Venting...

I can kinda relate to you here, but in a different scenario. I've been doing photography (freelance/semi-pro) for quite some time now, and it's my dream to make a full on career out of it, which has been a bit of a struggle, but I'm determined. Anyway, recently, my girlfriends friend got married. After talking to me about pricing (which I have priced very fairly), she decided to get her friend to do it. Apparently she offered to do it for free, so whatever.

Soon after the wedding, I find out the bride, who has never had any interest in photography, has started "working" with her photographer friend, doing photo editing (I've seen this girls work and it's ridiculously over photoshopped) and such. Okay, whatever. Yeah I've been trying to get a job in photography for a while now and she just walks into one, but it's doing photoshop (which I don't do), so whatever. Well then the bride starts calling me constantly, asking for help. Not in a "hey you're a really good photographer and I'd like some advice/tips/pointers" way, but instead it's asking for programs, how to use them, where to get PS filters, etc. This annoys me (with good reason). But again, I shrug it off because she's just doing piddly photo editing.

THEN the ****ty part (or one of them). I had taken my girlfriend out for a shoot. She HAS had an interest in photography since before I met her.. just never got serious with it. Anyway, we go out to this small waterfall along the canal and I teach her how to shoot with an SLR. I explain what apertures are, shutter speeds, how they work together, etc. She dives right in and wants to do 'soft' water shots, and with a little coaching, she got some really amazing shots.

So she tells her friend (the recent bride) about the shoot. Shows her the pictures and says "Yeah you've got to use a slow shutter to do shots like these. My boyfriend taught me." The friend says "cool.. these are really good." and that's it.

The next day, I get a text from the friend: "How do I change the shutter on my camera?" me: "You have to use shutter mode or manual" her: "how do I do that?" me: "look in your instruction manual" her: "I can't find it" me: "look online". about 3 minutes later, my girlfriend gets a phone call from the ***** friend, asking for directions to the waterfall.

Now, I'm not the kind of person to go "Hey, you can't take a photo of that cuz I did" or anything.. but it's just really annoying when this girl has no real passion for actually learning anything to do with photography.. she just thinks it's neat. She apparently figured out how to do a slow shutter because she pretty much copied my girlfriends shots exactly. She admitted to not fully even understanding how slow shutter works!

To make things worse, she's now getting gigs doing photos for calendars and getting hired out to do shoots and what not.

It just thoroughly pisses me off that someone like her stumbles into stuff like that with very little effort while I struggle to get my name out there.

Sorry for somewhat hi-jacking your thread.. I just get really annoyed when I start talking about that chick lol
 
No worries about the hijack ;)

I would be very frusterated in your situation too. But remember that your best bet is to do the best possible work you can do, and I truly believe that it will pay offin the end. Sure, she may grad a few jobs here and there, but if she doesnt have the skill, its not going to last.

That being said, I wouldn't poo poo photoshop either. You may be from the camp that any editing is fake, but trust me, not all of your competition is. If the client wants perfection, and someone else can give it because of a little pp'ing - well, there goes your business.

Keep your head up and encourage your friend to get some education.
 
Haha thanks.. that's a good way to look at it. As for photoshopping, what I meant was that I tend not to photoshop because I generally don't need to. I shoot film, but I do have a high end negative scanner so I can offer "digital" files to people, but generally the only photoshopping I do is dust removal (which happens during the scan).. occasionally I will remove a blemish on the models face or straighten out the horizon if I realise it's a little off. I'm in no way saying I'm perfect, just that my (few) clients have been very happy with the end results. I know that with digital, there may be a need for pp more often as far as contrast or saturation goes.

Also, I was moreso referring to the type of photoshopping they do. It's not JUST pp'ing contrast, saturation, etc. It's things like selective coloring (which I personally don't like and if you thought it was overdone before, you haven't seen this chicks pictures lol) and vignetting... dear god, she frigging vignettes EVERY photo.
 
As for not being out anything, I guess thats debatable. I count on print or DVD sales when calculating my prices. So for me to work for 2 hours, plus all the PP time, this will net me far less than my target price if no sales are made.

I guess that is another thing to re-evaluate.

Thanks again for the feedback.

You could add a deposit on prints into your package pricing that is non refundable. This way you are guarantee'd $xxx.xx amount of income in prints, even if someone else took the exact same shots.

Just a thought.

After reading this, this has reminded me that I need to get a contract. Ive been pointed towards a book on amazon that has great contracts, but Id rather not spend the money atm, got other camera priorities. :)

Does anyone have a link to some great contracts online that are free?
 
Few years back I had the very same problem. Except for one “guest" who happened to show up. He was seated in the guest area and was carrying what I can only guess to be a 5D, or 1Ds MkII. None the less he had somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 "L" series lenses that just shot my camera out of the water. He kept looking at me with this... "ha ha I’m better than you.." look and kept shooting despite the fact that I had a written and signed contract with a stipulation that I was to be the only photographer for the wedding. Unfortunately, this is very, very common and can lead to very bad feelings.
The only thing you can do is lay down the law…
 
He kept looking at me with this... "ha ha I’m better than you.."

The gear doesn't make the photographer. That kind of pretentiousness is the equivalent of having a gigantic epeen. Call it a campeen or something...
 
He kept looking at me with this... "ha ha I’m better than you.."

The gear doesn't make the photographer. That kind of pretentiousness is the equivalent of having a gigantic epeen. Call it a campeen or something...

So true.. but why is it that every wedding photographer I've ever seen has this "I'm so much better than you" air about them? And they also always seem really high strung.

I joked with my g/f after a wedding that maybe the reason I couldn't get any gigs as a wedding photographer was because I didn't present myself as a high-strung pretentious asshole lol
 
Pft. Well I've heard tell of a wedding photog in Vancouver who's using a Rebel for his work. All of this is hearsay, but apparently the guy got a 5D or similar recently and uses his Rebel primarily because he's more comfortable with it. Maybe people are more relaxed here in the north. :lol:

Then again, people like that probably cater well to the richer upper class, who very well might be pretentious and have a holier-than-thou thing going on themselves; perhaps they wouldn't respect someone calling themselves a professional if they didn't act in the same way.

But whatever; that's all speculation.
 
Pft. Well I've heard tell of a wedding photog in Vancouver who's using a Rebel for his work. All of this is hearsay, but apparently the guy got a 5D or similar recently and uses his Rebel primarily because he's more comfortable with it. Maybe people are more relaxed here in the north. :lol:

Then again, people like that probably cater well to the richer upper class, who very well might be pretentious and have a holier-than-thou thing going on themselves; perhaps they wouldn't respect someone calling themselves a professional if they didn't act in the same way.

But whatever; that's all speculation.


LOL.


I'd much rather shoot with my Rebel than my 40D.
 
LOL.


I'd much rather shoot with my Rebel than my 40D.

I wonder what people would say about a photog using a digital leica camera. :) To the uninformed, it looks like a p&s camera somewhat. : )
 

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