photo sales

[Osmer_Toby]

Money generated and profit are sadly two different things

amen, sister.

 

[pilgrim]

$100.00 even, profit wise probally $60.00.

 

[ksmattfish]

Including payment for photography services (not just photos sold) I will make more money with photography this year than I will with my day job , in fact I just cut my day job (restaurant work, so I'm still not making a whole bunch of moola ) hours from 40 to 25, so I can stay home and watch my 2 year old daughter, and have more time to blab on this forum. 8) Now if I could just keep all of it instead of giving it to Uncle Sam :cry:

Next year I hope to give up the day job altogether. Weddings and portrait sessions are a lot of work, but I was lucky enough to be "discovered" by an advertising company who seem to really like my style, and that's been easy money, and lot's of it. Hopefully it will continue to come in.

 

[terri34 6]

Well, good for you, Matt - it's got to be a great feeling to tell the day job you can afford to cut your hours. :thumbsup:

We could be making a lot more $$ from photography if we'd stayed in the wedding business, that's for sure. Right when the phone was really beginning to ring is about the time my husband realized he hated doing them. We got calls for another year and a half, turning people away. But it's tough to work all week then give away a weekend for something you don't enjoy, plus leaving the kid with grandma after him being in school/afterschool all week didn't seem right.

That's when you really hunker down and start trying to decide what you want photography to mean to you. I personally enjoyed the weddings, but it was mostly on my husband and I could see he was getting tired of the hustle and dealing with the public. So we focus now on just sheer enjoyment, as an all-consuming love hobby, and try to get enough $$ from arts festivals and the occasional odd portrait shoot to just pay for more film.

So more power to all you peeps who can really make it pay - I know how hard you're working at it! :cheer:

 

[ksmattfish]

it's tough to work all week then give away a weekend

Yeah, I hope that soon I'll be able to quit the day job altogether, do some portraits during the week, and weddings on the weekends. Right now I'm making most of my money selling usage rights to advertisers, but I have to admit that I feel that weddings are probably where the steady money is for me; I'd love to be proven wrong. I really enjoy photographing people, so weddings don't bother me, although they are very hard work and can be very stressful. My dream photography job would be to do portraits and commercial work, with some fine art sales thrown in, and maybe just a few really expensive weddings a year.

 

[terri34 6]

What my husband DID enjoy about the weddings was the "location shooting" - when it was a good one. We did several weddings at some astonishingly beautiful cathedrals and churches in downtown Atlanta - wow, that would make the job SO much easier!! He enjoys architectural shooting and could get into making some wedding portraits look like fine art. A mini-Monte Zuckerman. That part, he dug. But then those heady shoots would be followed by months of driving out to some rural area where the church looked like a converted chicken house, long, low, with zero redeeming qualities. It was challenging to find some areas to shoot outdoors where there wasn't an A/C unit hanging out the window or dumpsters lined up. :roll:

If you can get more of those "expensive" weddings you end up with more of the former instead of the latter. It doesn't seem as intense (even though it always is to some degree) when you're in a beautiful setting and people are spending big bucks and want quality images. They seem more willing to work with you, then, and the entire shoot becomes more enjoyable.

 

[2Stupid2Duck]

*sighs. Maybe one day.

 

[ksmattfish]

They seem more willing to work with you, then, and the entire shoot becomes more enjoyable.

I'm totally changing the subject of the thread here, but...

Why is it that the bride and groom, more often than not previously divorced, and have been living and having sex with each other for years, suddenly want to play 'virgins' on their wedding day and not see each other before the ceremony?

I guarantee that taking the posed pics before the ceremony will produce better photos: people are fresher, the hair and make-up is in place, and no one is in a hurry to rush off to the free booze.

After the ceremony the bride and groom always seem like they've been doped, the kids are dying to be anywhere else, people are sweaty and starting to unravel their clothes, grandma has already wandered off, etc... But 4 out of 5 couples (well, probably the bride) insist on waiting until after the ceremony to be posed with the groom. :roll:

 

[terri34 6]

Ha, good question. I suppose they think they are honoring some vague obscure protocol of "waiting till they're married" but the notion has certainly become bastardized over the years. What was once waiting for actual loss of virginity has been watered down to: "It's bad luck for the groom to see the bride's gown!" Huh...? :scratch:

Many times, we had to stoically allow ourselves to be marched completely around a church by some determined matron who clung to this ideal.

It's always good for a laugh putting the proof book together in sequential order, though. A fear-nauseated groom, a tensely smiling bride, then the last few, well, you just look for the candids where no one looks too sloppy. Our last bride got so completely trashed she was stumbling, ripped the bodice of her lovely silk gown and announced to the room: "****! My boobies are falling out!" :shock:

I think, yes, I think it was driving home from that sacred event my husband turned to me and said, "No more." :LOL: