Professional Portrait Photography = Blackmail

binners

Welcome to the world of every self-employed creative

This x10,000.

“someone is unlikely to give it away for free, whatever the punter’s opinion.”

Have you thought this through? As I understand it Groupon pay none of the voucher price to the photographer. So if its a Groupon Voucher the photographer *is* working for nothing. (Unless the punter buys an upgrade, which he may feel morally obliged to do but isn’t legally obliged to do.)

It’s funny but in my world we try and stay away from the public in terms of work. They have no concept of cost or value. Seems like Tesco skewed their views.

Anyone with a camcorder or pc can do it. Fine.

This is why we work with agencies , so we can at least operate with an understanding that runs both ways.

Box shifting may work for the masses but being a paid artisan is completely incompatible with the race to the bottom.

This is an example of a family portrait done by someone I know. You may like the style, you may not, but I don’t think many “amateurs” would have been able to make such an image.

Sorry – bit late commenting on the family photo on Pg 4. But while it’s entertaining, it’s technically fairly poorly framed, assuming the toddler has feet and the young girl a right knee.

Adds tension, or something?

EDIT – the doorframe not *quite* lining up would annoy the shizzle outta me though.

EDIT – the doorframe not *quite* lining up would annoy the shizzle outta me though.

Yeah, thanks, now I’ve seen that it’s annoying me too 🙂

EDIT – but I am being a bit picky – it’s excellently lit and exposed

Broken composition rules just adds to the whackyness IMHO. Personally I love it.

It’s not a criticism but there’s a lot happening on the right of the shot that can only be luck as people move in the perfect location at the perfect instant. Nothing wrong with that, makes it even better IMHO.

Yeah, thanks, now I’ve seen that it’s annoying me too

EDIT – but I am being a bit picky – it’s excellently lit and exposed
For me it would be the damm kids ruining a shot of a perfectly good room, can’t parents keep them on leads….;)

DrJ – Member
With all due respect, those are 2 good arguments for paying pro sports photographers

DrJ – Member
Maybe, but to say that the “sports” photos above are as “good” as, say, these:
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/oct/03/bodybuilding-championship-in-nepal-in-pictures
makes no sense.

(sorry to pick on you twisty)

I’m under no illusions that those photos I put up are not masterpieces, they are not even good photos by my own standards. However, you are not comparing apples with apples, I shared those pictures to help make a point about event photography – the photos taken of amateur athletes as they make your way around a marathon, MTB race etc and offered to the athletes to buy after the event. Picking on me by making direct comparisons with journalistic or artistic photographs is a fruitless exercise. I’ll accept criticism in form of comparison to event photographs taken of you doing a running/cycling event.

Sorry – bit late commenting on the family photo on Pg 4. But while it’s entertaining, it’s technically fairly poorly framed, assuming the toddler has feet and the young girl a right knee.

It’s technically well lit though and that is incredibly hard to do. I suspect that the photographer is the chap in the middle with a remote trigger behind his back?

Sorry – bit late commenting on the family photo on Pg 4. But while it’s entertaining, it’s technically fairly poorly framed, assuming the toddler has feet and the young girl a right knee

I guess that means you are not the target market for this particular type of work 🙂

I suspect that the photographer is the chap in the middle with a remote trigger behind his back?

Heh Heh. 🙂 No!

You say “well lit” – I see: a hard and unforgiving light throughout the image which has removed many subtle tones and makes the image fatiguing to look at and unrealistic. It’s a bit “Venture” to me.

Caveat – as before, I’m not sure my monitor is set up *that* well.

Point of comparison – here’s a picture with no prep/composition taken by an amateur on a bridge superzoom and even shot on jpeg+auto! However it appeals to me far more. Yes it’s a bit oversaturated, but I find it more appealing due to the contrast in the lighting and the simplicity of it. And no white background!

Just goes to show we’re all different I guess, and/or you always feel very attached to photos of your family/friends. It’s my father, somewhere on a clifftop in Cornwall. Feel Free to slag it off 😉 [but not him]

Of course you prefer the picture of your dad – as you say, we all prefer pictures of our family. On my phone just now I have a photo of my daughter – it’s blurry, over-exposed and not well framed. It means more to me than any portrait of a rock star by Mario Testino ever could.

When you look at your shot you see the history of your relationship with your dad. When I look at it I see some anonymous bloke in the middle of an anonymous place with a bright yellow flower distracting my attention. Who is he? Why is he there? Who are you? What is his relationship to you? I don’t care – and nothing in the picture makes me care!!

