I Actually Got Paid to Take Pics

Friends have been telling me that I need to go into the pic business. Lately I've had quite a few people ask me to manipulate, correct, or even take pics. I took the baseball pics and actually got about $50 of free meals from our favorite joint. The waiters there asked me to take pics a few times, each time getting more and more out of the meals, can't argue with that!

I posted on facebook that I was going to make it a business, get paid for my time. I spend 10+ hours at times editing and touching up pics. I see plenty of photographers online posting some sucky pictures.  Some good one, sweet pics of sunsets, cars, cities, but when it comes to people, I've seen and know a few that are paid photographers who just snap the pic and charge the customer.

Heck, one gal showed me some pics she took during an engagement shoot. Pretty bad! I edited a couple with permission to show her the benefits of using her program properly (Lightroom). She said it was too much work and she just wanted to take the pic and then take her money. Gee! I can't do that even if it's a pic I take just for the fun of it. I can't imagine charging somebody for a pic then handing them a pos picture. Just not me!

So I edited the pics for her. Lightened up the faces so one could see their faces. enhanced the crap colored water to blue, the sky to pretty. Some other stuff and she was impressed. Then she asked me if she could send the pics I edited to her customer. Sure! They deserve it I think.

So then she asked me if I would mind editing all her pics for her that she takes at photo shoots. Uhhhh no! Unless I get half the money. In my opinion, taking the pics is the easy part if you know how to focus, which she didn't. Really funny thing is that she took a college course in photography. But yet she couldn't set up her camera properly. I feel sorry for her customers.

Saddest part I think is that she said she wanted to do as little work as possible but collect her pay. Wow!

I do pics for fun and if they don't look good, I feel bad.  I use a point and shoot on my bike rides and I think I have gotten much better shots than many of the photographers I have seen. A relative who has a $2000 camera showed me his website, paid pro photographer. I almost laughed.

He told me I need the $2000 camera like he had. Umm, I saw your pics and no I don't need a $2000 camera. I just need to know how to focus properly and edit pics to look nice. No that junk you pull out of your camera while using auto and semi auto settings.

WTF spends $2,000 for a nice camera but doesn't learn how to use it, then opens a business taking crap pics cause you can't use the settings properly? I use FULL MANUAL settings. They say the camera is smart but you are smarter. Make the camera do what you want it to do, not what IT want's to do!

So after experimenting with the camera the first few days, I realized I needed to go full manual. Surprises me that EVERY photographer I have had a chance to chat with, uses a semi auto setting. I'm sorry but no!

That is just me though! I have met several photographers and have not chatted with them about their settings so I do not mean every photographer does this because there are some awesome photographers. I am simply saying the photographers I have chatted with about photography. There are plenty of awesome photographers on Instagram.

So anyway, I have spent hours editing pics taken at family functions. Editing pics by request for funerals, and just in general old pics.

I also have the aunt that knows I take my camera to family events just to snap pics for my own sake. You know the aunt who asks for a pic of her with her daughter. OK no problem! But then she says she wants a pic with her son, the three of them, one with her father, one with her mother, one with her brother, one with the group, one with the baby daddy!

Sorry but I am not your personal photographer. I take a few pics of things I like, edit them to please myself and learn. I'm not running a photo booth! You want pics, bring your own camera!

So I mentioned I was starting a business to make a little money for my time. Like I said, I can spend 10 or more hours on editing the pics I take. If I shoot pics, I end up taking 150 or more. Sorting through, ending up with 60 edited pics, will take me 10+ hours to finish them off. I use 3 different programs and many times, one or two of the programs more than once.

Few people have said they like my style so if I started a business, they would be happy to pay for some pics. My cousin's daughter was my first customer. After her pics were finished, I got another customer, a friend of hers who saw the pics on facebook. Another potential customer for a sport event. But did get another person asking for anniversary pics and Christmas pics. OK, we can do that!

These were some of the pics I took for my cousin's daughter, their 5th anniversary. I took 170 pics, Gave them 62 edited pics and all 170 of the original unedited in case they wanted to fiddle with the files. Plus I through in a pic video.

All for $100. I figure for a couple, engagement pics, anniversary pics etc, that is a fair price for my time considering it is a hobby for now.

One group of 20 people asked me for a price. With all the individual sittings they want as well as group pics, they said another photographer wanted $500. No editing. I saw her work and it's a bit shabby. Lots of sun spots on subjects, lot of washed out backgrounds. I can't do that, hate sun spots on faces, shoulders etc. I quoted them a price of $300, edited and a video. They thought it was too much.

OK, pay some self appointed pro photographer $500 for crap, no video or me $300, and it's too much? BYE! I'm not stupid. I think they wanted a quote of $50. That doesn't even pay for my gas to get to the photoshoot seeing as they wanted it in Yorba Linda at a paid parking park. Pfft!

----------------------------

SO anyway,. some of the pics. 62 edited pics, 170 originals, 3 pic videos (experimenting which looked better so I gave them all 3)....I think I will offer 30 edited images. I did 62 this time just experimenting with time requirements.

I like this format the best but it shrinks the pics too small and they look blurry in the video.

But this may be better as the pics show more but get cut off a bit. From scratch style I made.





This one shows the pics but I don't like the way the pics just sit there motionless. I have to look thru the options to see which shows best.








Few of the pics. I tell you, women are harder to edit because of all the makeup and fly away hair in their faces. :-P

Different stuff too, black and white with little color. I do these things after I am done with the pics just for entertainment. They like it.