This is not a SFW instance. NSFW communities will be tagged, and efforts will be made to keep SFW communities clean, but proceed at your own comfort level.
Uber: know how to drive, own a car, insurance, use a cell phone to tell you where to make $12, drive from A-B-C-A, and pay 9 of it back to car maintenance over time.
Photographer: Own camera, insurance, lights, lenses, backdrops, computer, software licenses, photodelivery platform costs, know how to use them. Pack up gear into car, drive to shoot, lug all the gear, setup, shoot, position, pose, pack up all the gear, drive back, stow all the gear, transfer images to computer, Lightroom, cull, Photoshop, color/image/wrinkles/clothing fixes, blinks, smirks, stray hairs, put it into a gallery,
The Uber driver spent 30 minutes
The photographer spent 6-8 hours.
If the photographer is gatekeeping you, hire the Uber driver to take your picture for $12.
You can have all the hobbies you want. But undercharging for hobby work does fuck over the actual photographers.
Everyone is looking for an amazing hobbiest to shoot their wedding and beating the fuck out of the professionals doing it for a living because they want a couple of grand for a solid week of work.
Seriously, just ask the people attending the wedding to send pictures to you, people would love to help.
My wife has been doing professional work for years, over the past decade or so, drastically more clients browbeat her mercilessly to the point that she has to fire them. What do you mean you need $200 to come to my house and do headshots, it’s only worth $25.
If you have offers for $25 you should take them. Her stuff is really good, they know they don’t want the $25 they’re just not willing to pay a living wage to get it.
I think the bigger issue causing that is cameras on phones have devalued photographs in general. Many people really don’t understand what goes into the good photographs and think it’s as easy as their selfies. And it’s bullshit that people treat your wife that way.
Many people really don’t understand what goes into the good photographs
most people have no idea what good photograph is. they share blurry shit with terrible composition on instagram and think that is good photograph, because their 10 friends told them so (and they returned the favor and everyone is happy how amazing photographers they all are)
Consumer digital, in general, closed off a large portion of the pro market. In the before times, you would hire a photographer because you needed something better than a Polaroid and couldn’t trust some rando with a cheap film camera to get everything right. Once you could see what you were getting instantly, you had good enough pictures for anything not selling something or hanging on your wall meant to evoke emotion.
Not only phone cameras, but AI post-processing. The real raw images on those itty-bitty sensors are still pretty bad, but they do a great job of correction now. And the stuff from the past 4-5 years, with erasing things and generating smart fill, is freaking awesome.
Uber: know how to drive, own a car, insurance, use a cell phone to tell you where to make $12, drive from A-B-C-A, and pay 9 of it back to car maintenance over time.
Photographer: Own camera, insurance, lights, lenses, backdrops, computer, software licenses, photodelivery platform costs, know how to use them. Pack up gear into car, drive to shoot, lug all the gear, setup, shoot, position, pose, pack up all the gear, drive back, stow all the gear, transfer images to computer, Lightroom, cull, Photoshop, color/image/wrinkles/clothing fixes, blinks, smirks, stray hairs, put it into a gallery,
The Uber driver spent 30 minutes
The photographer spent 6-8 hours.
If the photographer is gatekeeping you, hire the Uber driver to take your picture for $12.
Just because it’s not an exact comparison doesn’t mean the analogy fails.
Edit: I think there is confusion based on her word choices. I mention it in another comment.
https://lemmy.world/comment/25419707
You can have all the hobbies you want. But undercharging for hobby work does fuck over the actual photographers.
Everyone is looking for an amazing hobbiest to shoot their wedding and beating the fuck out of the professionals doing it for a living because they want a couple of grand for a solid week of work.
Seriously, just ask the people attending the wedding to send pictures to you, people would love to help.
My wife has been doing professional work for years, over the past decade or so, drastically more clients browbeat her mercilessly to the point that she has to fire them. What do you mean you need $200 to come to my house and do headshots, it’s only worth $25.
If you have offers for $25 you should take them. Her stuff is really good, they know they don’t want the $25 they’re just not willing to pay a living wage to get it.
I think the bigger issue causing that is cameras on phones have devalued photographs in general. Many people really don’t understand what goes into the good photographs and think it’s as easy as their selfies. And it’s bullshit that people treat your wife that way.
most people have no idea what good photograph is. they share blurry shit with terrible composition on instagram and think that is good photograph, because their 10 friends told them so (and they returned the favor and everyone is happy how amazing photographers they all are)
Consumer digital, in general, closed off a large portion of the pro market. In the before times, you would hire a photographer because you needed something better than a Polaroid and couldn’t trust some rando with a cheap film camera to get everything right. Once you could see what you were getting instantly, you had good enough pictures for anything not selling something or hanging on your wall meant to evoke emotion.
Not only phone cameras, but AI post-processing. The real raw images on those itty-bitty sensors are still pretty bad, but they do a great job of correction now. And the stuff from the past 4-5 years, with erasing things and generating smart fill, is freaking awesome.