London Vertical

[An Exception]

Financially it also just doesn't make sense if you have a good career. Even charging good prices for wedding work would require me to do a couple of weddings a week through the year on average - and I couldn't think of anything more boring than spending hundred of hours in post processing yet another wedding.

It depends how far up the pecking order you can get. Allot work for minimum wage, but the top 'x' percent can earn £75k+ without too much trouble, and if they market themselves to, travel all over the world doing it.

Regarding post processing, It could be outsourced relatively cheaply. Just get them to fix exposure and WB + straiten. Then when I get the files back, all I would need to do is apply my preset, spend a couple of hours doing final cull and I'm done. Write to USB stick, put in post. Alternatively if your shooting 3 weddings a month, you could hire someone you know/trust to do the post processing, and take on an extra wedding to pay for it.

 

[D.P.]

Not to turn this into a willy waving contest but your "the top 'x' percent can earn £75k+"
That is much easier to do with a desk job, i'm not too far from that and my wife is over that level and we are both at the start of our careers (after our PhDs).


I don't think many nature photographers get close to that kind of income.


yeah you can out source the PPing but then that will eat into your profits. There is more easily reachable money in weddings than most forms photography but even then you are limited because at the most you can shoot 2 days at a weekend/week ebcause most weddings are on weekends (and Saturdays for that matter), so even if you had the time you will struggle to get the extra work. Furthermore for half the year you will struggle to get even that. Then in the summer you end up totally booked up.

For some time I have actually had a business idea for outsourcing PPing, may already exist by now.

 

[An Exception]

Not to turn this into a willy waving contest but your "the top 'x' percent can earn £75k+"
That is much easier to do with a desk job, i'm not too far from that and my wife is over that level and we are both at the start of our careers (after our PhDs).

Hmm, I don't think it is that easy earning that with a deskjob, for starters it's not that easy getting your PhD's is it?

Secondly your at a desk all day. That's what I'v spent most of my working life doing and I hate it. I also hate having an idiot 'boss', and having to play office politics etc.

Currently as it stands I only shoot for people I like, and this makes a big difference. If I don't like them as persons which doesn't happen very often, but when it does I don't sign em up. I enjoy working for people so much more if I genuinely like them, and if I enjoy it.. I work my *** off even more.

I don't think many nature photographers get close to that kind of income.

Your probably right, nature isn't as commercial, and there is a smaller pool of work.

yeah you can out source the PPing but then that will eat into your profits. There is more easily reachable money in weddings than most forms photography but even then you are limited because at the most you can shoot 2 days at a weekend/week ebcause most weddings are on weekends (and Saturdays for that matter), so even if you had the time you will struggle to get the extra work. Furthermore for half the year you will struggle to get even that. Then in the summer you end up totally booked up.

For some time I have actually had a business idea for outsourcing PPing, may already exist by now.

Yes there are a few places that offer such services and I know of some high end wedding togs who use them. If your charging 1.5-2k+ a wedding, then apparently it works out cheaper to outsource at least the lions share of the PP workload considering it then frees up more time to shoot more weddings, or just take some time off.

I've had enquires for weddings on Friday, Saturday & Sunday's so far, and pretty much at all times of the year, weddings seasons are not what they used to be I'v been told.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Do what you love. If you are happy with a desk job, fine. If you are not then not fine.

p.s. you are, or you're. Not your.

 

[An Exception]

p.s. you are, or you're. Not your.

Yes your correct.

 

[Ksanti]

Oooooft economics. (3rd year Eco student here)

Fair enough with regards to the TS. Although I did say rent one for a week rather than buy one outright!

Guessing you're planning on joining the photo clubs and stuff? Definitely makes so much sense earning butt loads of money though with a day job to fund a nice holiday

kd

Haha maybe not quite to the same extent as David Yarrow (multi millionaire hedge fund manager by day, nature photographer by international golden hours ) but having a day job to take care of myself and my family, then only doing photography that I want to do and have it be a creative outlet rather than a commercial one, is probably going to be ideal.

Study hard and if you graduate from oxford with that degree then you should have plenty of expendable capital to buy the gear you want and travel around the world on photography trips where the only goal is fun, not profit.

That, to an extent, is the goal. I don't particularly need international photo trips for my work at the moment though of course it would be cool. There's too much of a "you must give 110% to have a 10% chance of making it" in commercial portraiture, particularly among the agencies and galleries I've been speaking to. Frankly I'd sooner get my work noticed on its own merits rather than my business skills and work rate, then just say to magazines and the like, if you want me to shoot for you then you've got to realise that I only stuff I'm behind creatively and I'm not going to be working for peanuts because I don't /need/ your money

Congrats on the Oxford offer, what college are you going to (hopefully) be at?

St Edmund's Hall/Teddy's Hall is where I'm hopefully going. I applied to Exeter, but for E&M they're really popular due to a combination of their Rector/size/Econ tutors so I only interviewed with Teddy's. I'm happy with Teddy's to be honest, I didn't get a chance to go around every single college and Teddy's was quite nice when I went to interview.

Hmm, I don't think it is that easy earning that with a deskjob, for starters it's not that easy getting your PhD's is it?
(snip)

I don't particularly fancy wedding work, and even then you have to prove yourself and break out to an extent. Being limited to wedding work to make any real money wouldn't be the same as me doing what I love for a living.

Thing is I enjoy post processing, but there are only a handful of full time photographers in the sort of work I like, whose work is popular enough to be able to do all of their own processing. I enjoy the tinkering and wasting hours in processing on work when I consider it "mine". Though obviously work like Jaime Ibarra's is in many ways defined by his processing so he could never outsource his workload, photographers like Lara Jade who have moved into commercial work with a few bits of editorial, pretty much always outsource the bulk of their processing.

Not to mention that the demand for photographers is very uncertain over the next few decades - if I went into it now and then all of a sudden someone developed a room scanning technology or similar so that the perspective wasn't necessary or 3d rendering took the place of 99% of commercial photography, then what? Don't get me wrong, people will always enjoy photography, but I'm not convinced people will always pay for it.

 

[a1ex2001]

Nice to see the making of a different sort of project on here, I hope you keep the thread updated with your progress as I think the results could be really interesting.

 

[Columbo]

The lack of Tilt Shift in these pictures makes me sad Have you considered renting a TS (well perspective control now) for a week or so to try with these shots?

Particularly in the sixth one :S

kd

I see the lack of tilt shift a positive.

Nice idea Ksanti, like what you've done so far lots and you've probably inspired me to do this in Sheffield tomorrow!

 

[A.N.Other]

I see the lack of tilt shift a positive.

Ditto. Specifically, I think it really adds the the overpowering / looming mood of #6, which is my favorite of the bunch.

Might add a tickle more contrast to the B&W conversion, but I'm on a work laptop here, so maybe it's just the screen