holly_swanson

<p>I owned the 6D and got rid of it for the 5D3. The AF system is the reason I ditched it - it wasn't good enough for the weddings and child portraits I was doing, and for the extremely fast lenses I was using. However, I think for your purposes it should be OK. It was otherwise a great little camera.</p>

It is good to know that there are others who have experienced a similar thing. If I choose to shoot for free again, I think I will try to express MY gratitude more.

All the people I PERSONALLY have photographed for.

<p>For some reason, people never, ever feel the need to show any appreciation. Why the heck not?! It leaves a horrible feeling in my stomach.</p> <p>I attempted to start my own business almost 2 years ago, but it failed due to no one willing to pay for photos. As a matter of fact, I could hardly even find anyone to shoot for free. Sad, but true. So I figured well, I enjoy photography so much that I can't really NOT do it, so I'll just shoot my friends' kids for free. I know shooting for free is bad for the industry, but...well, there would be no other way for me to create the photos I want. :\ <br /> I have photographed my sister's kids, and one of my close friend's child. Neither of them ever displayed any type of appreciation after photos were delivered. Not even an "I love the photo." They just post them to their Facebook pages and let the compliments roll in without one word to me. A lot of times THEY don't even show support by "liking" the photo on Facebook!<br /> Has anyone else experienced this? Is this common? Because it is the worst feeling to me, not only not getting paid (and YES I realize at this point I am doing it for the joy of it,) but isn't it still common courtesy? Or do they feel that they've done ME a favor by "allowing" me to photograph their kids??</p> <p>Sorry for the rant, but I really want to know if anyone else notices this.</p>

<p>This is what I have learned, over the past year of attempting to start a photography business: If you are in need of this to be full-time job, to give you full-time income and to survive off of, don't even try it. Unless you are an absolutely brilliant marketer, I suppose. With a lot of spare cash to throw into your new business. If you have plenty of spare time and money and can afford to do this as a hobby with just the aspiration of going full-time one day, then sure.</p> <p>As someone who was new to the industry, I found there to be far, far too much competition. Every stay at home mom is becoming a photographer these days, and apparently darn good ones. Another problem is that the large majority of clients do not appreciate or recognize any artistic aspect to photography - they only care about poses and how they look. Which is important, too, of course, but if you're a fine art photographer hoping to set yourself apart with moody, emotional images and creative editing, good luck. That's kind of common sense, I guess, but still disapointing.</p> <p>So say you DO create photos that appeal to the majority. Clients will be turned off by any prices over $200-300, rationalizing that they can just call their uncle who owns a "good DSLR" and come up with some cool poses themselves. (Since, remember, they don't recognize any creative talent aspect, they do not have the ability to see the justification for any high prices.)<br> <br /> The ones who are successful are the brilliant marketers. They manage to appeal to their clients in a way that I was never able to figure out. It has little to do with their actual photography and more to do with their personality. As someone who is shy and artistic, and well, since I'm not exactly a people person, down the drain that went. The photos of course must be good, too, but you could take the same photos, take away the marketing bubbly photographer personality, and quite frankly no one would care.<br /> I admit it, when I first started out I too thought "I own a 5d mark III and a ton of L lenses, people will be knocking down my door to pay me to take their picture!" I look back and laugh at that now :) <br /> I was never looking for an easy buck, I worked extremely hard and spent a LOT of money to start my business. I worked for a wedding photography studio early on, but that wasn't worth it as the pay was far too low. After a year, I found ONE client to shoot for free, ONE more client to shoot who chose me as a last-minute resort after the other falling through for $125, and the wedding studio gigs. That's it. I got scoffed at every time someone asked me my rates and I answered anything over $200. <br /> Seriously, IT'S SO BAD THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN FIND PEOPLE TO SHOOT FOR FREE. At least, that was the case for me. I never could understand just where in the world all the photographers get their clients streaming in from. It just never happened for me, but seems to for many others. <br /> Please forgive the negativity, but quite frankly it's liberating to throw in the towel.</p>

<p>I will be bringing my camera to a car show in a few weeks, and as a way to distribute the files I would like to allow people access to a proofing site where they can download. The problem is with the amount of pictures I'm thinking there will be, it would be wonderful if people could somehow search within the gallery. This way I could have the file names contain their license plate, and they could just search their license plate #. At least that's the idea I had.</p> <p>Does such a proofing site exist? </p>

<p>Ok, thanks. I think what I am going to do is photograph for whoever asks, whoever just happens to chat us up. I don't think I will sell the files.</p>