....is to charge a nominal sitting fee and let your print sales be your critic.
When I began charging I felt much the same as you, and so only charged a ridiculously low sitting fee. This was followed up with ridiculously low print pricing. My very first customer spent roughly $350 dollars with me to do on location shots of her two year old daughter. I have since done two other shoots for her and she has spent about the same amount each time.
FWIW, for that first shoot my sit fee was $30. and I was charging $3 for 4x6"s, and maybe $5 for 5x7's. She bought a LOT of prints.
But thats a good thing too.....that is....to get prints....paper...product....into people's hands and circulating.
Ive since raised my prices....but still....with the exception of high school seniors and wedding related shoots most of my clients (families,children etc) seem to spend between $250 and $450. A fairly small window in my opinion.
BTW, I still keep my print pricing low, but charge more for my time. I still want my customers to get lots of paper!:D
Wedding work is different. I shot a lot of weddings free before I got the courage to charge. Too many. And then many more before I got the courage to REALLY CHARGE enough to compensate the time I put into it. But THAT is a LOT of work and I have drawn my line in the sand so to speak. I WILL do weddings, but Im definately NOT giving it away anymore.
My work with high school seniors has taken a life of it's own, and Id be completely happy if that was all I ever shot. I have been lucky enough there to be able to increase my prices steadily every year and still the work hasn't dropped off. In fact, I now get ,for a senior shoot, what I once charged for a wedding. THATS pretty decent!
...but....Im nervous before every shoot. Like Scott, I let the files simmer sometimes on the hard drives before I dare take a peek. I worry that there wont be anything they are happy with. I freak out when I see their clothing choices. I question my abilities and creativity. I....
...Sound familiar?
Charge something. Anything. Just start.....and ease your prices up or move them around how you see fit once you can understand how much folks will generally spend with you.
The thing I try to keep in mind as I prepare to enter this business, is that while you and I and others like us here on dgrin are constantly reviewing other photographer's best work and feeling inadequate, *YOU* are often the best local photographer that your client is even aware of, and that's why they hooked up with you to begin with. To them your photos do rock!
They're usually not experts in photography, they're not out there checking out hundreds of portfolios...they just want to look good in a photo. They saw your stuff somewhere, were impressed, and asked for your participation.
As your own skills grow through the process, you'll naturally be attracting more and more discerning clients...and collecting higher fees.
I have yet to meet any serious artist who doesn't struggle with this issue...and trust me, I know and rub shoulders with some amazing photographers....their words astound me at times because they too feel their work is inadequate, vanilla and missing the mark. I personally experience the same things but don't spend much time thinking about it. Reason being: I trust in my creativity and ability. You have to "get" to that point which may take a long long time or, come to realization of trusting yourself. Yes, we all look at other's work and think..."OK, time to sell my equipment"..but here is the key:
NO ONE shoots like you....NO ONE processes and interprets like you. You are your own specialty. Some others can try to duplicate but will never be YOU. Period. The advantages of feeling this way will jettison your desires to emulate those whom you look up to...making you strive harder to do YOUR best. NO, your art will not look like theirs. Yes, your work will exceed what you've been doing in the past.
Take what you think is your greatest weakness for example. Is it lighting? Then, what on Earth are you waiting for? Get out the lighting books, learn the basics and then radicalize the concepts. Forget about 1:3 ratios. Instead, try something way off the charts. Get creative (which is the key to surprising yourself). Experiment, try gelling, try harsh lighting, try using just one light, heck, try using 6 lights. By forcing yourself to stretch out doing something completely out of the norm, you'll find the most important counteractant available for these so called "feelings". It's called, DEVELOPING YOUR STYLE.
There are numerous avenues to learn and stretch. Get together with other photographers, hire models, do funky stuff....outrageous outfits, goofy backgrounds. Forget the friggin head shots...go with something like editorial fashion, learn how to composite in Photoshop...take pictures of landscapes and extract models and drop them in there...learn about lighting, shadows, ect.
