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Low price gig
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When should you take a low price gig?
what should you think about?okay the economy is in the dumps wages are down spare cash for luxuries such as photos is harder to come buy and everyone has a dSLR now, so when should you take a lower price gig and when do you have to say no I am a Pro?
First thing is supply v demand, if supply increases and demand drops the price will have to drop a lot. but as the supply increases so to does the number of people doing hatchet jobs. I am a property and interiors shooter, I do not claim to be a wedding shooter, but I would have the kit for it, I know that the kit helps but it does not spot the shot or interact with the subjects. likewise I think that other good pros know when to say that they will not be the best for that type of shot. but some “pros” people with dSLRs and no expertise in an area think they can shoot everything.
One other point should you when starting out take free gigs just to get started? my concern would be that people might expect this in the future and that if anything goes wrong are you insured?
just a thought for the day
ThanksBrian
Im sure everyone will have different view on this but to offer my two penneth:
There is a real mix of views on this site relating to people starting out – some supportive and some of the “you can’t just get a dslr and be a wedding photographer” Actually you can. Have great people skills, Buy a new camera, get to know it inside out, get the right development plan (combination of books, courses, practice assistance etc) and in a year of serious hard work you can be good. 3 years you can be brilliant. Person A may think their a great photographer but if they can’t work out beforehand which photographs a bride a groom will like Person B will take pics that the bride and groom prefer. We can get self righteous about what makes a good picture – cropping, DOF etc – but you have to really listen to a customer to hear what they think is a great picture – phrases like “I don’t like that picture becasue the backgrounds blurred” – too late when you’ve shot the whole wedding virtually at f2 loving the artistic creations you think you’ve made.
Do you drop your prices – only if you don’t keep developing yourself to keep yourself ahead of the chasing pack. You have to offer better value in a recession – achieving this by dropping your prices should be the last option. Maybe consider dropping prices for times at which work is lowest – midweek weddings, november weddings etc – some work better than no work? Also focus religiously on bottom line – any unused equipment you can sell, anyway of speeding up your editing processes right down to if you want a weekend away have it in the wedding hotel after a wedding – tax deductable then!
If starting out free is better than cut price – people get the fact that the first few are free and then fee will be as advertised. Its a lot harder if you’ve done this first few “cheap” as most referrals through friends etc will know how much they paid – “hey you did my friends wedding, thats the best photography ive seen for 300 quid will you do mine?”
not saying im right – just sharing my thoughts!
today I saw images from a “pro” shooting property, they used a wide lens and a single on camera flash with a wide angle lens, the results were terrible. There was poor lighting blown out windows converging verticals barrel distortion, badly thought out images and all taken from terrible PoV.
that “pro” was paid but worst of all took the job from me and in a month or so I am going to have to go back in and redo the job because the original images didn’t do what they were supposed to so the owners will end up paying twice.
going back to the root cause – how did he get the work in the 1st place – hard to offer any thoughts without knowing this. I know absolutely nothing about your business so can’t help much but the following spring to mind:
Where is this kind of work generated – is it agent referral or direct customer referral?
If agent – how proactive has your networking been lately?
If customer why when i type in “photograph my property” into google.ie do i not see your site – google adwords cost very little. Another idea may be to try different URLs – firstpointproperty tells me nothing about what you actually do and i am less likely to click this even if i can find it on google. By using different What have viewit.ie done to get top of google?If you’re thinking about your charging maybe look at it from a customers point of view. 175 sounds a bit for a few photographs. However if you said the photography was free and then 25eur for each picture the customer wanted i reckon you’d prob sell at least 175 euro worth if the pics are as good as the ones on your site.
Fly by nights won’t last long in the business if they don’t produce good results but you have to ensure every part of your business is spot on to stay ahead. He may be a fly by night or he may be reading this, buying himself video lights and portable flash as we speak whilst getting himself to the top of google and schmoozing the agents!
he approached a family member of the sellers. You are right of course, my eye has been off the ball regarding promoting my business on line, this is not were my priorities lie at present. I am actually getting plenty of work through agents. I don’t have a problem with people competing with me or starting out in the area in which I specialise as I feel this will help me in the long term as eventually getting proper photos will become the norm.
But this was not the reason I started this thread, rather I think that there have been people bargain hunting for photographers recently and there have been a few people giving out about this. I would like to know what are peoples views? should people do shoots for low prices? when starting off should you do shoots for free or on the cheap? what are the risks and effects?
i would say its the same in so many areas, i remember when i was one of only 6 people in the uk and not many more in europe that could make DVDs.
I could charge a huge premium for owning 150K worth kit and the skills to do this
now, there are muppets doing it for basically nothing, as they are not kitted out etc
and the price of the kit came down
But i dont worry tooo much, as all the better gigs still end up coming my way even if its to fix stuff that one of the muppets did wrong
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