Reply interspersed.
On 3/7/2011 12:45 PM, Larry Colen wrote:
On Mar 7, 2011, at 12:50 AM, Boris Liberman wrote:
Aren't you just describing what sets apart a professional and an
amateur - the right and cost of making a mistake?
In a large part that is true.
Good. In a sense that it means that you and I are on the same page and I
am not misunderstanding you in any significant way.
What I try to offer to my customers is the best quality photographs
for the lowest cost. My biggest cost is my time. If I were paying
myself minimum wage for the photography work, the company would be
running way in the red. To get great photographs, there are certain
things that most customers need from me: 1) equipment. It's possible
to get great photos with crappy, or makeshift equipment, but not any
time, or any place, or in a reasonable amount of time.
2) Skill with the equipment.
3) Teaching them to be good models, giving them direction.
Oh, then I reckon I ought to bow out here. Mostly because I am totally
clueless in all things business, and especially one-man operation that
you seem to have to be, Larry.
On the other hand, for the most part, they can pick out the photos
that they like as well, or better than I can. If I need to charge
$50 per hour for my time, and it takes me two hours to sort through
photos, then I need to charge an extra $100. Not everyone, when
given the opportunity, would basically pay themselves $50 an hour,
for something that they could have someone else do.
When Galia finishes her basic school (6 years) the plan is to make a
photo album from (mostly) my photos. Presently I've uploaded them to
Picasa (you might remember me asking for a volunteer to look at large
volume of photographs). We're hoping to make parents and their kids make
their choices that will be then included into the book. Obviously, the
final say will be by parent's council or whatever is the name of the
select few parents that engage themselves in organizing things for the
class.
I am looking forward to learning some valuable lessons from the experience.
I could do a photo shoot, and afterwards pick my five favorite
pictures and give them the prints. Most people seem to want to pick
the pictures they get themselves. In a similar vein, I used to go to
a restaurant where, as a joke, the owner put "Dave's whatever" on the
menu. It was whatever the cook felt like making, you didn't have a
choice, and he'd tell you what it cost when you got the bill. To
his surprise, it was actually a very popular item. It seems that a
lot of people do indeed like "home cooking" in the sense that you eat
what Mom puts on the table, and you don't have to think about it, or
get to choose. On the other hand, most of the people who went to
Tara's didn't order the whatever, they actually selected something
off the menu. So, while you might be happy to have someone do a
photoshoot of you, and select and print the photos for you, I think
that most people want more say than that in what they get.
Why don't you determine up front what is the goal of the shoot? Indeed,
the model portfolio or "shoot me my lovely baby" or just a couple of
promotional shots of a new restaurant dishes are all rather different,
IMO. In particular, if I were to hire you to shoot my wedding or shoot
me and my wife-to-be before the wedding, I'd expect to be handed down
the finished album with or without electronic media attached to it.
Obviously that would influence the pricing.
But like I said, I am totally clueless in these things, so I digress.
Boris
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