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| fekete Member Since: 24 Dec 2008 Location: Here on the other end of the computer Posts: 3626   
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Ask or PM Big Mike
 NEVER TAKE LIFE SERIOUSLY. NOBODY GETS OUT ALIVE ANYWAY |
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15th Nov 2011 11:55pm |
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| BigMike Member Since: 13 Jul 2010 Location: Lancashire Posts: 2253
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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you think you're going to step into the industry and make a decent living you're mistaken. The market is awash with photographers, both amateur and professional trying to make a living. The result is a lot of bad product, client expectations that they can pay less for the same good product they had before.
In the commercial market the budgets just arent there anymore, and to make money in it, realisitically its a long apprenticeship with a professional who will pay you almost nothing whilst you learn about the industry, and thats if you can even get one which is highly unlikely. I get between 75 and 200 ish emails a week from people including students, people looking to change careers etc asking to assist (for free mostly). I don't even reply anymore. In the NW there is no editorial work to speak of, and what there is is unpaid. Editorial in London can pay as little as 30 quid a page. Average commercial day rate in the NW is about £450, and most of the guys I know are only working about 1-2 days a week at the moment, if that. This is all after youve spent 10 grand on the right lights (and know how to use them, and use them well - that takes about 5 years), stands, generators, cabling, other equipment. The wedding market is full of amateurs will will work for very cheap rates and give a terrible product generally, yet they get work because of the cheap cost and its only when the couple see the results are they disappointed, at which time its too late. The weekend warriors have taken most of this market from the professionals and that market is dead on its feet. In terms of stock photography, everyone wants to do it. libraries will pay virtually nothing now for this reason, since the amateurs will accept almost no money for things - this is also a dead market. Lifestyle - (think venture etc). Also dead on its feet. People will not spend the money you need them to spend to make it work Art? forget it. There are about 20 pro photoraphers in the UK who make a living doing it, and thats it. Generally speaking, unless you are well established with good, reliable, secure clients, you're wasting your time. Sorry to be so blunt and negative about it, but this is the reality of professional photography in the times in which we live, and it will only get worse now "everyones a photographer". You may be the best photographer in the world, but professional photography is 90% business and 10% creativity and shooting. That's the reality. My (genuine) advice is to think VERY hard before pursuing this. I can't think of any stronger terms with which to put you off to be honest but seriously, don't do it. Re the cameras, keep one, sell one. You can take an award winning shot with a £2 camera, and a bloody awful shot with a 25 grand camera. All amateurs get obsessed with gear and having the best lens and the newest greatest camera. its irrelevant. you use the right camera for the job and this can mean a 60MP 20 grand set up, or a small compact which cost £200. Get proficient with what you have, ignore new gear. Only when you reach the limitations of the gear should you look to trade up, not just because you think you need better gear to be able to take a better shot - you don't. By way of exmaple, I did a 3 day job in morocco a couple of weeks ago with a Panasonic GF1. The images will be used for the side of trucks, brochure and website. You use the right tool for the job, and a small camera was the right thing for that. SO, do it as a hobby by all means, but forget turning professional, I think you'll be disappointed. |
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16th Nov 2011 1:30am |
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| 22900013A Member Since: 23 Dec 2010 Location: Oxfordshire Posts: 3140 
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My partner is a professional standard photographer (degrees, loads of courses etc etc) and I feel she would agree with everything BigMike has said. She is bloody good at what she does, but is constantly being undercut by amateurs who will work for next to nothing. Many commercial clients want to pay £150 for a days work AND keep the copyright as well for the price! My Mrs does it as and when, fitting it around a regular job, as otherwise it just wouldn't work.
Agree also with the comment about wedding photographers, have seen with my owns eyes the total unprofessionalism and incompetence that a £500 wedding shoot brings, and the shots were not very good as well. Would you turn up to a friends formal wedding in a tracksuit? Well why should the photographer. When she gets home I will show her this thread and she will probably reply herself. Cheers. 2011 110 USW 1973 Series III 1-Ton 1972 Series III 1-Ton Cherrypicker 1969 IIA 1-Ton 1966 IIA 88" |
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16th Nov 2011 10:49am |
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| twopoint6khz Member Since: 18 Aug 2011 Location: North Lakes Posts: 652 
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As a keen amateur I'd agree with all of the above. The market is so saturated now and equipment is so good that there are plenty of people turning out photos that 20 years ago would have been on the front page of a magazine.
