Side Hustle.......

[OnTheFly7]

Just curious if any of you get burned out, frustrated, etc., to the point that you have moved into another business field. Or do something else in addition to your photography.

I enjoy my work. I receive praise about my images. I am proud of what I can/do produce. That said, my passion in photography centers around a niche that does not pay very well (with the exception of a few), action sports and the outdoors. There are other shoots to be had, where the money is better and obviously, if we want to stay in the game, we need to be diverse. So we do it.

Where I get frustrated beyond my wits' end, is the pricing game. I refuse to do it and I know it costs me some business. However, I am not about to get into a pricing war and I tell clients this up front. If cost is your main concern, we may not be a good partner for you. However, if you want a professional shoot, quality work, timely responses and professional presentations, we do that. Everyone with the latest phone or point and shoot now thinks they are in the photo business. We used to be able to educate clients around that. Now, from my experiences, especially the millennial generation, they do not even care about quality. They just want cheap!

Any way, rant over. Just curious if others feel the same.

 

[tirediron]

Pretty much, yeah. If one more 'wanna-be' model asks about the price of a headshot session and then says, "Wow, that's expensive, my friend got one done for $50..." I'm going drown myself in Dektol! I'm fortunate in that I don't NEED to make $5000/month and can afford to pass up business if it's not a good fit, but it's getting harder and harder to make a go of it. I get wayyyyyyyyyy more satisfaction from the charity work that I do than almost any of the paid work.

 

[OnTheFly7]

Pretty much, yeah. If one more 'wanna-be' model asks about the price of a headshot session and then says, "Wow, that's expensive, my friend got one done for $50..." I'm going drown myself in Dektol! I'm fortunate in that I don't NEED to make $5000/month and can afford to pass up business if it's not a good fit, but it's getting harder and harder to make a go of it. I get wayyyyyyyyyy more satisfaction from the charity work that I do than almost any of the paid work.

I'm actually looking at starting up an auto/marine/aviation detail business. I did it when I was younger and see opportunity for it. Almost seems as though there is more opportunity and dollars to be had there.

 

[tirediron]

There's probably more dollars to be made picking up deposit bottles on the street than in professional photography these days (at least for 99.999% of us). It's something most of us do because of an inner insanity need.