To sum up: Stretch yourself and these inadequate "feelings" will go away. Take it from someone who's done this exercise for a long long time...it works..do the feelings return? Yep...should it get the best of you..NOPE....the best advice I could ever provide:
A Part-Timer's Business Model
I am pretty confident in my sports, but not as much with my portraits. I'm an "on the side" pro - haven't quit my day job yet. In the portrait market I depend on people being accustomed to crappy pictures taken with their cell phone or point-n-shoot, and also on them not having seen the work of any of the REAL portrait masters. My portraits are good enough to wow these people, but are mediocre next to the full time masters.
But as for pricing, you have to charge something unless it's for family or close friends. Otherwise if you do it for free for too long, that's what people will expect from you. It has taken a few years, but people in town now know me as a pro who charges for service. Doing my town's little league helped big time for that. Now even close friends are happy to hire and pay me for a quality product, because they know that I take it seriously, and take pride in my work. Not charging for your photos is a vote of no confidence in them. People won't value them if you don't.
For this senior portrait season, I've stumbled upon a business model that I think should work well and doesn't make me feel guilty. I just shot my first senior of the season, so we'll see how it goes. I charge $250 and give them an 8x10, 2 5x7s, 16 wallets of their favorite, and a CD of all their images with retouching done on their favorite 5. Yeah, I might be devaluing my photos and probably the market around me, but I think it's fair for now.
But the key to this model is that I then pay my customers $25 for every paying referral. I think this helps in three ways - 1, if they think $250 is steep, they have an easy mechanism to lower the price significantly, by doing something they are going to do anyway - sharing the pictures with their friends. They appreciate that I give them that. 10 referrals and their portraits are free! 2, they know best who else would appreciate and pay for portraits done at my skill level, and who would not (like the artsy kids who spend all their free time in the high school darkroom). 3, hopefully it will drive volume to my business.
Whenever anyone asks me how much I charge, being able to say "$250, but I then pay back $25 for every referral" typically gets a nice reaction like "oh, cool!", whereas before just saying "$250" landed with a thud.
Good luck!
-Jack
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
wow what a great thread with some awesome input from some of the respected members here. Thank you for the advice and it is especially good to know that those who consistently produce phenomenal work are even doubtful at times. Makes it seem like we're not out of the norm for feeling this way. I'm not even close to being confident to shoot for someone I don't know, and even practicing on ones I do know i feel "ugh" afterwards. But then as I go through them i am *sometimes* semi-content. That being said, when i'm shooting, I find myself trying to get shots close to par with the pros here, and the "ugh" feeling is because I feel they aren't even close. Qarik's comment about the best of the bunch being posted nailed it on the head. But it's a good thing, it has given me something to strive for. i know that i have seen improvements in myself, and I literally feel that if I hadn't found this place I would still not know how to even work the camera.
Fantastic post!I think this thought process must be there in everyone. If anything, it will make you better.
For too long, my mom (yes, my mom, so I always took it with a grain of salt) told me that I need to stop giving my photos away for free. But then, I started having other people tell me the same thing. Suddenly, I started to think, huh, maybe I should. I have actually have more people wanting me to do photos for them since I started charging something. Now, I don't feel that I can charge what the other pros in town do. Well, because, I feel I have a long way to go before I am that level. I also struggle with what I should charge as I do not want to devalue the industry.
I also agree with what Swartzy (I think) said. (and my husband reminds me of this as well as I look at others work.) What you see on here is the best of the best, not the almost, well that could have been a better shot if I would have....
However, it is good to hear from BD letting us know the number of good shots from the well known pros.