A friend who is a lot more into it (and a lot better at it!) that I am has looked at making a bit of money from it, and had some success writing photo articles for MTB mags, but he's realised it's only ever going to be a bit of money on the side. Oh and whilst £500 gets you a decent camera body for taking snaps, if you want photos that will look good at a large size (i.e. suitable for publishing use) you'll need a proper camera body and lenses. By the time you've bought a few lenses, a camera pack, a new laptop etc etc etc you'd probably be looking at 10 times that amount. Again sorry to be negative on the career front, but you should deffo splash the cash (on a Nikon, IMO, but Nikon vs Canon is a bit like arguing over lager vs bitter) and make a hobby of it
I also think mixing business with pleasure could be a tricky thing to pull off - I've often thought about becoming a mountain bike guide or outdoor instructor, but the pay is awful (as above) and you probably end up taking a lot of the fun out of your hobby. Plus you end up working with people you wouldn't normally want to be around (a bit like going to strangers' weddings all the time). |
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16th Nov 2011 10:58am |
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| blackwolf Member Since: 03 Nov 2009 Location: South West England Posts: 16892 
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Big Mike has hit the nail on the head - his reply is one of the most accurate and sensible posts I have seen in a long time!
If you only have £600 to spend the Canon vs Nikon debate is utterly pointless since in that price band there is nothing to choose between between them. When you move up to the professional level and you're looking at £2k to £3k for a lens, the differences become more apparent and the decision really comes down to what you're going to use the camera for. FWIW, I agree completely with all the previous posts. It is not easy to 'cut it' as a pro photographer, and the country is awash with mediocre photographers trying to earn a living from photography, and to be brutally blunt - but intending no disrespect - the fact that you have to ask the question suggests that you are not ready to make the change. I would suggest that you join a photography forum (such as the one at http://www.ephotozine.com/) and lurk for a while, ask the question there (and see the answers given to the many who have already asked the same question) and then decide what you want to do, and if you do want to 'go pro' what sort of photograph do you want to take. When you have decided this, you will be in a better position to make the equipment decision. I am not a pro photographer, have no aspirations to be, and no pretensions of being one. I have however supplied photos to websites, books and media in various countries around the world (including both daily and sunday papers in the UK) and been paid for them, and as Big Mike says, you really don't get paid much! I have been able to do this this since I specialise in photos of wolves, which is a very specialised niche with little competition. Mainly because of this (but partly also because I grew up with Canon equipment) I went down the Canon route since the Canon EFS-IS-L 28-300mm and 100-400mm lenses (especially the former, which is a very fast lense for its length) are unbeatable in every respect and have no equivalent in the Nikon lineup. As suggest above, by advice would be to sell the duplicate gear you already have, start taking photos again as a hobby and see where it leads. Then you will be in a position to make a sensible decision about equipment and future options. (And you really don't want to become another wedding photographer! I have only ever done one wedding, which I was persuaded to do for a friend, and it is much harder than you expect, and extremely stressfull! Give me wolves any day!) |
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16th Nov 2011 11:31am |
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| warren Member Since: 14 Oct 2009 Location: East Lancs. Posts: 903  
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Cheers for the replies chaps, I never realised the industry was like that! Quite shocking and sad in a way!
I think it's going to have to be more of a hobby than a career. Especially as I'd be starting from scratch so to speak, I did think about emailing a few companies seeing if I could voulenteer or whatever, but going off what BigMike said I'd be wasting my time. If there's that many people after jobs then they'd not look twice at someone like me. Agree with the wedding photography too - I was at a wedding a couple of months back, and the photographer just had an unironed shirt and a pair of jeans on. A lot of the photos that he took were over exposed too... They paid about £600 for him for about three hours. Also agree with the comments about cheap cameras being as good as expensive ones. I have a Samsung WB500 point and shoot camera, and the pictures that can take just on Auto mode are bloody impressive, but there's not much manual control. A friend of a friend does event photography, and has spent nearly £20,000 on cameras, lenses, flash guns, etc. Looking at the photos they seem impressive, but I can't see £20k worth of impressive... And I can't help but think it's a lot of money to spend if your just taking pictures of drunks in a club... I'm going to sell one of the GX10s, keep the other and just keep on keeping on with it. I know I'd have to start from the bottom as I've spent the last 7 years in the IT industry, but with not much guarantee of anything at the end of it then it seems it could be a bit of a waste of time. I want to get out of IT if I can, just got real life priorities to get sorted first... Cheers again |
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16th Nov 2011 1:32pm |
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| leeds Member Since: 28 Dec 2009 Location: West Yorkshire Posts: 8578
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When I read Big Mikes reply, I thought it was very harsh, very blunt but to the point and truthful. A friend of ours who was/is a professional photographer would have said exactly the same think but probably in a bit more gentle way. Al has given up a lot of his photographic work for the reasons Mike said and has gone back down to being a 'hobby' photographer but with good gear. He now earns his daily crust in a different industry.
