.

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“It’s a matter of self-respect and I think that there’s a distinct risk to allowing something so integral to your own financial solvency to be cast aside because a photographer is afraid of offending the client.”

Matt Slaby / Luceo Images in Legal Left, Meet Creative Right – A Case For Net 30

To people that email me from time-to-time about advice on getting into photography and the like, please take the time to read this excellent post by Matt Slaby at Luceo Images.

If the importance of collecting payment from your clients’ in a timely manner hasn’t sunken in after reading that post, then think of it this way. When a business doesn’t pay you on time, they are effectively using money owed to you (yes, you), to run their business.

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For couples’ coming to Thailand for a destination wedding between the 1st of July and the 15th of November 2010, I am offering a 25% discount off the overall package price for your wedding photography.

The fine print is this:

1. You have to book and pay the 50% retainer by the 31st of May 2010.

2. The discount doesn’t apply to travel and accommodation expenses. These are billed at actual cost.

Head over to my documentary wedding photography site to view my work or simply contact me with the details of your big day.

Email is studio [at] myweddingphotographer [dot] co [dot] nz

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If you shoot and license stock imagery like I do, then one of the things you always seem to be doing is editing, captioning and submitting imagery to distribution partners. I used to think there was a way around this, but reality has set in, along with regular stints in front of my iMac prepping imagery.

Working with a good stock library such as Aurora Photos is a great way to get my imagery out into the world and in front of potential buyers. The speed to market with Aurora is incredible.

I regularly have my submissions reviewed within a day or two and once I have provided the high-resolution files, they are made live on the Aurora site within days. Pushing the photos out to distribution partners such as Masterfile and Corbis, takes a little longer, but not that much longer. Some recent portrait work accepted by Aurora is already available for licensing at Corbis. That all happened within about 8-weeks, which is fast!

Working with larger, well established stock libraries works for me as I photograph quite a bit of what I consider general travel photography. If you don’t have a large, niche collection such as Art Wolfe, then leveraging off a distribution relationship with a stock library can make a lot of sense, especially if you are starting out in stock photography.

As I have been developing myself a niche and a client base for unique Maldives photography, I have been busy this year populating my own stock library – Thomas Pickard Stock Archive – with my Maldives photography. Leveraging off technology providers such as Photoshelter, I can now license and deliver hi-resolution photos direct to my existing client base, through my own stock site. This works well, in part because I am developing a niche in Maldives photography and also because I have an ever expanding client base seeking Maldives photography.

Below are just a few examples of licensing sales in the last few months. It never ceases to amaze me which images are licensed.

Licensed via Corbis. Image #: 42-22229345

Licensed via Corbis. Image #: 42-22229424

Licensed via Thomas Pickard Stock Archive. Image #: 08710.

Licensed via Getty Images. Image #: 94979111

Licensed via Getty Images. Image #: 90880255

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“…no photography jobs, I don’t care about money a lot, more about doing what I like…”

Well, here is the rub. You should never get into the photography business if you are more concerned about shooting what you want, as opposed to paying the bills. Subscribing to what I call the ‘starving artist’ model of being a photographer doesn’t help you or anyone else in the industry. You would be far better taking a totally different job and shooting exactly what you want to shoot, when you want.

Alternatively, you could start thinking about a career in photography this way…

“It’s a business. I think that’s a key component in this industry. When you are in college and you’re thinking about what sort of photographer you want to be, what you want to shoot, how you’re going to shoot it and how you’re going to put your personality into the work, that’s all fine but in the end it’s totally a business.”

Spencer Heyfron in a great interview with Rob Haggart over at A Photo Editor.

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“However, under the circumstances of freelancing, Work for Hire becomes less of a reasonable deal and more of a cynical way for companies to manage overhead at the expense of the people who provide the component pieces for the product that they sell.  Unlike employees, freelancers must provide their own equipment, insurance, and retirement.  Sick days and vacations become an expense along with things that are easy to take for granted like office space, transportation, utilities, etc.  In short, Work for Hire wants to treat you like an employee without incurring the hidden costs of having you as one.”

Matt Slaby via Luceo Images.

I have just started reading Luceo Images Blog posts. This extract comes from a section called Legal Left, Meet Creative Right, written by Matt Slaby. I have never read such a good account of Work-for-Hire and what it really means to the freelancing photographer.

If you are a freelancer and you have encountered WFH agreements (who hasn’t?), then I encourage you to read this thought provoking post.

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