This thread has been awesome to read and very reassuring. I enjoy photography and have only ever viewed it as a relaxing (albeit expensive) hobby. Since I've gotten my smugmug (which was initially mainly just to easily share photos with my family) and as my skills improve, more and more people are asking me to take pics for them. I had some friends that wanted me to shoot their wedding. Though it was the first wedding I've shot and I felt pretty inadequate I did tell them that they would need to purchase Lightroom for me in order for me to be able to process their pictures. I was still essentially giving it away to them because of the number of hours involved and giving them, their friends and family full downloading privileges. I've never really viewed photography as a money-making venture and currently any nominal amounts I make I'm currently just reinvesting into equipment for personal use. Just within the last two weeks I've had 2 friends ask me to take kids/family pictures for them and wanted to know what I charged. They aren't close friends (when I would just do it for them as a complete favor) but they aren't strangers either so I basically just told them to $50 - $75 to (kind of) cover my time and any gas money and I'm giving them access to the images to print what they wish (plus I don't have a pro account so none of the prints are upcharged). If more and more people start asking me to take pics, I'll make some changes but I currently don't feel I'm even close to turning pro and am sticking to enthusiast.
I had thought about going to the high school and asking the counselors or something if there were any students that perhaps couldn't afford to have senior portraits taken, but would enjoy having some so that I could improve and help out in the community a bit and they could have some pictures (maybe not pro quality, but better than nothing.)
Ditto on Divamum's experience with the challenges... I've learned so much there, and people push you! A couple times people have said something like "I know you can do better than this, get back out and reshoot. Show us what you've got", which is sometimes what you need to hear to continually improve.
Also, there is something to be said for being aware of your level... I think in some ways it's important to be humble and realize what your limitations are, what you need to work on, etc. I guess mention it because I have a friend who thinks he's an expert in EVERYTHING, including photography, of course, and he's just average.
To him, his stuff is just wonderful and he already knows everything, so he has no desire to actually get better. If he gets any positive response to his work at all - even if there is some critique as well - it's just affirmation of the total awesomeness that his his photographic vision.
To me, I can look at my stuff and say "Here are two I can be proud of, here are 20 that are ok, and here are 10 that totally suck. How can I improve this ratio? What do I need to work on? What resources can I tap into to improve?"
So I believe that it's important to be confident, but to also not get a big head and to keep everything in perspective
The day you don't question the quality of your work is the day you should find something new to do with your life.
And, in the heyday of the great photo magazines, the rule of thumb at LIFE Magazine was that if a photographer was getting two "keepers" - photos the photographer wanted to keep him or herself, assignment aside - out of a roll of 35 mm film, the photographer was doing well. That's two out of 36, or about 5 keepers per 100 exposures. And the LIFE staff included the likes of W. Eugene Smith, Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstadt, John Loomis, Robert Capa, Gordon Parks. Need I go on?
The thing I try to keep in mind as I prepare to enter this business, is that while you and I and others like us here on dgrin are constantly reviewing other photographer's best work and feeling inadequate, *YOU* are often the best local photographer that your client is even aware of, and that's why they hooked up with you to begin with. To them your photos do rock!
They're usually not experts in photography, they're not out there checking out hundreds of portfolios...they just want to look good in a photo. They saw your stuff somewhere, were impressed, and asked for your participation.
As your own skills grow through the process, you'll naturally be attracting more and more discerning clients...and collecting higher fees.
Cheers!
Your right my best friend who is also a client and someone I feel comfortable sharing my insecurities told me "i have no clue what good lighting is or if something is slightly out of focus or what the heck aperture is I just want a cute picture of my kid". Thanks for your advice!
You may find you get more requests for help when you start charging. Doing it for free usually means people feel they owe you a favor.
You could start with a "no cure no pay" approach, so they only pay if they want the results.
As for pricing, I don't suppose people expect to pay less for a photographer than they do for a plumber. I expect that they are bit surprised by the amount of time you put in behind the scenes so I would charge a fixed time for pre and post prep. This way you start with a "time and materials" model which most customers will find reasonable.
When your day is filled by people paying on this basis you can think of repricing your service or positioning yourself in the least price sensitive segment.
I am so proud of everyone here for coming out of your shells and talking about such a pride swallowing issue. I've always believed that if you feel you know everything in your profession you need to move on.
