ian_campbell1

<p>I did a photo once, print, $300, the lab charged $5 for the printing. That was their charge, pure and simple. As the printer/toner/whatever it was you did on the ones you didn't shoot, you're that lab: you can charge for the time and materials, but the photographer gets the creative money.</p>

<p>Clearly they've heard the buzzword, but they don't know what the hell it means: they request, you respond, generally. Ask them, and put their request back to them in writing. And charge them twice as much for the work you're having to do, because, if they can't get this bit right, it'll be reshots by the boatload...</p>

<p>Walk away from these people. Tell them that you've realised their non compete isn't worth the paper it's printed on, and they have mischaracterised you as a contractor when you were, in fact, a part time employee, information you will report to the IRS. The reality is that they assigned you your work, assigned you a payment of their choice, and you reported to them, so failed to meet any of the criteria of self-employment. The respondent who noted the 14 per cent FICA you should have paid, that's true, and you were also entitled to mileage repayments if they were having you operate your own vehicle on their behalf. I ran my own business, and I also worked part time for a newspaper in Pennsylvania, and the reality was that I made more money, in the end, working part time for a grocery than I did working for the newspaper, once you took all the associated costs out of the equation. Of course, if you were under 18 when you signed the contract (under 21 in some states, I think) I doubt the contract was ever enforceable. For example, did it have a formal witness, and not the owner of the company acting on his own behalf? Little things like that mean a lot. Good luck!</p>

<p>$50 each and a promise never to reprint any of the pictures again! Then you buy the cheapest gear that will do the job, and keep it hidden, because clearly you don't live in a good neighbourhood. Make it a limited series of prints, and do them right, numbers and all. Fingers crossed.</p>

<p>It's not the money making option it used to be: what used to earn dollars is lucky to make pennies nowadays. Agencies ( and photographers) have been reduced to penury by microstock payments.</p>

<p>The best part of this is that, as a nature photographer, you're unlikely to deal with clients/subjects who want to sue you for everything you have. So, there's no pressing need for a corporate approach if you live somewhere that is encouraging to sole proprietorships, which are cheaper to operate, and easier: good accountant, and you're away laughing. If you owe that much when you collapse, you'd go bust as an individual rather than as a corporate entity. Either way, you'd still be broke. </p>

<p>$75 an hour, five hours, once a week. And they call this glamorous living!</p>

<p>They basically want you to do a work for hire: you shoot, they take care of the rest. Since you'll never see another penny out of this job, charge something incredibly astronomical -- they want your skills, sell 'em high. The weird thing is, in a lot of cases, they justify how good you were by the (insane) price you charged, and come back to you again and again. Crazy, huh? Good luck with them.</p>

<p>Being a photographer in the Seventies and Eighties was fun, but from the Nineties on it started to really suck, and in the 2010s, it really just bites. It's part the fault of consolidation, but its also the fault of our own actions. We shot ourselves in the foot at the same time as everyone else was shooting at our butts!</p>

<p>Camera Industry: nope. The majority of People don't want the sort of camera that the camera industry would want them to buy. They've mostly decided on in-phone cameras, and that's that. </p>

<p>I had a little pile of scruffy 2fs back in the '80s, 40 quid each at the used camera shops: not many people cared. Now, old Olympus XAs and a tiny Fuji digital, and that's about the only thing I use in towns...</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Also agree with the latter two: if the kid wins you can claim to have been the photographer who shot the best looking kid -- and can make the other kids that come your way look just as good, parents please note.</p>

<p>You're either charging for time, and throwing in pictures for free, or for pictures and throwing in your time for free. Since they don't obviously care what the pictures look like, I'd just set the damn thing for jpegs, and aim to cover the cost of a pair of good walking shoes...</p>

<p>Just so you know, I used to do 20x30 portraits off 35mm print film, run down to my local pro lab in Boston, where they cost me $5, and I sold them for .... a disgustingly large amount more. The fact is, run through a large scale c41 system, you can get good results from 6-8mp. The larger the file size doesn't actually translate to a better print, because the reality is, half the processors can't use the extra info provided.</p>

<p>Sadly, most UK agencies now are digital shadows of their former selves, consolidated into mega agencies looking for any American corporate client, and usually not finding. Lot of contributors got the hook the last couple of decades (it's been a long running problem.) Even the poster companies got shovelled out of existence, for the most part. Scan for a photobook maybe, print for direct sales. Good luck.</p>

<p>Mine's Pennsylvania light now, Rick: hard to describe what it's like -- London on a bad day, with the smell of gingko trees thrown in... a cat litter-like smell, actually :(</p>

<p>Rick, this looks like New Zealand, and if so, that gives you an unfair lighting advantage. (As someone who used to shoot in Napier.) The clarity there is enough to add to any camera :) Regards!</p>

<p>I've been a Pentax fan all my using life, and the MX was my all time favorite, along with the ME Super. Light, small, and the batteries, even in the ME, lasted nearly forever (MX, beyond forever) Regretfully, I traded out the MX when the shutter went, and the cost was more than I could bear...</p>

<p>1979 I bought one of these in Oamaru, more compact and pocketable for me in my newspapering youth. I ended up giving it to my mother, and replacing it with a Mamiya C3...</p>

<p>Water off, tap open, some will come out, enough to loosen the solder. Then you turn the pipe a bit and drain out a bit more. Either way, it's work.</p>

<p>Simple website as a PART of your marketing: bear in mind, lots of people do their computing on tablets and phones, and complicated sites freeze up the screens, if they can access them at all.</p>

<p>One ad, versus one very unhappy, and likely noisy, ex-customer: result will be bad word of mouth that in the end could kill you rather than expand you. But, if that's what you want... I'm sure your competition will be grateful. The oldest rule is the best one to follow, though: is this what you'd want someone to do to you?</p>

<p>I'm afraid you need to change your structure: charge high setup fees, and print cheap. They came to you as a big group because it's unlikely Walmart or Penney could do the job, and you have to charge for that. For people without a lot of money to spend these days, your biggest (mine too, also a small town with lots of competition) is the department store and discount store studio, 10x8 print for $19.99.</p>

<p>Hmm, you probably won't: framing, mounting and printing isn't cheap. Unless they stick your name and contact info underneath, I doubt you'll get much trade out of the job, either. I might be wrong, but people in a hospital waiting room usually have things on their minds other than print purchases...<br>

I stuck pixs in a beauty salon once: no business came out of it, but a lot of people mistook the portraits for advertising hair shots!</p>

<p>Charge for costs, real or imagined. It's the only way you'll get extra money out of it. They'll get the rights to the pix, because you worked, so to speak, on their dime, and got paid as part of the standard week. In some states, an employer between start and finish of your day can do whatever they like with you. In the work day, they effectively -- and certainly in this case -- own you.</p>