Offering photography services

alexthecheese · 24 Oct 2012 at 15:41

Just wondering about this really. Has anyone ever tried offering their photography services to companies - bars, offices, shops etc. - for free as an offering to sell your services?

Like, go to the pub, say if I can take some photos and show what I can offer you, would you be interested in perhaps buying some prints afterwards?

Not in a position to do it - grossly underexperienced - but do you think it'd fly?

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 15:47

Never offer your time for free, as you can put people out of work by doing that. I know a press photographer who HATES people who give their work away for nothing. If you walked into a newspapers headquarters and asked for a section of their page for free, they'd laugh at you all the way to the door. However, too many photographers are willing to give their work for free to fill that part of the page for "acclaim" or "advertising", which never works anyway.

/Rant

alexthecheese · 24 Oct 2012 at 15:50

Not for free, not the idea of actually giving them anything for free, but take some photos, show them what you can offer, then charging them.

Just an idea, not really considering doing anything other than taking photos of my dog and random other things for a while.

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 15:53

You need to be careful though with going into a place, taking photos whilst you are in there and then showing them to the owner to potentially charge them for them. You'll almost certainly come across copyrighted material in your photographs which will stop you charging for them anyway if thats the course of action you intend to take. You'd be better off making a portfolio of shots which you feel local companies might find interesting (generic stock shots of concepts such as sales, value, quality etc) and trying from that angle.

alexthecheese · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:01

Yeah, fair point. Just batting out an idea, so thanks for replying.

Randomly - just been reading about your D3 - was that really Nikon's first full-frame DSLR? Back in 2008 - just 4 years ago?

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:06

Yup, the D700 came out shortly after.

a1ex2001 · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:08

James J said:
Never offer your time for free, as you can put people out of work by doing that. I know a press photographer who HATES people who give their work away for nothing. If you walked into a newspapers headquarters and asked for a section of their page for free, they'd laugh at you all the way to the door. However, too many photographers are willing to give their work for free to fill that part of the page for "acclaim" or "advertising", which never works anyway.

/Rant

Must resist the urge to bite and the one to cut my elderly neighbours hedge when ever I do mine :eek:

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:15

a1ex2001 said:
Must resist the urge to bite and the one to cut my elderly neighbours hedge when ever I do mine

Common gestures are fine, but not when they apply to the business world.

An Exception · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:41

A professional gardener might disagree with you, I hear they HATE friendly neighbours.

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 16:50

An Exception said:
A professional gardener might disagree with you, I hear they HATE friendly neighbours.

Nice try, however, not applicable. If wedding photographers started doing it for free, you'd be out of luck.

It also doesn't cost hundreds of pounds to have a hedge cut, unless it was the length of a few football pitches...

An Exception · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:18

There are 'Wedding Photographers' that offer their services for free. There are boatloads that offer their services for next to nothing. However there are people who will pay for quality.

There are many more from where this guy came from...

D.P. · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:24

James J said:
Never offer your time for free, as you can put people out of work by doing that. I know a press photographer who HATES people who give their work away for nothing. If you walked into a newspapers headquarters and asked for a section of their page for free, they'd laugh at you all the way to the door. However, too many photographers are willing to give their work for free to fill that part of the page for "acclaim" or "advertising", which never works anyway.

/Rant

People are free to market their services and run their own business model. Nothing annoys me more than so called pro togs that whine about other people charging small amount for photography. It is a free market, if a pro tog wants to charge pro amounts then they must persuade customers to go with them by way of quality of service.

Should Easy-jet be shunned because they offer low-price flights, Asda avoided because they are cheaper than the fancy organic grocery down your street?

On the other hand, Price-fixing is both illegal and immoral.

And no, I don't other my services for free or entice offers with low prices.

Phal · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:25

James J said:
Never offer your time for free, as you can put people out of work by doing that. I know a press photographer who HATES people who give their work away for nothing. If you walked into a newspapers headquarters and asked for a section of their page for free, they'd laugh at you all the way to the door. However, too many photographers are willing to give their work for free to fill that part of the page for "acclaim" or "advertising", which never works anyway.

/Rant

How is doing work for free going to put someone out of a job? Surely Whether you charge or do work for free... If you do the work then there's someone else that has missed out.

D.P. · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:26

alexthecheese said:
Not for free, not the idea of actually giving them anything for free, but take some photos, show them what you can offer, then charging them.

