Everyone wants to be a photographer

Soda Farl said:
I have posted photographs I have taken several times on the forum.

Anyway you didn't answer my questions?

Are you going to send me further abusive p.m's?

Would you like to meet with me in Blackpool for a face to face discusion, as you seem incapble of having a one to one discussion on here without becoming abusive?

One additional question I just wondered about.

Are you trying to set some sort of record for forum posts? 3000 in under a year seems like quite a lot. Is your employer aware of how much time you spend on here?
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Woah....there is an unpleasant and threatening undertone to this post.
 
jerry12953 said:
I've also been puzzled by the distinction between self-employed and freelance.
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Every freelancer is self employed but not everyone who is self employed is a freelancer.

For example,

a) I start my own company called "ZoneV's Special Days", specialising in wedding photography. I operate from my own business premesis with gallery and take care of all my own marketing and advertising. I am "on my own".

b) I start my own company called "ZoneV Images" and register with a few agencies. I'm based at home and the agencies allocate work to me regularly, based on location and other critera. I turn up, shoot what I'm supposed to, to the requirements of that specific job, go home and submit my images.

In both cases I am self employed but only in option "b" am I a freelancer. They are very different ways of working.
 
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Soda Farl said:
Are you trying to set some sort of record for forum posts? 3000 in under a year seems like quite a lot. Is your employer aware of how much time you spend on here?
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Why on earth would the amount of time he spends here be any of his employer's business? Or anyone else's for that matter? :shrug:

Steve said:
Woah....there is an unpleasant and threatening undertone to this post.
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Yes there is. Pookeyhead may be opinionated and blunt but to be honest he's earned the right to be (even though I think he cuts it fine at times). There's no need to respond in a threatening or aggressive manner though, that's far worse in my eyes.
 
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Right, stop it now please gentlemen!

Any more of this public willy waving and accounts will be suspended.

Soda Farl, if you are receiving abusive PMs from members then please report them using the red triangle in the PM message box.
 
PMN said:
Why on earth would the amount of time he spends here be any of his employer's business? Or anyone else's for that matter? :shrug:
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For example you joined the forum in 2007 and have under 200 posts. He joined the forum less than a year ago and has 3000. Just interested.
 
Grendel said:
Right, stop it now please gentlemen!

Any more of this public willy waving and accounts will be suspended.

Soda Farl, if you are receiving abusive PMs from members then please report them using the red triangle in the PM message box.
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Fair enough. More than happy to be civil.

@David my offer stands if you would like to go for a days shooting. I have no issue with that at all, perhaps it will help remove all the bittnerness between us.
 
Laudrup said:
Why keep teaching?
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Because I enjoy it?

Laudrup said:
Do you get commissioned enough to live on?
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Not even close. I don't want to either. I've made my money with a camera. I now do what I enjoy doing.


Soda Farl said:
stuff
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I want nothing to do with you.

BTW.. you have to be faster with your edits than that.

Soda Farl said:
Are you trying to set some sort of record for forum posts? 3000 in under a year seems like quite a lot. Is your employer aware of how much time you spend on here?
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Why should they be concerned with what I do in my spare time?


[edit]

If you are indeed serious about burying the hatchet and meeting up one day for shooting, yes, but so long as you keep cropping up in any posts I make about the industry, art, or education with barbed, sarcastic comments, then no... I'm not interested. I'll leave the ball in your court.
 
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jerry12953 said:
I've also been puzzled by the distinction between self-employed and freelance.
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T o get back on track... and to re-iterate what ZoneV said, a freelancer is just a sole trader who works for whoever commissions them to shoot a job - they can also be registered with an agency, or agencies and take commissions from anywhere. Self-employed usually means that you run a company that provides a service, usually one with overheads, property, studios etc...(although you can still have all this as freelance I suppose) and your clients will usually reach you through that business - that will be advertised to provide a particular service. In other words, a freelancer can work for anyone, anywhere, for any reason they want, whereas a self employed photographer will usually have a service, branding, studio, and run it more as a traditional business.

Both are self-employed.

It's only when you come to answer that you realise what a fine distinction it actually is!
 
Laudrup said:
Why keep teaching?



When bankers get together they talk about art, when artists get together, they talk about money. - Oscar Wilde

I'd say to someone who thought like that, you're kidding yourself on.
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I will repeat, money is not everything. A teacher earns enough to be comfortable and it is better to be comfortable and really satisfied in your work (which you spend a high proportion of your life doing) that doing something you dislike for 50 years even though it pays well.
 
jerry12953 said:
I'm not sure how important it is but how is a freelancer defined, then?
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I used to be a staffer. That is, I was employed full time and provided with all my kit. My job was to produce photos for the newspapers and magazines we published. My employer owned copyright of my photos, and my contract forbade me from shooting for other publications. I wasn't meant to do any paid photography anywhere else, either - a wedding, say, or publicity for business start-up. But this was sort of accepted if it didn't get in the way of work and I didn't use work kit.

