>I don't think AG shoots those weddings for free! :-)
Right! I may be a bit less expensive than the top two photographers in my
market, but I'm firmly priced in the "gasp, you charge WHAT?" range. I
don't break out a film camera unless people are buying my higher-priced
packages either. The Wal-Mart crowd gets digital-only. In a nutshell,
every 36-exposure roll of film costs the customer $100 USD. Last wedding I
shot had five rolls of Delta 400.
But I don't shoot very many weddings. Frankly, I enjoy my Saturdays too
much. I also prefer to focus my photographic efforts on projects and
customers not quite so demanding. Might pay less... Ok, it pays a LOT less,
but life is much nicer this way.
Lately, I've been changing up subject matter too. Granted, I do a lot of
portrait work--that's usually pretty fun, low impact and profitable, but I'm
much happier working on non-people projects. I've almost completely stopped
shooting stock. That market has changed completely. It used to be that we
could make a bit of money shooting stock. Not anymore. Every dog with a
DSLR now gives away that which we used to get paid $1000+ for. Back in the
'90s, I used to do quite a bit for a few magazines long since gone out of
business. I did stop contributing to the bicycling magazines when I
couldn't keep pace with the F5/EOS-1 crowd. I got technofied out.
Through the years, one criteria has been applied to my photography: It must
not only pay for itself, but it has to contribute to the household income.
I know there are others hanging out on this list that have this same
criteria. Fortunately, in my case, it doesn't have to be much, but enough
that if I didn't have to support the household budget, I'd be able to afford
about any fancy camera on the market.
Now, how does film come into all this? For the regular bread-and-butter
photography it really doesn't. But I'm wanting to migrate my profit-center
to other types of work. For the "art-centric" crowd, "different" is good.
That's where I'm migrating my work and hoping the dollars follow.
AG
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