I am just now starting to come out of my "I don't feel like I deserve payment for my work phase" but it literally took months and months of not getting paid.. and then way undercharging the client .. 5 friend interventions later (of not charging enough) Im starting to charge what the market allows. But..sometimes I still cringe asking for a retainer or saying the full price out loud makes me want to hide my eyes...for fear of there reaction. I started my career charging $25 per session and i included a free proof book of 25 images. I wanted to give people enough incentive to help me with my "portfolio" i had them sign wavers and started getting my photos out there. If they loved the images.. i gave them more incentive to tell friends by offering them referral discounts. I get my photos out there by using facebook.... I offered specials and packages. Still not confident..btw. Once i realized that people were seeking me out... not because i knew how to hold a camera and push a button... but because they saw my work as art. And when they hired me to photograph their children it was because they appreciated MY style. After i started realizing that the expectation was based off of there perspective of my talent... my confidence started growing.
This is a very interesting thread. While I was reading this, I came up with an interesting, personal comparison.
Photography is a community just like anything else. DGrin is a community within that community. It's a community I'm just starting to introduce myself to. On the other hand, I've been into the aviation community for years. I'm very comfortable there. So here I have a personal comparison of a very familiar setting and a very unfamiliar setting.
Realizing this, I then tried to identify how I feel toward beginners and amateurs in the aviation community. I repeatedly come back to one very basic thought. If you're trying hard to improve yourself through reading, experimenting, studying, then I'm very eager to share what I have and encourage you on. A person's ability level is immaterial. I'm always willing to help someone who's genuinely trying to help themselves.
If, however, you come in with the expectation that the experts are to simply give you the answers without any effort put forth on your part, I'm much more inclined to dismiss you -- even if you're as good as an F-15 fighter pilot.
I guess my perspective is slightly different than I think you're talking about. You guys have mostly been addressing confidence in your presentation to the outside world. (Your clients) I'm not sure I'll ever have clients. Photography is a hobby for me. If I end up with a client, it would probably be much more by accident than by design. I'm looking at this as confidence when trying to approach a community looking inward.
This is a very interesting thread. While I was reading this, I came up with an interesting, personal comparison.
Photography is a community just like anything else. DGrin is a community within that community. It's a community I'm just starting to introduce myself to. On the other hand, I've been into the aviation community for years. I'm very comfortable there. So here I have a personal comparison of a very familiar setting and a very unfamiliar setting.
Realizing this, I then tried to identify how I feel toward beginners and amateurs in the aviation community. I repeatedly come back to one very basic thought. If you're trying hard to improve yourself through reading, experimenting, studying, then I'm very eager to share what I have and encourage you on. A person's ability level is immaterial. I'm always willing to help someone who's genuinely trying to help themselves.
If, however, you come in with the expectation that the experts are to simply give you the answers without any effort put forth on your part, I'm much more inclined to dismiss you -- even if you're as good as an F-15 fighter pilot.
I guess my perspective is slightly different than I think you're talking about. You guys have mostly been addressing confidence in your presentation to the outside world. (Your clients) I'm not sure I'll ever have clients. Photography is a hobby for me. If I end up with a client, it would probably be much more by accident than by design. I'm looking at this as confidence when trying to approach a community looking inward.
My 2 cents.
Tom
I was talking with dgrins MOX the other day on the phone and spoke very frankly about this same issue. I feel like I can be pretty "real" with her and many other photographers... why pretend to be something better than you are for the sake of a *issing contest?? HOWEVER, as far a clients... we both agreed its best to put on your best face and make like you've been doing it for 20+ years...lol. How is your client suppost to gain confidence in you if you're wearing your insecurities out for everyone to see? I think that proves true in any hired profession.
I was talking with dgrins MOX the other day on the phone and spoke very frankly about this same issue. I feel like I can be pretty "real" with her and many other photographers... why pretend to be something better than you are for the sake of a *issing contest?? HOWEVER, as far a clients... we both agreed its best to put on your best face and make like you've been doing it for 20+ years...lol. How is your client suppost to gain confidence in you if you're wearing your insecurities out for everyone to see? I think that proves true in any hired profession.
If I can carry my analogy one step further, I've heard many times, "If the pilot's nervous, then the passengers are nervous."