The hours started getting silly and the wages froze. I did 17 days straight once, for no extra reward. It was making me ill and killing my social life, so I handed in my notice and went freelance.

All this really means is that I now have to find work for myself, but am free to take on whatever I like - or turn it down if I don't fancy a 50-mile round trip on a wet Tuesday night, say. I also teach, because I enjoy it and there's a demand. I still do newspaper work, which isn't very well paid but it's my favourite type of photography, and often leads to extra commissions, and now I get the cash if people want prints of published pics - and a lot of them do. This used to go to my employer. I also do property, equestrian, travel, advertising...pretty much anything except wedding and studio.

Cash-wise I'm not that much better off, but the freedom is worth a helluva lot.
 
Pookeyhead said:
T o get back on track... and to re-iterate what ZoneV said, a freelancer is just a sole trader who works for whoever commissions them to shoot a job - they can also be registered with an agency, or agencies and take commissions from anywhere. Self-employed usually means that you run a company that provides a service, usually one with overheads, property, studios etc...(although you can still have all this as freelance I suppose) and your clients will usually reach you through that business - that will be advertised to provide a particular service. In other words, a freelancer can work for anyone, anywhere, for any reason they want, whereas a self employed photographer will usually have a service, branding, studio, and run it more as a traditional business.

Both are self-employed.

It's only when you come to answer that you realise what a fine distinction it actually is!
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Well put, although not all freelancers are sole traders. I have known some, all be it in another industry, who work for their own limited company.
 
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ZoneV said:
Well put, although not all freelancers are sole traders.
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Oh God, don't confuse him even more LOL.

Yes, of course... just as many people have more than one job, you can do both, although I was once told by someone who knows more than me on the subject, if you draw a salary from your own limited company, then you can't also be legally registered as a sole trader. No idea if that is the case, as I've only ever worked as a sole trader/freelance.
 
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I imagine there are plenty of "employed photographers" and employed photographers who also freelance on here

What's with the semantics anyway? Whatever you are calling yourself won't make you make the right or wrong choices before you press the shutter release
 
Richard King said:
What's with the semantics anyway? Whatever you are calling yourself won't make you make the right or wrong choices before you press the shutter release
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No... but it may make a difference to how you run your business. Someone asked is all.. just for clarification.

You can be the best photographer in the world,. but if you have no idea how to market yourself, or even so much as do your book keeping or tax returns, you won't be trading for long.... unless you want to waste money on paying a book keeper/accountant. You could also pay someone to sort your marketing out too if you wanted, but I hope you're really, really busy as you're now throwing quite a lot of money away before you've even earned it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
The lowest common denominator might... still tons of good quality bands out there, and still charting though. There's always been pop pap! Always... there'll always be crap photography... there will also be great photography.

Don't worry.
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:plusone:

Quality will always shine through, the modern DSLR will help close the gap between good and bad but nothing can compete with a good photographers eye.
 
Gary Coyle said:
:plusone:

Quality will always shine through, the modern DSLR will help close the gap between good and bad but nothing can compete with a good photographers eye.
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Yeah have to agree with that, at the end of the day a DSLR is only a tool to 'help' you make your images. You still need the creative eye to 'see' the photo
 
TheCrewDesigns said:
Yeah have to agree with that, at the end of the day a DSLR is only a tool to 'help' you make your images. You still need the creative eye to 'see' the photo
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Exactly the same thing was said when the Box Brownie hit the streets...
 
ZoneV said:
Every freelancer is self employed but not everyone who is self employed is a freelancer.

For example,

a) I start my own company called "ZoneV's Special Days", specialising in wedding photography. I operate from my own business premesis with gallery and take care of all my own marketing and advertising. I am "on my own".

b) I start my own company called "ZoneV Images" and register with a few agencies. I'm based at home and the agencies allocate work to me regularly, based on location and other critera. I turn up, shoot what I'm supposed to, to the requirements of that specific job, go home and submit my images.

In both cases I am self employed but only in option "b" am I a freelancer. They are very different ways of working.
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OK......but I question the use of the word "very" in your last sentence!;)
 
jon ryan said:
Exactly the same thing was said when the Box Brownie hit the streets...
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Indeed... and some people just took inane snapshots... and others took really thoughtful, considered images.

Cameras don't take photographs.... people do.


The words storm and teacup come to mind for some reason.