Just an idea, not really considering doing anything other than taking photos of my dog and random other things for a while.

This is a perfectly fine business model, especially when you don't have a large portfolio and reputation to persuade customers. You remove the financial risk form the customer so they will be far more likely to use your service.

You can charge for both per a photo fee and a modest fixed fee for your time if they have agreed to purchase photographs.

James J · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:31

D.P. said:
People are free to market their services and run their own business model. Nothing annoys me more than so called pro togs that whine about other people charging small amount for photography. It is a free market, if a pro tog wants to charge pro amounts then they must persuade customers to go with them by way of quality of service.

Should Easy-jet be shunned because they offer low-price flights, Asda avoided because they are cheaper than the fancy organic grocery down your street?

On the other hand, Price-fixing is both illegal and immoral.

And no, I don't other my services for free or entice offers with low prices.

Phal said:
How is doing work for free going to put someone out of a job? Surely Whether you charge or do work for free... If you do the work then there's someone else that has missed out.

To both of you, look at the state with the stock photo market where people have driven the prices down into the floor due to "competition". Its got to the point now where a massive over haul of the stock photography market is taking place to give more back to the photographers. If neither of you are familiar with that market, I'd definitely suggest having a read as its quite eye opening from a photographers point of view.

Its also well known that theres a surge of sports photographers that are doing the job for next to nothing, often free (because they enjoy the sport), taking paid work away from the pro sports togs that have invested thousands of pounds into equipment and expertise. Quality of shots doesn't even come into it, as magazines and newspapers primarily don't look at quality, they are simply interested in cost. Saying otherwise suggests you don't have much of an idea how the market works.

An Exception · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:43

Phal said:
How is doing work for free going to put someone out of a job? Surely Whether you charge or do work for free... If you do the work then there's someone else that has missed out.

If you do it for free, then nobody earns any money. Collectively it can devalue an industry. However it's just a fact of life we need to deal with, mostly by being better quality than the 'free' labour looking to get a foot in the door.

However the free photographers offering sub-par work are not really the danger. It's the extremely talented amateurs that do it only for fun, and don't need the income to pay a mortgage.
With enough of these highly talented photographers, they could collapse the wage of an entire highly skilled profession.

However this is the risk we take when choosing a profession that is 'fun'.

Nexus · 24 Oct 2012 at 17:46

I think with any business that doesn't already have photos on their website or PR material these days, then there must be an underlying issue... possibly too cheap to pay for some?

As such, I think its then finding businesses that look like their photos may need an update and as such, you can try and work your way in there over whoever did them before, hopefully without even having to bring up the notion that you would shoot for free and then see what they think. The only problem I see is that by having already shot the work, I think you can end up in a situation where the owner might want to pay less for your prints than you deserve. You also run the risk of it just being a case of them either having a Photographer they use, or with a smaller business, somebody has a DSLR and thus thinks they don't need a professional.

If you are more interested in portrait type work, you could try offering your services to pretty girls on the street. I see people doing it outside Topshop all the time... albeit, most are probably from model agencies and they likely make lots of money through portfolios, regardless of whether its real model potential. Its obviously just doing that without coming across as creepy, so you need to look as professional as possible.

King Damager · 24 Oct 2012 at 18:01

An Exception said:
There are 'Wedding Photographers' that offer their services for free. There are boatloads that offer their services for next to nothing. However there are people who will pay for quality.

There are many more from where this guy came from...

Genuine question, if this is the not way forward, how do you get into the field...

kd

jorzeh · 24 Oct 2012 at 18:09

King Damager said:
Genuine question, if this is the not way forward, how do you get into the field...

kd

No because you shouldn't be doing weddings if you're not good enough to be paid in the first place, I learnt from my father who was a pro for 55 years before he retired, most wedding togs have had a camera since Slr days, Or have taken thousands of shots and know what to-do in certain situations

.

An Exception · 24 Oct 2012 at 18:18

@kd
I'm not saying it isn't the way forward, just pointing out there are plenty of people offering wedding photography for free. Worse still is there are many many more people offering it at less than minimum wage with no scope or intention of raising rates.

What would be the way to get into the field would be to second shoot along with a pro tog.
I don't think just because your not charging them, doesn't give you a licence to mess up their wedding.

Sometimes you can't do this though due to lack of willing from other pro tog's. I personally only second shot 1 wedding before jumping strait in and charging a decent rate.