So if I bought you that photo, paid 25pc of its value and left you to pick up the other £150 you might not be delighted.

If the photographer got me to buy some shots of someone else’s dad I’d be pretty p’ed off – mostly with my carer for letting me out of the house unaccompanied 🙂

But your wife’s maiden aunt’s visiting next week. She’ll be gutted if there isn’t a photo of someone else’s dad hanging in your house. £150 and a bit of house space to keep a lonely old woman happy isn’t too much to ask is it?

You say “well lit” – I see: a hard and unforgiving light throughout the image which has removed many subtle tones and makes the image fatiguing to look at and unrealistic. It’s a bit “Venture” to me.

Ironically the lighting presents the scene more how you would see it in reality. We are perhaps more used to seeing the aesthetic merits of photography that use light in a way far removed from how we would see things in relaity.

The lighting in this scene is an example of the trend in photography to portray things in a more realistic, rather than etheral way. Whether you like it or not is one thing but it’s actually, technically, really hard to acheive that look. Hence ‘technically’ it’s well lit.

contrast in the lighting and the simplicity of it

Everyone will prefer photographs that have an emotional connection to themselvs, why wouldn’t they. It’s easy to make that connection when it’s a family member, much harder to do when it’s not, which is why some photographs makes it as ‘art’ and others don’t. Triggering an emotional response in your viewer is a real challenge.

But point of contention, there is no contrast in the lighting in that photograph – it’s all lit the same apart from the face and in particular the eyes, which are in shadow. And it’s not really simple, it’s quite fussy; the background is in too sharp focus and detracts from the main subject.

But these are all technical points and make not one bit of difference to your emotional connection to the picture of your father and neither should they.

I’m referring to the lighting/contrast/colours on the subject, not the whole image.

EDIT – OK you addressed that at the same time as I posted.

But your wife’s maiden aunt’s visiting next week. She’ll be gutted if there isn’t a photo of someone else’s dad hanging in your house. £150 and a bit of house space to keep a lonely old woman happy isn’t too much to ask is it?

Do you begrudge buying all the photos, or buying any at all?

Your OP was basically saying that your wife was pressuring you into buying lots of photos, which by some leap of logic I don’t really follow is the photographer’s fault. Now you seem to be asserting that you don’t want to buy any.

I’m saying the best way to buy photos, is to deal with a photographer yourself, from the start.

I’m saying the model where a third party person buys a voucher from a third party company which keeps the price of the voucher and leaves the Photographer to make what he can from up-selling is a worse way to run the process.

A lot of people have understood this point and it’s been restated in all kinds of different words by different people so it’s not hard to grasp. Given that I conclude the advocates of this mental business model can’t justify it and have to straw man their way around it by pretending not to understand.

I think this is one of the most pointless arguments I’ve seen and MrSmith nailed it when he said that he’s glad he doesn’t have to sell his work to an (undiscerning) public.

The greatest tragedy of the modern age is the cult of mediocrity; you see it in so many areas. Music is a good example – we trade quality for convenience and ubiquity every day of the week and it’s a shame, perhaps it’s reflective of a culture built around instant gratification. Photography is no different; the general public are happy with shitty photographs from an amateur holding an iPhone if they are free, available now and can be posted to their Facebook page because they don’t really care about the aesthetics, they only care about the share.

gt +lots

geetee1972 – Member

I think this is one of the most pointless arguments I’ve seen and MrSmith nailed it when he said that he’s glad he doesn’t have to sell his work to an (undiscerning) public.

The greatest tragedy of the modern age is the cult of mediocrity; you see it in so many areas. Music is a good example – we trade quality for convenience and ubiquity every day of the week and it’s a shame, perhaps it’s reflective of a culture built around instant gratification. Photography is no different; the general public are happy with shitty photographs from an amateur holding an iPhone if they are free, available now and can be posted to their Facebook page because they don’t really care about the aesthetics, they only care about the share.
*Likes & shares*

“The greatest tragedy of the modern age is the cult of mediocrity”

Well that and the events in the Middle East, but yeah, mainly mediocrity.

The lighting in this scene is an example of the trend in photography to portray things in a more realistic, rather than etheral way. Whether you like it or not is one thing but it’s actually, technically, really hard to acheive that look. Hence ‘technically’ it’s well lit.

Have to agree with other poster the lighting is nothing special, and a similar look would be achieved by simply bouncing the flash off the ceiling (if thats not the way it was originally lit, and i suspect it was)

Nothing technical about that.

