WOW - what a great commission !!!!

[andyw]

It is not only wedding/portrait snappers that people want for nothing these days !!

Freelance Photographer

Food & Drink Guides publish regional restaurant guides, covering most of the UK. We currently publish around 30 regional guides every year, covering everywhere from Cornwall to Glasgow. Production of each regional guide involves roughly a five-day photography shoot across a particular county or city. Over those five days we will need photographs taken of about 60 specified restaurants (including cafés, pubs, farm shops, markets and hotels) – each needing a selection of interior and exterior shots, with the occasional chef portrait or food shot.

Excellent communication skills and a friendly, approachable manner are essential for this role.

You will need your own equipment and car and you will be expected to stay away on these assignments (accommodation provided by Food & Drink).

Fuel expenses will be provided, along with a £10 set fee per restaurant, with any further revenue generated by the photographs going to the photographer.

We are looking for several photographers so that the workload can be shared.

If you would like to formally apply for the position, please send the following to Josh at this address:

Don'tcha just love Gumtree and the like!!

[BigFuzzy]

Interesting (not in a good way)
Someone will take it. Easily.
Hopefully it'll be someone good.
I wonder if they've done it this way before and what they got out of it.

You're highlighting the wrong part:

Fuel expenses will be provided, along with a £10 set fee per restaurant, with any further revenue generated by the photographs going to the photographer.

I take that to mean that the photographer retains the rights, and the company is only buying the usage. These photos may (and probably do) have additional value, and could probably be sold to the restaurants as well.

[andyw]

Originally Posted by Photoboothguy

You're highlighting the wrong part:

Fuel expenses will be provided, along with a £10 set fee per restaurant, with any further revenue generated by the photographs going to the photographer.

I take that to mean that the photographer retains the rights, and the company is only buying the usage. These photos may (and probably do) have additional value, and could probably be sold to the restaurants as well.

Have you actually read the whole thing?

60 premises in 5 days?
£10 per set?
That is TEN POUNDS per set???


That is 600 for a 5 day (if that was even possible) commission.

Even if it were possible to do the whole lot in 5 days that is 120 per day or 15 per hour IF you only worked 8 hours a day.
But it would be virtually impossible to do more than 3 a day in a normal 8 hour day so you are down to £30 a day.

Do you really want to work for £30 a day?

Being able to get revenue from the pictures at a later stage is all well and good but you would need to get a lot to make it worthwhile and doing so would involve a good few extra hours with no guarantees.


Yeah, I highlighted the wrong bit


Actually, They do say they are looking for "several" photographers so the work can be split. This means that it would not even be 600 quid total for an individual photographer.

[andyw]

I did actually drop this lot a mail asking if they had in fact got the rates and timings wrong. Basically a bit of a sarcastic note.

This is part of the reply I got.

In regards to you observations, the job specification is completely correct and from experience it is very much possible to visit and shoot 10 sites in one day, obviously with adequate preparation.

We pay £10 per site and cover additional expenses, including accommodation. Only we would be allowed to use the images for free, they are then entirely under your ownership and you may negotiate with the establishments if they wish to purchase them for their own use (as is normally the case).

WOW.

12/day would be pretty challenging, depending on their location. But then again, I would guess restaurants in the UK to be a little more tightly packed together than here in the US.

Let's say it wasn't possible, and you could only do 6/day...that's pretty reasonable. At the company's wage, that's about 60 pounds per day, which I agree, sucks, but not real terrible (beats working at McDonalds).

But, at the same time, you talk to the manager of each restaurant, give a card, and then touch back with them later with the photos. If you do a good job, each location could fork out (pun intended) a hundred pounds or so for the photos you took. This could also lead to future jobs with these restaurants.

And suddenly, you're a commercial photographer with 30 clients and a massive portfolio.

Little risk, large potential for reward...sounds good to me.

[andyw]

Originally Posted by Photoboothguy

12/day would be pretty challenging, depending on their location. But then again, I would guess restaurants in the UK to be a little more tightly packed together than here in the US.

Let's say it wasn't possible, and you could only do 6/day...that's pretty reasonable. At the company's wage, that's about 60 pounds per day, which I agree, sucks, but not real terrible (beats working at McDonalds).

But, at the same time, you talk to the manager of each restaurant, give a card, and then touch back with them later with the photos. If you do a good job, each location could fork out (pun intended) a hundred pounds or so for the photos you took. This could also lead to future jobs with these restaurants.

And suddenly, you're a commercial photographer with 30 clients and a massive portfolio.

Little risk, large potential for reward...sounds good to me.

And there you have it, the reason why these jobs will continue to be advertised, because someone thinks it "sounds good".

Sigh.............

[NathanFranke]

Originally Posted by andyw

And there you have it, the reason why these jobs will continue to be advertised, because someone thinks it "sounds good".

Sigh.............

And in a free market, it either works and the established photographers have to shift their paradigm, or the new photographers work themselves to the bone and quit. It corrects itself, given enough time.

[andyw]

Originally Posted by NathanFranke

And in a free market, it either works and the established photographers have to shift their paradigm, or the new photographers work themselves to the bone and quit. It corrects itself, given enough time.

Hmm.......... debateable in this digital age.

Established photographers (businesses) cannot shift down to those levels. It is totally unstainable as you would effectively be working for a pay scale which is less than your actual cost of doing business in the first place.

Certainly photographers (established or not) have to move with the times, but moving with the times does not/should not mean starving or simply going out of business.

New photographers who accept jobs such as this on the premise of gaining exposure or that by taking zero/low pay now will put them in good stead later are kidding themselves.
I know loads of people who have done this and gotten absolutely nowhere and ended up packing up photography or at least giving up on their plans to do it full time.

Companies/individuals who put up these sorts of ads are ten a penny.
They know that these days (when it seems everyone with a Dslr thinks they are photographers and everyone with a blog thinks they are publishers) there is a virtually never ending supply of people willing to do these jobs for free or for peanuts.
The problem is, they are right.

As soon as one person realises that these jobs are totally useless there are another 10 who think it "sounds good to me".

There is also a never ending supply of "publications" who will be offering jobs like these knowing that there are loads of wannabes willing to take them.

TBH, although I do sometimes reply to these ads and try and "educate" them, they don't bother me that much because either;
1. I would not touch them with a bargepole anyway and the snappers who do the jobs are not my competition.
or
2. Often they will come running to a "proper" professional photographer because they have been let down by the wannabe and need the job redone as a rush job.

Originally Posted by andyw

Certainly photographers (established or not) have to move with the times, but moving with the times does not/should not mean starving or simply going out of business.

One of my business instructors said "Sometimes the best business decision you can make is to get out of the business." If you can't hack it, it's probably time to get out and pursue something else.

This ad might not look appealing for an established photographer with a large client base. But for someone just starting out, this could be an incredible opportunity.

Or it could be crap. But worst case scenario, you get paid minimum wage for a week and end up with a large portfolio and a lot more experience.