I've just started shooting Manual with flashes - AND I HATE IT! But I got a few good shots of my foster girls and it really made me feel, not really empowered, but capable. Even this morning, I shot pictures of a building for a directions sheet and the sky was over powering - so I again switched into manual, it took me about 4 tries to get the exposure right.
I hate doing new things so much, but I'm gunna try. I'm not a great photographer, but I'm not trying to be published - I want to document my life, my children and my community. Oh, and avoid paying LifeTouch $40 per kid for school pictures twice a year!
Canon 50D and 2x T2i's // 2x 580ex II // FlexTT5's & MiniTT1's
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
On becoming the best.....I heard some speaker say that if you study with intensity it will take you 7 years to be at the TOP of your field. How many of us are actually studying? Read as much as you can, go to as many exhibits as you can, google photographers and go to their websites and see if you can see differences then make them your favorites. Join good forums and post your work and ask for cc but keep a thick skin. Your harshest criticts will help you the most.
On pricing, if three out of 5 people don't complain about your prices you are too low. You can choose to eat dinner at McDonalds, or you can step up and go to Applebees, or you can go to that very special place and soak up the atmosphere and good food. Well our clients are like that also. Do you always want to sell to the folks who will only eat at McDonalds or would you rather have the dining atmosphere group. You have to make a choice who you are aiming for and be prepared to provide them with the proper product.
Comments
....is to charge a nominal sitting fee and let your print sales be your critic.
When I began charging I felt much the same as you, and so only charged a ridiculously low sitting fee. This was followed up with ridiculously low print pricing. My very first customer spent roughly $350 dollars with me to do on location shots of her two year old daughter. I have since done two other shoots for her and she has spent about the same amount each time.
FWIW, for that first shoot my sit fee was $30. and I was charging $3 for 4x6"s, and maybe $5 for 5x7's. She bought a LOT of prints.
But thats a good thing too.....that is....to get prints....paper...product....into people's hands and circulating.
Ive since raised my prices....but still....with the exception of high school seniors and wedding related shoots most of my clients (families,children etc) seem to spend between $250 and $450. A fairly small window in my opinion.
BTW, I still keep my print pricing low, but charge more for my time. I still want my customers to get lots of paper!:D
Wedding work is different. I shot a lot of weddings free before I got the courage to charge. Too many. And then many more before I got the courage to REALLY CHARGE enough to compensate the time I put into it. But THAT is a LOT of work and I have drawn my line in the sand so to speak. I WILL do weddings, but Im definately NOT giving it away anymore.
My work with high school seniors has taken a life of it's own, and Id be completely happy if that was all I ever shot. I have been lucky enough there to be able to increase my prices steadily every year and still the work hasn't dropped off. In fact, I now get ,for a senior shoot, what I once charged for a wedding. THATS pretty decent!
...but....Im nervous before every shoot. Like Scott, I let the files simmer sometimes on the hard drives before I dare take a peek. I worry that there wont be anything they are happy with. I freak out when I see their clothing choices. I question my abilities and creativity. I....
...Sound familiar?
Charge something. Anything. Just start.....and ease your prices up or move them around how you see fit once you can understand how much folks will generally spend with you.
Jeff
-Need help with Dgrin?; Wedding Photography Resources
-My Website - Blog - Tips for Senior Portraiture
They're usually not experts in photography, they're not out there checking out hundreds of portfolios...they just want to look good in a photo. They saw your stuff somewhere, were impressed, and asked for your participation.
As your own skills grow through the process, you'll naturally be attracting more and more discerning clients...and collecting higher fees.
Cheers!
http://www.facebook.com/cdgImagery (concert photography)
http://www.cdgimagery.com (concert photography)
http://chrisdg.smugmug.com (everything else)
www.brogen.com
Member: PPA , PPANE, PPAM & NAPP
I am pretty confident in my sports, but not as much with my portraits. I'm an "on the side" pro - haven't quit my day job yet. In the portrait market I depend on people being accustomed to crappy pictures taken with their cell phone or point-n-shoot, and also on them not having seen the work of any of the REAL portrait masters. My portraits are good enough to wow these people, but are mediocre next to the full time masters.
