Good enough to charge?

[dmann]

At what point can you charge for your talent before you have a chance to learn all the technicalities?

I am new to photography. I started by taking a couple good pictures of my daughter as a baby and progressingly got better. Just last year I realized, with the encouragement of my amazing husband, I have a talent that I should presue. He bought me a good camera (Canon T1i) and I am just starting to learn the basics. I have kids so this learning gets delayed...alot.

Anyway a friend of mine asked me to take pictures for her, I did (free) and they were great. Another friend wants me to shoot her whole family, which is about 10-12 people. She wants to pay me and because I don't know a lot of the technicalities I am uncomfortable charging. Although it is enough of a inconvience for my family that I feel I should not do it free. I know her family will get some good shots so it wouldn't be a loss. Also I do want to start doing photography part time to bring in a little extra income and as I make more I want to upgrade and add variety to my glass, which should in turn make my photos better.

How much do I need to know to be considered a photographer that can charge? I don't have a flicker account or website so please look at my albums and let me know what you think. Also let me know what you think outside of my photography and just this general situation.

Thanks!

[zona5101]

There is a provable disconnect of any coorelation between knowledge/expertise/quality versus charging for services.
That said, understand that when you start to charge people you assume some responsibility for the outcome. Obviously as the importance of the event increases your exposure to liability increases. But to directly answer your question, there is no threshold of knowledge. The common sense approach would be not to charge until you can routinely produce quality images under a variety of circumstances and have the equipment & knowledge necessary to perform a consistant quality of work.

[Jim Bryant]

Please learn how to use your camera and photography and business side of photography in general before talking about charging. Take some photography classes and learn lighting techniques, just because you put your camera on auto doesn't and manage to capture a few good snaps doesn't mean you're good enough to sell photo.

[dmann]

Originally Posted by Jim Bryant

Please learn how to use your camera and photography and business side of photography in general before talking about charging. Take some photography classes and learn lighting techniques, just because you put your camera on auto doesn't and manage to capture a few good snaps doesn't mean you're good enough to sell photo.

Well I have taken one class and I am studying some books on photography. I do understand ISO, f-stop, shutter speed and aperature to name a few. I don't know much about lighting as I don't do any studio photos, with that being said I do realize that I need to know about lighting when doing outdoor (which is most of my work) and would like to learn. I would take more classes but my community doesn't offer any, thats why I am studying the books. If you have any suggestions for books and/or online courses that would be beneficial that would be great.

I don't shoot in auto, it never seems to produce the image I want (I hope my photos don't look like I shoot in auto!). Also I do manage to get more than the sporadic good picture.

[Jim Poor]

Show us some work and we'll let you know what we think of it. That said, if you so us 10 fabulous images, we have no idea if you can produce those results over and over, under pressure, etc.

Also, keep in mind that spouses and friends are the LAST people to listen to when it comes to a true assessment of our skills.

[dmann]

I have two albums on my profile for you to look at some of my photos. Thank you

...and I don't know how well I do under pressure, I would need to be subject to pressure first, so point well taken.

[Niresangwa]

People are correct, you need to do way more studying on what's entailed in a business, as well as continuing to learn how to use a camera. Distinctly different disciplines.

From what I see in your albums, I actually liked what I assumed to be an engagement shoot, in terms of some of the concepts and composition. However, you're struggling with exposure, and some of the processing...well, get rid of the actions and/or presets. Work on producing great images on your own (both in the camera and then in PP) without resorting to heavy-handed, destructive high contrast actions.

You'd be best off submitting one of your favourite best-shot-I-ever-took to the critique forums to get started there...

[dmann]

Thank you, that helps me a lot.
I was using picnik to edit because it was easier to use than photoshop elements but taking your critique into consideration I should get taught up on adobe. And also learn how to edit not just how to use the software. I am lacking resources in every area though. I am reading "how to shoot like the pro's" and they are good books. Do you have good resources to suggest?
Also as far as the exposure comment I 100% agree. In that shoot when I went in AV, M, and A-DEP (not even sure if I should have used those modes) I got white screens. Which I later learned that if I kept I could look at the data but I deleted. I don't know what to do different, suggestions? I know thats probably a hard question because you don't have all the info but is there any standard rules to exposure?

Thank you for all your responses, I appreciate the help.

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by dmann

Thank you, that helps me a lot.
I was using picnik to edit because it was easier to use than photoshop elements but taking your critique into consideration I should get taught up on adobe. And also learn how to edit not just how to use the software. I am lacking resources in every area though. I am reading "how to shoot like the pro's" and they are good books. Do you have good resources to suggest?
Also as far as the exposure comment I 100% agree. In that shoot when I went in AV, M, and A-DEP (not even sure if I should have used those modes) I got white screens. Which I later learned that if I kept I could look at the data but I deleted. I don't know what to do different, suggestions? I know thats probably a hard question because you don't have all the info but is there any standard rules to exposure?

Thank you for all your responses, I appreciate the help.

Well, I see you beat me to the punch on the critique section... I just finished up writing you back on there.

Right now, using auto modes is ok to use as a learning tool. See what the camera chose as a setting, and figure out why it chose it. It's not perfect but they get damn close to a 'normal', common or garden shot... as you learn more about whay it's doing it, and you start to have your own creative ideas (DoF is probably the starting point) you can attentuate things and it should start to fall into place...

there are many different experiments and tutorials you can look at for learning creative settings such as shallow DoF, motion blur etc.. but to begin you need to know how to get a clean exposure.

Reading is great (not that I ever did much) but experimentation and hands on is more important at this stage, as long as youre doing it on your own time and dime, and doing it to get something out of it.

Then you can start to work on PP, to enhance, not rescue your shots... Picnik isn't going to cut it.

Seems like you have a long way to go... hopefully people here can help you figure out where you are and where to go next to get you where you want to be..

[MattG]

Back to the OP, I would suggest then proposing some gift rather than a payment for the shoot. If you like wine, a bottle or two of that, or movie passes, or something that makes up for the time away from the family but doesn't start a pricing query. This way, if someone else asks, you can refuse, shoot for your portfolio or charge if you want, without entering the realm of professional business.