Should you have a career change into photography? That is for you to decide but at least some of the pitfalls have been outlined to you. Whatever career path you decide upon do your research first and try to find out ALL the pitfalls. Good luck with your career which ever way you decide to go. Brendan |
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16th Nov 2011 1:57pm |
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| DefenderOfTheEarth Member Since: 09 Nov 2010 Location: Cornwall, UK Posts: 1304 
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We use pro photographers a lot for our business - some of the very best are scratching around for work now.
It's a very tough, saturated market, diluted with recent grads who will do a job for a tenner. Defender 110XS SW gone... now VW California 180 4 Motion. |
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16th Nov 2011 2:06pm |
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| warren Member Since: 14 Oct 2009 Location: East Lancs. Posts: 903
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I'm very much appreciative that it was harsh and blunt, I'd much rather have that than fake visions of a successful career that I've been getting from elsewhere. |
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16th Nov 2011 4:14pm |
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| MartinK Member Since: 02 Mar 2011 Location: Silverdale (Lancashire/Cumbria Border) Posts: 2664 
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I have 2 mates who are struggling to make ends meet as professional photographers.
Neither has found a way to make a consistant living out of it. One works as an IT contractor, contracting on a day-rate (probably ~£350/day) for 6-9 months of the year, and again trying for 3 months to turn a few quid in photography. He has fantastic portfolios, with some lovely piccies (some published - he proudly carried a glossy mag for a while with some of his pics inside), but never seem to quite get off the ground. Every time he comes back to IT for another few months to top-up the coffers. "Muffin" to his friends - has been doing this for around 10 years, and still has to revert to IT to keep food on the table and the rent paid. Looks very tough to me. Defender "Puma" 2.4 110 County Utility (possibly the last of the 2.4's) |
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16th Nov 2011 4:35pm |
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| pom Member Since: 01 Jun 2010 Location: Worcester Posts: 1343 |
paparazzi is the way to go, working in IT you should be fully conversant on how to hack phones and track vehicles etc.
Good money as well i would bet! Pom |
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16th Nov 2011 4:37pm |
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| JSG Member Since: 12 Jul 2007 Location: Berkshire Posts: 2412 
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To pick up the question of equipment one of the best suggestions is to go in to a local Jessops or similar and pick a few DSLRs up - everyone I spoke to rated Nikon and Canon as the two top makes but the deciding factor between them is what feels right for you.
You can get a decent camera for your budget - I ended up buying a Nikon DS3100 with a kit lens and starter pack for about £425 and it has been great. I got used to it 'out of the box' and practised - then moved off auto and played around with the settings for a while. I then went on an Intro to DSLR course that a mate recommended and that was well worth it. It was a one day intense course and focused more on portraits and people than landscape but it boosted my confidence. There were four of us on it - 2 with Nikons and 2 with Canons. We all had 18-55 kit lenses and the photographer said that whilst they were good lenses he felt a fixed focal length portrait lens was much better for learning with. I then went out and bought a fixed focal length 50mm lens which is fantastic. The key thing I remember being advised is that the lens is more important than the body - a cheap lens on a pro body will take a  picture but a good lens on an entry level body will give a good photo. So start with a Nikon or Canon kit for your budget and then add once you need to. John
http://www.hampshire4x4response.co.uk 2011 Tdci 110 CSW XS |
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16th Nov 2011 6:48pm |
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| twopoint6khz Member Since: 18 Aug 2011 Location: North Lakes Posts: 652
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The above is certainly true regarding lenses. I have a kit lens, a 10-24mm wide angle and a 50mm prime. The 10-24 takes interesting shots, but the shots from the 50mm prime look like they're off a £3000 camera, due to the optics not being a compromise between focal lengths. Dirt cheap lens as well - under £100 I think.
You should definitely invest in lenses rather than camera bodies, as camera bodies will die but lenses are just bits of glass so last forever (unless you drop them in the car park  ). |
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16th Nov 2011 7:15pm |
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| 22900013A Member Since: 23 Dec 2010 Location: Oxfordshire Posts: 3140
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My Mrs is always on about wanting a new lens. I told her it makes more sense to spend the money on advertising and getting work, then get a new lens. I don't know what kit it is she has exactly, but she got it second hand at good prices rather than pay top whack in the shops for it. She literally saved 50% off the new price for as-new kit. Seems to be a little cheaper to buy in Europe as well. 2011 110 USW
1973 Series III 1-Ton 1972 Series III 1-Ton Cherrypicker 1969 IIA 1-Ton 1966 IIA 88" |
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16th Nov 2011 7:28pm |
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