Shooting for free and giving digital files

[kayzar]

Hi.

I am a student hoping to enter a photography course at the end of next year, and I am looking to spend my summer holidays (christmas) gaining some experience, as it is favourably looked upon when considered for selection into the course.

I was thinking of offering to shoot some events for free, especially christmas events (in fact, I had a few offers). Is this a good idea? and if I do, how do I provide photos? I don't particularly want to hand over digital files.

Unfortunately, to be paid, people want experience, but the only way to get experience to go shooting...



Without Wax,

Kayzar

[Biomech]

You could do what I'm doing next month: In preperation to starting a business next april, I'll be shooting people at a local outdoor ice skating rink. I've agreed with the event orgainsers that they get advertising on my site and related material (leaflets/cards etc) and I shoot their customers. Whilst this is really a marketing exercise for me, I'll be offering the photos up for sale on PhotoboxGallery.com. So I shoot them, hand them a card with the photobox URL, my name and website and the event organisers website, then get any money if/when they buy.

It's all in the pitch for the people you shoot for, I was going to offer them 20%, but I figured why go straight in with a figure? So I said in return for allowing me to shoot their company and even gets extra- essentially free - advertising and exposure: Which they went for

HTH

[Jim Bryant]

[QUOTE=kayzar;1129138

Unfortunately, to be paid, people want experience, but the only way to get experience to go shooting...
Kayzar[/QUOTE]

Bingo.......that's the real Catch-22.

@Biomech -- offer them either 10% or 15%, not 20% and that's only after you taken out your expenses. 10-15% is normal in this industry. Some guy approached us about taking pictures of a huge soccer tourney involving 150 teams and he wanted 20%, we said not, he got back and said 15% was fine by him. We did research a head of time and i was $250.00 per team just to enter in the tourney.

[BK553]

Making any amount of money is better than nothing, and don't forget you'll need experience in other areas too. Treat even free shoots like real ones, it will help you develop a workflow and routine. Also, practice negotiating a better position for yourself. Right now it may not amount to much, but later it could be thousands of dollars difference based solely on your strong business and negotiation skills.

So basically, shoot as much as you can to become a better photographer, but practice your business/people skills along the way too. You'll need all three.

[nickbedford]

If I do a shoot for myself, such as seeing some local bands and shooting, I'll actually go up after each band's set and introduce myself and get the band's email and have a bit of a yarn with them.

I then do my normal thing, upload the whole shoot to Picasa and some picks to Flickr and maybe put it on Facebook then send an email to the bands saying "hi all, photos can be found here. thanks for a great show. Please share at your disposal but do not modify the images please. If you want to purchase any hi-res copies just give me a buzz on this email. Cheers and hope you enjoy the photos." or along those lines.

The shoot is fully my responsibility but I don't give anything out than watermarked web sized images.

[Jim Bryant]

Originally Posted by BK553

Making any amount of money is better than nothing, and don't forget you'll need experience in other areas too. Treat even free shoots like real ones, it will help you develop a workflow and routine. Also, practice negotiating a better position for yourself. Right now it may not amount to much, but later it could be thousands of dollars difference based solely on your strong business and negotiation skills.
So basically, shoot as much as you can to become a better photographer, but practice your business/people skills along the way too. You'll need all three.

How true! If you offer them 20% then they will expect the same percentage rate every time, no matter how much you make. They should be lucky to have your business and make money off you.

[EOBeav]

Originally Posted by BK553

Making any amount of money is better than nothing

I gotta disagree. If I get paid for some work, that puts a value on my time/talents/product. If I choose to do something non gratis (free senior portraits for a good kid without a lot of resources, for example), I'm putting that value on them. I would 10x rather do something for free than get lowballed for it.

[BK553]

Surely charging charity cases like that isn't a good idea, and shooting for free can be a good idea in certain situations. The problem though is lowering expectations to potential future customers. In my experience, coming down a little in price later is much easier than trying to explain later why you have to charge much more than you did the last time. Better to start high and go lower if necessary. In situations where no future income is wanted or expected, by all means, shoot for free. Otherwise, start getting paid now if you can, not later.

[BK553]

Kayzar,

The other thing I was going to ask was: What do you want to get from shooting for free and giving people the pictures?

Some people (including me) shoot for free sometimes in order to get our names out there, advertise, network and such. This drives our business though, which is set up and ready to earn money.

If you don't have this ready to go, and there isn't a way for you to somehow convert your free shooting into sales later, then why not just go shoot for yourself? That way you spend less time dealing with putting photos online, dealing with people who aren't going to pay you, and all that jazz. You can spend more time on learning, which is what you said your main goal was to begin with.

[kayzar]

Woah. Thanks for all the responses.

Brian, I am doing this to gain experience, and to have shots to add to my portfolio. Unfortunately, I need things (events) to shoot, and no one is going to pay me to do it without any kind of portfolio or experience backing me up.