But as for pricing, you have to charge something unless it's for family or close friends. Otherwise if you do it for free for too long, that's what people will expect from you. It has taken a few years, but people in town now know me as a pro who charges for service. Doing my town's little league helped big time for that. Now even close friends are happy to hire and pay me for a quality product, because they know that I take it seriously, and take pride in my work. Not charging for your photos is a vote of no confidence in them. People won't value them if you don't.
For this senior portrait season, I've stumbled upon a business model that I think should work well and doesn't make me feel guilty. I just shot my first senior of the season, so we'll see how it goes. I charge $250 and give them an 8x10, 2 5x7s, 16 wallets of their favorite, and a CD of all their images with retouching done on their favorite 5. Yeah, I might be devaluing my photos and probably the market around me, but I think it's fair for now.
But the key to this model is that I then pay my customers $25 for every paying referral. I think this helps in three ways - 1, if they think $250 is steep, they have an easy mechanism to lower the price significantly, by doing something they are going to do anyway - sharing the pictures with their friends. They appreciate that I give them that. 10 referrals and their portraits are free! 2, they know best who else would appreciate and pay for portraits done at my skill level, and who would not (like the artsy kids who spend all their free time in the high school darkroom). 3, hopefully it will drive volume to my business.
Whenever anyone asks me how much I charge, being able to say "$250, but I then pay back $25 for every referral" typically gets a nice reaction like "oh, cool!", whereas before just saying "$250" landed with a thud.
Good luck!
An "accurate" reproduction of a scene and a good photograph are often two different things.
Thanks again guys!
For too long, my mom (yes, my mom, so I always took it with a grain of salt) told me that I need to stop giving my photos away for free. But then, I started having other people tell me the same thing. Suddenly, I started to think, huh, maybe I should. I have actually have more people wanting me to do photos for them since I started charging something. Now, I don't feel that I can charge what the other pros in town do. Well, because, I feel I have a long way to go before I am that level. I also struggle with what I should charge as I do not want to devalue the industry.
I also agree with what Swartzy (I think) said. (and my husband reminds me of this as well as I look at others work.) What you see on here is the best of the best, not the almost, well that could have been a better shot if I would have....
However, it is good to hear from BD letting us know the number of good shots from the well known pros.
twobassets.smugmug.com
I had thought about going to the high school and asking the counselors or something if there were any students that perhaps couldn't afford to have senior portraits taken, but would enjoy having some so that I could improve and help out in the community a bit and they could have some pictures (maybe not pro quality, but better than nothing.)
Also, there is something to be said for being aware of your level... I think in some ways it's important to be humble and realize what your limitations are, what you need to work on, etc. I guess mention it because I have a friend who thinks he's an expert in EVERYTHING, including photography, of course, and he's just average.
To him, his stuff is just wonderful and he already knows everything, so he has no desire to actually get better. If he gets any positive response to his work at all - even if there is some critique as well - it's just affirmation of the total awesomeness that his his photographic vision.
To me, I can look at my stuff and say "Here are two I can be proud of, here are 20 that are ok, and here are 10 that totally suck. How can I improve this ratio? What do I need to work on? What resources can I tap into to improve?"
So I believe that it's important to be confident, but to also not get a big head and to keep everything in perspective
Spread the love! Go comment on something!
Your right my best friend who is also a client and someone I feel comfortable sharing my insecurities told me "i have no clue what good lighting is or if something is slightly out of focus or what the heck aperture is I just want a cute picture of my kid". Thanks for your advice!
You could start with a "no cure no pay" approach, so they only pay if they want the results.
As for pricing, I don't suppose people expect to pay less for a photographer than they do for a plumber. I expect that they are bit surprised by the amount of time you put in behind the scenes so I would charge a fixed time for pre and post prep. This way you start with a "time and materials" model which most customers will find reasonable.
When your day is filled by people paying on this basis you can think of repricing your service or positioning yourself in the least price sensitive segment.
