From Flash to Cash: making money from photography

Thought we might need a general thread for those amongst us who earn a living (or just pin money) from photography.

Tips, tricks, experiences or just a general moan - whatever you have to share about the grubby world of asking people to fork over actual cash for your snappage, whether it's photojournalism, event shooting, portraiture, studio/product work, stock images, fine art, whatever. Whether you've done it once (and never again?), plan to do it or have been doing it for so long you're sick of it...

And what's prompted me to start this is...I've been asked to do two weddings this summer. Now, they're both in that tricky area where I'm a friend-of-a-friend-who-is-handy-with-a-camera, but I'm charging a fairly substantial fee for each (basically, my hire/travel costs x 2). I've set out in quite clear terms what they can expect me to do on the day and in post-prod and hopefully things will go smoothly but I get the impression the impetus to hire a photographer isn't coming from the couples-to-be, but from their respective families. I can immediately see there may be a gulf of expectation between what bride'n'groom want (casual, PJ-style pics) and what the in-laws (having got their way - maybe they're even the ones paying me) want (traditional posed shots).

I've done semi-commissioned things before, but never on this scale. Hiring a 17-55/2.8 and an 85L, borrowing a second body, putting on a suit...

I did a friends wedding, I can honestly say I was more nervous than him and can’t see myself doing it again. He said he's pay me, but knowing he was on a budget I just opted for Travel costs, I was already invited to eat with them and all drinks were free. I ended up with 3 bottles of wine as an extra.

Anyway, there were no clear expectations as to what he wanted, so I did some research as to what standard wedding photo’s looked like and aimed for that. The main problem I had was trying to get a group photo, there always seemed to be someone looking away or blinking and once the flash went, they’d start to move away and think that was it. I think people management would come in handy for this line of work. Second was the light, it was a registrar with low ceiling and awful orange lighting which didn’t look right with any of the WB settings. The other thing I noticed was people would kinda freeze up when I pointed the camera it them and lose the natural look that you get with a candid portrait, although, this disappeared when the drinks started flowing and people relaxed.

For the wedding itself to the cake cutting I used a Canon 28-200mm lens with Canon 430EX flash which was fine for getting the group shots in the confined office and dining area and getting close up shots of their faces and the of the rings while they exchanged their vows etc. For the evening in the hotel I used a Canon 50mm 1.8, I found the evening shots to be better which I think was down to me being a little bit more comfortable with taking pictures of complete strangers and the strangers themselves being more relaxed.

I have turned down a couple of offers the do weddings since as I didn’t enjoy the experience. Being at a wedding with a camera with the intention of getting a few candid shot that you can give to the couple as extras is infinitely better than being THE wedding photographer.

Hearing “oh they’ve got a proper photographer” when you walk into a room full of strangers kinda puts the pressure on.

I think a lot of people expect Ok & Hello type stuff.

Hope it was some help and didn’t put you off too much :-/

don't have anything to offer but TOP recently did a post about wedding photography:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2010/04/random-excellence-evan-baines.html

as usual, a lot of interesting comments

Forgot to add, friend and wife were really pleased with the results and their families all wanted copies after seeing them.
I thought they could have been better to be honest.

Oh, I sort of know what I'm setting myself up for, and I'd much rather be guest-with-camera or second-shooter, but I feel I should plunge in at the deep end if I'm ever going to develop this skill. There's also a sense in which I'm a very frustrated candid portrait photographer (i.e. I barely know anyone who likes having their picture taken and I've been a bloody nuisance at social events for a few years now) and this is a chance to completely indulge myself in the craft for a few hours. As long as I don't lose sight of the client's expectations...

I've done one wedding before (unless you count my brother's when I was 16 and I was in charge of his Olympus OM20 + 50/1.8; I don't think I even got through a complete roll of film but the pictures were OK!) - in tandem with a friend. We went from even indoor light to shadowy corridor to overhead strip-light to harsh afternoon sun (and 90F) to moodily-lit basement bar. It was a huge learning curve for both of us and, well, thank goodness it was for good friends of ours. I think it went OK and I was very glad I wasn't on my own. The post-event sort-out (which we tried to conduct via a private Flickr group with tagging) was probably more difficult than it needed to be, so any advice on contact-sheet approval in the digital age is welcome.

More than one person has advised me to politely decline these invitations. There's enough of a gap between wedding #1 and wedding #2 than I could bail on #2 if #1 (which should be more straightforward - far less formal and I'll actually know more than one person there) is a complete confidence-shattering exercise.

Stupid question: how to carry around two bodies? One neck strap, one shoulder?

(DennisHopperApocalypseNow.jpg)

I thought they could have been better to be honest.

you're always your own worst critic, as the saying goes.

anyone ever sell stock photography?

Uploaded a bunch to Crestock about 18 months ago...they were all rejected. Some of the comments (which were clearly just options in a drop-down list, not someone's considered critique) were fair enough, some were just baffling. Rather than think "right, need to take better pictures then", I just looked through their samples and thought "I can't do that" and gave up.

if it makes you feel better - i've never even heard of Crestock!

interesting article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8744817.stm

When I first heard about the Getty/Flickr tie up I went through and changed the licences on all my creative commons photos to add the non-commercial stipulation.
Which I discovered this week hasn't stopped at least one commercial organisation using an image of mine on their website.
The Dundee based Scottish daily newspaper The Courier published this article (at least on the website - no idea if it was in the actual paper) with my image at the head. They attributed the photo to me (my flickr username is the same as here) but at no point have they contacted me to ask if they can use the image in a commercial context. I think they've basically done a creative commons search for a relevant image and haven't actually bothered to see if it allows commercial usage or not.
I should really contact them about it, but if I do I don't expect anything to come out of it.

it's called a lawyer.

sorry - didn't mean to sound so flippant.
how did you find out, btw? do you usually read that paper? (online)

It cropped up in my flickr referrals in my stats.
I'm going to email them at some point, but I'm coming down with a cold right now and I'm not feeling terribly coherent.

In the early days of digital, I thought about putting together CDs of stock images and selling them to designers/businesses, cutting out the stock imagery middlemen - but then online services took off and it just seemed like too much effort for the pay.