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Thread: Commercial photography stressful?

  1. #11

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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Wow, Chris - some people just can't leave others alone. It sounds like poetry can be stressful, too.

  2. #12
    mandoman7's Avatar
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Yes, Chris, you are a load.

    To get back on topic, there are not many professions where the payment is so contingent on the results as pro photography. With doctors, lawyers, and architects the expectation is to get paid regardless of the success of their treatment. In my area, which is somewhat removed from an urban center, people don't want to pay for something they can't use. It doesn't take a very big mistake to ruin a shoot, and the photographer is envariably expected to absorb the consequences, even if outside culprits are at fault.

    It makes for tension.
    John Youngblood
    www.jyoungblood.com

  3. #13
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Sorry I steered it off topic.

    The times I get stressed out on jobs:

    a) I have not had a chance to preview a site first. I get there and the building is really not finished as promised or if its a house and the furnishings totally suck. Then its "what the hell am I going to do with this".
    b) It is a first time client and I need to prove myself. The vast majority of my clients have been with me for many years, some 30 years now.
    c) Equipment malfunctions like strobes that are firing inconsistently.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  4. #14
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Quote Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings View Post
    The times I get stressed out on jobs:

    a) I have not had a chance to preview a site first. I get there and the building is really not finished as promised or if its a house and the furnishings totally suck. Then its "what the hell am I going to do with this".
    b) It is a first time client and I need to prove myself. The vast majority of my clients have been with me for many years, some 30 years now.
    c) Equipment malfunctions like strobes that are firing inconsistently.
    Kirk, you are living a dream. I really enjoy the engineering work that I do, at least much of the time, but photography is the only way I get to explore my initial training as an architect. I've always thought that doing architectural work would be a good retirement gig, but I fear that the gig will be up by the time I retire--architectural renderings will be so realistic that nobody will want photography any more.

    Rick "thinking most folks these days are stressed by the threat of being left behind by technological advances" Denney

  5. #15
    Downstairs
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Commercial photography is a game of snakes and ladders. Screw one job and you are down three rows waiting for the dice to put you at the foot of a another ladder (or another snake).
    You wake in the morning of a shoot with a hole in pit of your stomach worrying about the performance you have to put on for 4 or 5 suits from client and agency and for the art director who has put his job on the line for you. You are probably ill-equipped and unprepared for the job.
    The enthusiasm you raise during the shooting performance will determine the level of defense the shot gets when you hand it in two days later. It is vitally important to involve the spectators (so you don't shoot polaroids, ever).
    Not that you ever get any real approval because no one wants to risk it until the company director's wives have seen the shot.
    This approval/non-approval thing is about who's mistake it was and who is going to pay for the re-shoot. (studio, home economist, stylist, model, makeup an hair artists, sandwiches etc.)
    You learn to never break up a set until the agency has sent the trannies off to post-production (there will be mildew on the soup).
    The re-shoot always coincides with another booking. Which is why, on the verge of nervous breakdown, I had to get a second studio. I've met New-Yorkers who had studios on four different floors, before they were reduced to living in cardboard boxes because of the snake thing.
    Approval or recognition dawns when the campaign has been out a week and the good sales figures come in. It is not that you did it right - the marketing manager, product manager, the account supervisor, the account, copy and art director did it right and they happened to choose the right photographer.
    Plenty of stress, and you have to keep at it for at least fourty years.

  6. #16

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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    I made a hard-lined decision a few years ago to never again work in the photo field professionally. But I'm a civil servant and most of what I did for the first few years was crap and everything was garbage for the last few years. It's just the kind of junky/cheap/rushed stuff they wanted and it made me very unhappy. I can't leave civil service without ruining my retirement options. I moved to a multimedia department and no longer do photography there. I'm assembling a couple of LF camera kits strictly for my own pleasure and will not shoot commercially... maybe set up a website to sell images (only what I WANT to shoot) if/when I collect enough to bother with it.

    That may not be what you wanted to hear but it's only my personal experiences/decisions.

  7. #17
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mike1234 View Post
    I made a hard-lined decision a few years ago to never again work in the photo field professionally.
    It was the same with me--I had done quite a lot of the usual side-line pro stuff--mainly weddings. That burned me out utterly. It was a few years before I could be serious about photography again, and even then it comes and goes with the vicissitudes of life. One advantage to being an amateur is that while praise is always appreciated, the lack of it doesn't mean the loss of eating privileges.

    But if I'd started with large format doing architectural work instead of factory portraits (which I sucked at) and weddings (ditto), I might have gone a different way. Oh, well: no regrets.

    Rick "thinking Christopher's account is as much a New York story as it is a photography story" Denney

  8. #18
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Quote Originally Posted by rdenney View Post
    but I fear that the gig will be up by the time I retire--architectural renderings will be so realistic that nobody will want photography any more.
    Denney
    Not so. Most of my work is either editorial for shelter magazines or for architects who use them (amongst other things) for design competitions. These have to be photographs of the actual building and this will never change.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  9. #19

    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Kirk,

    What is a 'shelter' magazine?

    Tom

  10. #20
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Re: Commercial photography stressful?

    Tom,

    That is catch phrase for the architecture and home magazine genre, including everything from Architectural Digest to Architecture to House and Garden to your local home style magazines.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

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