I am just now starting to come out of my "I don't feel like I deserve payment for my work phase" but it literally took months and months of not getting paid.. and then way undercharging the client .. 5 friend interventions later (of not charging enough) Im starting to charge what the market allows. But..sometimes I still cringe asking for a retainer or saying the full price out loud makes me want to hide my eyes...for fear of there reaction. I started my career charging $25 per session and i included a free proof book of 25 images. I wanted to give people enough incentive to help me with my "portfolio" i had them sign wavers and started getting my photos out there. If they loved the images.. i gave them more incentive to tell friends by offering them referral discounts. I get my photos out there by using facebook.... I offered specials and packages. Still not confident..btw. Once i realized that people were seeking me out... not because i knew how to hold a camera and push a button... but because they saw my work as art. And when they hired me to photograph their children it was because they appreciated MY style. After i started realizing that the expectation was based off of there perspective of my talent... my confidence started growing.
Newest baby: R.Gonzalez PHOTOGRAPHY or HERE
My rambling addiction: Crunchy Monkeys
facebook fan page: R.Gonzalez photography
:ivar
Photography is a community just like anything else. DGrin is a community within that community. It's a community I'm just starting to introduce myself to. On the other hand, I've been into the aviation community for years. I'm very comfortable there. So here I have a personal comparison of a very familiar setting and a very unfamiliar setting.
Realizing this, I then tried to identify how I feel toward beginners and amateurs in the aviation community. I repeatedly come back to one very basic thought. If you're trying hard to improve yourself through reading, experimenting, studying, then I'm very eager to share what I have and encourage you on. A person's ability level is immaterial. I'm always willing to help someone who's genuinely trying to help themselves.
If, however, you come in with the expectation that the experts are to simply give you the answers without any effort put forth on your part, I'm much more inclined to dismiss you -- even if you're as good as an F-15 fighter pilot.
I guess my perspective is slightly different than I think you're talking about. You guys have mostly been addressing confidence in your presentation to the outside world. (Your clients) I'm not sure I'll ever have clients. Photography is a hobby for me. If I end up with a client, it would probably be much more by accident than by design. I'm looking at this as confidence when trying to approach a community looking inward.
My 2 cents.
Tom
I was talking with dgrins MOX the other day on the phone and spoke very frankly about this same issue. I feel like I can be pretty "real" with her and many other photographers... why pretend to be something better than you are for the sake of a *issing contest?? HOWEVER, as far a clients... we both agreed its best to put on your best face and make like you've been doing it for 20+ years...lol. How is your client suppost to gain confidence in you if you're wearing your insecurities out for everyone to see? I think that proves true in any hired profession.
Newest baby: R.Gonzalez PHOTOGRAPHY or HERE
My rambling addiction: Crunchy Monkeys
facebook fan page: R.Gonzalez photography
:ivar
If I can carry my analogy one step further, I've heard many times, "If the pilot's nervous, then the passengers are nervous."
I've just started shooting Manual with flashes - AND I HATE IT! But I got a few good shots of my foster girls and it really made me feel, not really empowered, but capable. Even this morning, I shot pictures of a building for a directions sheet and the sky was over powering - so I again switched into manual, it took me about 4 tries to get the exposure right.
I hate doing new things so much, but I'm gunna try. I'm not a great photographer, but I'm not trying to be published - I want to document my life, my children and my community. Oh, and avoid paying LifeTouch $40 per kid for school pictures twice a year!
EFS 17-55 f/2.8 & 10-22 // Sigma 30mm f/1.4 & 50mm f/1.4
Sigma Bigma OS // Canon 70-200 IS f/2.8
I feel better thank you
On pricing, if three out of 5 people don't complain about your prices you are too low. You can choose to eat dinner at McDonalds, or you can step up and go to Applebees, or you can go to that very special place and soak up the atmosphere and good food. Well our clients are like that also. Do you always want to sell to the folks who will only eat at McDonalds or would you rather have the dining atmosphere group. You have to make a choice who you are aiming for and be prepared to provide them with the proper product.
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