Point of comparison – here’s a picture with no prep/composition taken by an amateur on a bridge superzoom and even shot on jpeg+auto! However it appeals to me far more. Yes it’s a bit oversaturated, but I find it more appealing due to the contrast in the lighting and the simplicity of it. And no white background!

There is nothing in this photo that makes it any better than a snap shot. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but its a good demonstration of how a pro and an amature with a bridge camera differ immensely.

Well that and the events in the Middle East, but yeah, mainly mediocrity.

If we had better politicians and a public prepared to hold them to account for being something other than popular then we would have less of a problem in the middle east.

geetee1972 – Member

I think this is one of the most pointless arguments I’ve seen and MrSmith nailed it when he said that he’s glad he doesn’t have to sell his work to an (undiscerning) public.

The greatest tragedy of the modern age is the cult of mediocrity; you see it in so many areas……..
………Photography is no different; the general public are happy with shitty photographs from an amateur holding an iPhone if they are free, available now and can be posted to their Facebook page because they don’t really care about the aesthetics, they only care about the share.

geetee1972 – hope you don’t mind but I edited a bit out of your quote to keep it to what I thought were the relevant bits….

Using the services of a ‘professional’ photographer, doesn’t guarantee you will escape from mediocrity though, as you seem to be suggesting……I don’t think you are a professional photographer (I’m not sure) but some of the portrait stuff you post on here is more than likely better than a great deal of “professional’s” work….

Excuse the example of wedding photographers (the pro’s on here seem to be a bit sniffy about them), but I would say that they are the professional photographers that Joe Public is most likely to need the service of, or come into contact with.

My brother had a professional photographer at his wedding & hates his wedding photos. They aren’t very good, the bloke acted a bit odd on the day, was over-pushy & kept getting in people’s faces. He just didn’t seem very good at his profession.

Similarly, a good friend of mine feels the same about the pics that he got from a ‘professional’ at his wedding.
I hadn’t had my D80 long when I was invited to his wedding, so was keen to take it along & get some shots. He didn’t want wedding gifts, so I decided that I’d do him & his Wife a photobook as a thank you for inviting us.
They both say that they prefer looking at the photobook I did them, rather than the photo’s from the ‘pro’ that cost them £800 or so, because I managed to capture the day better than he did….
Oh, he also tried to do a runner without giving them the photos they’d paid for but that’s another story….

It’s the same in any profession – I’ve been to people’s houses where they’ve had a ‘professional’ in to redecorate a room & looked at the wobbly edges, roller marks in the paint & thinly applied gloss only to wonder if it was worth the services of a pro…..as you say, mediocrity everywhere….

Maybe those wedding photographers were weekend chancers with other jobs? So professional in name only not in execution.
There are great wedding photographers out there, the best ones are not cheap and are booked out months in advance (the likes of Geoff Ascoff for example)
Somebody posted a bell curve a few pages back, I would suggest it’s actually a pyramid with the talent at the top and the visually unaware/dslr owner at the bottom.

But what this all boils down to is the OP doesn’t see the value in what he is being forced to buy, mainly because the pricing model is not to his liking and the product is either overpriced for its intrinsic value or lacks quality.
Some customers are obviously happy to be blackmailed in this way.

I’ll accept criticism in form of comparison to event photographs taken of you doing a running/cycling event.

They didn’t really capture any atmosphere.

E.g. here is the winner of the Cambs 1/2 Mara. Captured with the whole pack on his heels, giving a clear sense it’s a race and he’s in the lead. It tells a story.

Aarron Scott, winner, Cambridge Half Marathon March 9th 2014 by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

Individual runners are harder as they get spread out, but you see someone chasing him, and can see the crowds / bit of nice scenery – again the photo tells a story.

Cambridge Half Marathon March 9th 2014-079 by Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

“But what this all boils down to is the OP doesn’t see the value in what he is being forced to buy, mainly because the pricing model is not to his liking and the product is either overpriced for its intrinsic value or lacks quality.
Some customers are obviously happy to be blackmailed in this way.”

…and I don’t really think it does much for the photographer, either. He gets half hearted customers many of whom will not pay a cent so he works unpaid, often at peak times.

…..as you say, mediocrity everywhere….

Oi! Some of us spend our lives striving to achieve mediocrity!

I have to say I’m finding this fascinating. Obvs the pic of my father is tied to my emotional connection with him, yet the look, the expression the spontaneity and the colours are genuinely much more aesthetically pleasing and attractive to me [within the confines of the concept of a “portrait”] than those of the other image.