Next up is computational photography people... get ready for that... 10 years max I reckon. Then cameras will take a raw capture that will allow full focusing and aperture selection post shoot. Crap photographers will still create crap images though... they'll just create their crap post shoot instead of when they press the shutter.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
Indeed... and some people just took inane snapshots... and others took really thoughtful, considered images.

Cameras don't take photographs.... people do.


The words storm and teacup come to mind for some reason.

Next up is computational photography people... get ready for that... 10 years max I reckon. Then cameras will take a raw capture that will allow full focusing and aperture selection post shoot. Crap photographers will still create crap images though... they'll just create their crap post shoot instead of when they press the shutter.
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Already here David, saw something a few years ago.
 
Well the Lytro does the focusing but not sure what camera does the aperture selection.

Agree, it won't be long until the camera captures all the information needed (probably by taking lots of images at same time at all settings available and storing the data in a clever way) and then using your desktop software you can do whatever you want as all the data is there.

And you think you are seeing poor PP today, just wait...
 
The Lytro is the only system I know of in production, but there's ton of R&D going on. It's still relatively immature as a technology. Early days yet. I've seen talk of systems that also allow aperture adjustment post shoot, and choosing whether flash was used or not post shoot.
 
Phil V said:
You assumed it ought to be easy - it isn't. He only said it was 'possible', they're two radically different things.

This forum is fairly typical I'm afraid, we had one 'employed' pro on here till recently. Now there are none (that are regular contributors) on the other hand, there are hundreds of regular contributors who are self employed, more than half of them part time (and many more part timers who don't even consider themselves 'professional'). That should give you a clearer picture of what 'possible' means (and the general pattern of employment in Photography).

I frequent other forums too, and the picture is the same everywhere. And as I said earlier, salaried photographers tend to be in specialist fields, medical, SOCO, academic, and the common route into those fields is definitely through a degree in photography.

Larger studio's do sometimes hire full time pro's, but more often than not, it's freelancers by the job. Freelancing doesn't require the same kind of marketing skills that running your own business does - but it relies on constantly marketing yourself nonetheless.
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Where did I assume it would be easy?
 
blimey, this has gone a few good pages..

Even when i was a Staff photographer i was a W/Warrior tog as well....

There shed loads of staff jobs about but not as many as 10 years ago.

When there was no photographer posts i worked studio/Prolabs. I stayed in the industry and had no intention of being out of it.

The wages are were never huge the best being £20k a year most are lower. Hence work as a tog on the side.

I would do it again. Same to be said for weekend warriors is get a staff tog job and still be a W/W. safe wage and dosh on the side.

Can you make a living? Damn Yeah!!!! Bought and paid for first house in under 8years and never had mortgages ever since. But then i'm not a family man or married.

Anyone can do it.... I have to have a camera in my hand i could not do a job in the office and then do my passion around it...
more than just the money is the experience you get from staffing. mistakes at some elses expense etc.... the learning curve is worth a million for when you do go solo.

when i did take the leap i went freelance for a year and had a full diary through the year.

Wish i stayed doing that. money great and lowest overheads ever.. Now i work more than ever and shoot less...... and free time? HA! you never stop working or thinking about work. It's 24/7.

The best thing about being a staff photographer is: you just shoot and get paid for it.
The best thing about being a free lance photographer is: you just shoot and get paid for it.

Niether will make you rich unless you are one of the 5% that go big time.

It's horses for courses and being in the right place at the right time....

Teaching? now that i have not done........................ idea though.


ALL I CAN SAY TO ANYONE IS GO FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!! untill you do, you will never know. BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!!!!. Aprt from Pilot...or Racing driver..or Porn Star.... wonder what the benefits are there?
 
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jerry12953 said:
OK......but I question the use of the word "very" in your last sentence!;)
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I don't want to labour the point but running your own wedding photography business or portrait studio business, for example, is very different to freelancing.

Daryl said:
blimey, this has gone a few good pages..

Even when i was a Staff photographer i was a W/Warrior tog as well....

There shed loads of staff jobs about but not as many as 10 years ago.

When there was no photographer posts i worked studio/Prolabs. I stayed in the industry and had no intention of being out of it.

The wages are were never huge the best being £20k a year most are lower. Hence work as a tog on the side.

I would do it again. Same to be said for weekend warriors is get a staff tog job and still be a W/W. safe wage and dosh on the side.

Can you make a living? Damn Yeah!!!! Bought and paid for first house in under 8years and never had mortgages ever since. But then i'm not a family man or married.

Anyone can do it.... I have to have a camera in my hand i could not do a job in the office and then do my passion around it...
more than just the money is the experience you get from staffing. mistakes at some elses expense etc.... the learning curve is worth a million for when you do go solo.

when i did take the leap i went freelance for a year and had a full diary through the year.

