Lesson learned, never shoot analog at a digital event.

[rdenney]

What are you raving about?

Is this some kind of chemically-enhanced reality?

- Leigh

Leigh, with all due respect, this is the only raving I see in this thread. Therefore, I must ask: Was your response chemically enhanced?

Rick "just sayin'" Denney

[goamules]

You're spot on Rick. I work in a field somewhat similar to photography, instructional design. I author training materials, often web-based training. Even though I always make an outline first, get it approved, then make a comprehensive storyboard based on that outline, I still fight the ambiguous desires of the clients. In my early days my team tried to be super creative and nice, and always go the extra mile. If the pilot training client said "we want something creative..." we'd build a virtual cockpit. If they mentioned having an online video, we'd use at least one in every lesson. But I learned that whatever we authored and delivered, would get hacked apart by the reviewers, who would then have more content to recommend further revisions to. My rule became "the more you give them, the more they can screw you with" with one customer that was always looking for problems. I work dozens of projects a year, and you can be certain each one will go through the outline and storyboard approval with flying colors, then someone at the end will look at the final, programmed web-course and have dozens of change requests. We're often asked to add back things we'd recommended doing in the storyboard, but had them removed in that early stage.

The other relevant story is when I helped a metal craftsman with his decorative arts business for a few months. These were cut out things you'd hang on your wall; suns, Kokopelis, quails, etc. There were 3 finishes the customer could order, each a handmade, chemical process that made a "patina" of mottled colors. EVERY time a female customer (sorry gals) would order one or more of our items, she'd start looking at the finish samples and say, "I'd like mine to have more turquoise color than this shows." We'd say they all come out differently....that's the art factor....each is unique...etc. And EVERY time when they came to pick up their order, they'd say, "no...this won't work...this has too much blue....I want more turquoise....please redo it. Now." And the owner would send the metal art back to the shop to be sanded back down, re-polished, plated with copper, and "try again" refinishing. Often this was for a $39 item. We'd have more into it than that with all the rework.

He believed "the customer is always right." I believed you have to set boundaries.

[SergeiR]

My friend, used to say "let one have a free ride on your neck and you suddenly will find there is whole line behind him" (he actually was very polite and charitable dude. And that is how he died - saving little girl).

[Don Dudenbostel]

'Film' festival where it is all shown on cheap digital projectors and cell phone cameras rule. I was trying to shoot a few sheets with a baby Press camera. People kept demanding I take their picture. I was lectured by the publicity person. I gave up and left.

I shot digital gratis for 4 years for them. I was bored with that.

No good deed goes unpunished.

I'm not an amateur, I've been a professional for nearly fifty years and like giving back to the community but...

Never shoot gratis jobs. They never value you or your work. If they pay they understand it has value. I did 3 14 hour days grratis for the united way doing stills for ads and was the lighting director for the TV. None of the crew got paid but I found out the agency that was doing the ads and spots did. We never even got a thank you. After this and a couple more similar experiences I've sworn off freebies.

[lenser]

I have to add my own experience that was similar to Don's.

A local charity had an on air auction and had gathered many thousands of dollars in donated items including five family portraits from me with a value of well over $1000.00. They sold well and the winners were delighted, but never did I hear from the charity until......you guessed it.....same time a year ahead when they expected an even larger donation. It was my very enjoyable duty to my business to tell them that they damn well better learn how to say thank you in a timely way if they ever expected to keep their donations at a decent level. By the way, their next year's donations overall were less than half of what they had been the year before. I suspect that no one was thanked and that many other business owners felt as I did.

[redrockcoulee]

Some of the local organaizations like the Stampede Board have arrangements with our local photography club. We get free access to the events and non commercial use of the images and in return they get to use the images for whatever use they have. We do not replace the professional photographers that cover the pro rodeo circuit and they are happy with whatever they get. The only limit they impose is we register the names of the photographers and they give out only 6 passes. Spent some of this weekend covering the spring indoor event. We also do this for several other organzations. They all know they get what they get and some of our members are fairly new to either photography or to this type of photography.

The important thing in our relationships with these groups is they know that they are swapping opportunities for opportunties and the expectations that they have on any one individual or on the group are reasonable. That is the important point, both parties view it as favours to each other and neither views it as a business contract. There are no assignements as any photos that they actually do require they make arrangements with some one on a professional basis, or more likely rely on the local newspaper. It works because the expectations on both sides are realistic, and it is a relatively small community, smaller in many ways then the 60 000 pop suggests.

But then also the Stampede as been going since just before the previous century

[Tin Can]

As many have commented gratis work is never valued. A shame. I am an honorary member of a large DIY punk rock community. Much of what we all produce is amateur and free, music, movies and art. Basically the movement says just start and do it yourself, your way. I think Frank Sinatra sang that. The forerunners come from at least the 60's, Andy Warhol, The Ramones, Outsider Art, etc. Some people do rise to the top and become venerated. http://www.melvinvanpeebles.org/ was one and a star of http://cimmfest.org/.

I regret I lost my enthusiasm for CIMMFEST as I have watched them become stars in their own minds and what we call 'users' (that's an a big insult and a pun). I wish them success, but I am done.

old hipsters, just get old

[paulr]

What's a "digital event?"

Last time I photographed a reception for robots, they complained that fumes from my polaroids were causing corrosion in their quantum arrays.

[Drew Wiley]

Every social setting is a digital event these days. One cannot even sit down in a restaurant at peace without some kind of
cell phone ruckus going on in the background. I was trying to take a nap in my truck the other day and some woman in a
sedan about fifty yards away was screaming and cussing into her cell phone for about half an hour. Why didn't she just turn
the volume up? I figure that within the decade genetic engineers will find a way to program the human genome so that
digital devices automatically grow inside the brains of the next generation. Of course, there will be less room in there for brain matter per se, but medicinal pot will allow honeycombing of the appropriate lobes, which will be deemed obsolete anyway.

[Scott Davis]

In the software development industry, there's an adage that really applies to any custom-work industry: "you can have it good, you can have it cheap, you can have it fast. Pick two". There should be a corollary to that saying: "you can have it good, cheap, fast, pick two. If you want it free, that's the only choice you get..."

I learned my lesson about free work the easy way - it was my cousin's wedding. They had hired someone, who it turned out took horrible photos. I did it as my present to them. They oohed and aahed over the photos, told me I saved their wedding with my photos, and said they'd be ordering reprints and enlargements. They've been married around 17 years now and I have yet to get an order.

I also used to shoot for a local charity organization doing AIDS/HIV education work. I was shooting film, and we had an agreement that they would cover my materials costs. They loved the photos but started balking over the $35 they had to pay for the film and prints after each event, and they also thought that they should own the negatives and the copyrights for that $35. They then found some sucker with a digicam who would do the whole thing for them for free including burning the images to CD (this was a good 15 years ago also, when consumer digicams were in their early stages, and 35mm film was still superior in quality to any digital camera that cost less than $3000). After that I quit doing charity photography.