Yes my shot has a deeper DOF [it’s only an HS10, limitations abound] and other technical shortcomings too – yet I find it a much more compelling, natural and “well lit” image than the other and this is aside from the fact I know the subject – the same applies to images of people I don’t know too, but I didn’t have one to hand.

Hmmm. We’re all so very different 🙂

“I have to say I’m finding this fascinating. Obvs the pic of my father is tied to my emotional connection with him, yet the look, the expression the spontaneity and the colours are genuinely much more aesthetically pleasing and attractive to me [within the confines of the concept of a “portrait”] than those of the other image.”

FWIW I preferred your pic to the indoor one. (Although I really liked that).

Yours looks a genuine unposed situation with a bit of life to it and your Dad has an interesting face. Plus any fule knows that any outdoor photo trumps any indoor photo.

So I don’t think it’s just your connection.

geetee1972 – hope you don’t mind but I edited a bit out of your quote to keep it to what I thought were the relevant bits…

I don’t mind one bit and I agree with your post entirely and reservedly.

Digital cameras have made photography accessible. They haven’t necessarily made it better.

To be a good wedding photographer is, I think, one of the hardest jobs you can have. You have to be technically very capable (because you cannot control the environment/light anything like as well as you can in a studio), you have to be able to improvise, you have to be able to solve problems very quickly and you need to be great with people and able to build rapport and read a situation all in the moment.

Really, a good wedding photographer should be paid more than a good studio photographer but I doubt that happens because most people don’t value the quality that it would produce.

Bit of a digression but agree re Wedding Photography. We spent a lot of time finding an excellent pair to do ours and it was well worth it.

…and yes, we didn’t use the gift voucher payment model and don’t regret not doing so!

This has become such a meaty, juicy discussion. 😀

First off, geetee1972; word. Definitely the best thing posted on this thread.

2nd:

“My brother had a professional photographer at his wedding & hates his wedding photos… from the ‘pro’ that cost them £800 or so, because I managed to capture the day better than he did….”

£800? Let’s put that into a bit of perspective. So you’ve got an entire day at the wedding itself. Then however many hours spent uploading, selecting and editing images. That’s easily at least another day, maybe two. Then there’s the photographer’s overheads; travel etc expenses, insurance, consideration of cost of equipment, etc. £800 is absolute peanuts. Also take into consideration that most weddings are at weekends, so the photographer isn’t doing that kind of work 5 days a week, and needs to make their money where they can.

Some friends showed me their wedding album (‘why don’t you do weddings, you’re really good!’). Can’t remember the cost of their photographer, but it was several thousand pounds (I don’t want to know what the actual wedding cost). The photos were stunning, truly great quality. They were happy to have paid so much. I really don’t understand why people think you can get the best results, by paying peanuts.

“yet I find it a much more compelling, natural and “well lit” image than the other and this is aside from the fact I know the subject”

It’s a snap of your dad. Moreover, it’s a fairly mediocre snap. Sorry. You’re perfectly entitled to prefer it over the family picture, but on a technical level, that picture is many orders of magnitude a ‘better’ photo than your snap. Plus you’re not looking at things from a particularly objective position, which the rest of us are.

“Obvs the pic of my father is tied to my emotional connection with him”

Of course. It’s a lovely picture of your dad. Something to be cherished and enjoyed by you and your family. But objectively, for me personally, with no connection with any of the subjects, the family portrait is a much better photograph.

Really, a good wedding photographer should be paid more than a good studio photographer but I doubt that happens because most people don’t value the quality that it would produce.

No. I’m a studio photographer, unless your wedding pics are going in Hello or Harpers they have no value beyond whatever the family and friends attribute to them.
The images I produce in the studio help people sell stuff to make money, that’s why I’m paid more than a wedding photographer, that and the fact an amateur will struggle to get close to what I produce.

As for high st studio/portrait photographers the difference is the running costs, mastering the medium (photography) should,be second nature if you call yourself professional, the overheads of a studio are far higher than a wedding photographer. Though the reality is they probably do weddings as well to make ends meet.

Maybe it’s a lot to do with your influences and how you view a portrait, too.

This, for example I think of as a great portrait, and so I would probably be influenced by it when deciding what I think is a great portrait photograph.

Of the two footflaps posted I really like the first. I and agree that it tells a story and is compelling, yet I also like the colours more than the second; maybe it’s over exposure on the face, maybe I’d darken it a little/increase the blacks/saturation?

It’s probably a good comparison with music. Some people prefer punk bootleg recorded on a dictaphone to a 5.1 92bit classical concert, despite the fact you can barely hear the music in the first.

Maybe we hear differently, maybe we see differently?