Wish i stayed doing that. money great and lowest overheads ever.. Now i work more than ever and shoot less...... and free time? HA! you never stop working or thinking about work. It's 24/7.

The best thing about being a staff photographer is: you just shoot and get paid for it.
The best thing about being a free lance photographer is: you just shoot and get paid for it.

Niether will make you rich unless you are one of the 5% that go big time.

It's horses for courses and being in the right place at the right time....

Teaching? now that i have not done........................ idea though.


ALL I CAN SAY TO ANYONE IS GO FOR IT!!!!!!!!!!! untill you do, you will never know. BEST JOB IN THE WORLD!!!!. Aprt from Pilot...or Racing driver..or Porn Star.... wonder what the benefits are there?
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Interesting stuff. So, you've done all three - staffer, freelance and now running your own businesses? What would you say were the pros and cons of each, Daryl, and which did/do you prefer?
 
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ZoneV said:
Interesting stuff. So, you've done all three - staffer, freelance and now running your own businesses? What would you say were the pros and cons of each, Daryl, and which did/do you prefer?
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I think daryl already covered this in his post?
 
I quite like some of the posts on here soo far! I too suffer from that trouble when you wake up, turn on the pc, check the facebook and find a plethora of instagram uploads, some look good and some are awful but I still enjoy the fact that I have a portfolio behind me and plenty of happy customers (plus the wife always rubs my back when I curse at someone thinking of 'becoming a protographer')

Technology is making everything more and more accessible these days, have you seen those websites for complete newbies that can sell their work online? I once thought it was a good idea until I saw that what you will actually receive is something like £0.20 per image sold which could be used for anything i.e. BBC article.

I don't think we have anything to worry about as yet, yes there are more and more students / people thinking of taking it up as a profession but put them in the lime light when you're trying to shoot a wedding, keeping confident, not panicking, weather - I've met quite a few people who also decided on becoming pro's, I offered some advice to them with regard to pulling in work and how to act but they didn't listen and as such, they're now in a different profession with gear still in that cupboard under the stairs.......
 
joescrivens said:
I think daryl already covered this in his post?
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Sure, he's covered some of it but not all of it. He doesn't comment on how running his own businesses compares to the other two methods of working, for example.
 
jonneymendoza said:
Where did I assume it would be easy?
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Here?
It's certainly how it reads.
jonneymendoza said:
...

Also, who cares about runing a business etc? no that is not what the OP was on about. Beingb a pro doesnt mean you have to be good at the business side of things.

There are plenty of pro togs who work for xyz agency
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Which as you can see is not really true.
 
jerry12953 said:
So the freelancer ONLY takes photographs, then? They don't run a business as such, with all that entails?
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A freelancer would still be self employed, and would still be responsible for book-keeping etc. The biggest difference is that a freelance would usually work for a small pool of clients, agencies or other photographers. Whereas other 'self employed' photographers are constantly marketing for new customers.

Of course it's not that cut and dried, as there are 'freelancers' who haven't yet built up a network who are constantly on the lookout for work and photographers who wouldn't consider themselves freelance who do most of their work for a solid customer base.
 
I'm wondering what would be peoples estimates of the number of wannabes who enter into the photography industry and simply don't make it?

I'm estimating.

20% Despite spending money on advertising never get a single booking and leave
40% Operate for a year-ish on below minimum wage and then bow out
30% Get a couple of decent jobs, totally screw up, get huge complaints and crash out
8% Actually are talented photographers, but cannot get their foot in the door,
because the above people are ruining the industry
1% Make something of it-ish on a part time basis.
.9% Are doing OKish, but really struggling
.1% Become real professional photographers who pay the mortgage.
 
Phil V said:
A freelancer would still be self employed, and would still be responsible for book-keeping etc. The biggest difference is that a freelance would usually work for a small pool of clients, agencies or other photographers. Whereas other 'self employed' photographers are constantly marketing for new customers.

Of course it's not that cut and dried, as there are 'freelancers' who haven't yet built up a network who are constantly on the lookout for work and photographers who wouldn't consider themselves freelance who do most of their work for a solid customer base.
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I'd go with that. When I worked in the corporate IT world, freelance contractors were considered the mercenaries of the the workforce. They were flexible, would take almost anything on and could be hired (through an agency) for as long or short a period as required and were very easy to get rid of if necessary (e.g. slack periods when a project stalls). For this they were rewarded with a significantly higher hourly rate than "permies" (even after the agency had taken their cut) and they enjoyed a variety of work and workplace from contract-to-contract.
 
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