Initial Photography Contract Made Easy

Initial photography contract

so if I had known then what I know now I could have charged a whole lot more [Music] let's thank your bacon I'm Joanie Simons welcome to my studio this is where I do food photography so if you're into that you go ahead and hit the subscribe button and today I'm taking a little trip down memory lane because I realized my very first page shoot that I ever did was at a restaurant and I did not know a lot and there was a lot that I didn't know and so I thought you know before you jump into that first paid gig or if you have done paid gigs before and you felt like what am I missing what do I not know cuz you don't know what you don't know so I thought I would share with you five things that I did not know going into my very first paid food photography shoot so if that is interesting to you you stick around so just a little context for the who what where of this particular shoot so this was in I looked it up on Facebook actually cuz the PR person had taken a picture of me while I was taking pictures there's a lot of pictures of me taking pictures out there on the internet so this was sort of one of the very first times of that happening and so this was June of 2015 so literally just three years ago it's not that long ago and it is amazing how much I have learned in the course of three years now of course I had enough talent in order to get the job but in terms of what I didn't know holy moley there was so much that I didn't know but this was at the Westin downtown Phoenix which you're probably familiar with the Westin Hotel chain and I had connected with their PR person because at the time I had a blog and I was going around doing reviews not really reviews but just sort of featuring local restaurants and talking about what was great about them what made them unique doing interviews with chefs and so I had gone in and said can I just take like two pictures of your signature menu items to feature on my blog and so I had done that and well lo and behold they like the pictures well enough that they said hey we're rolling out a brand new menu can you come back in and photograph the whole menu for us and then they asked that dreaded question of so what are your rates and I'm like Oh rates whoo I have no idea which actually that's not even one of the five things that I had thought about implanting this video but definitely something you should figure out before you take on that first gig and if you need any recommendations or just some sample rates kind of a place to get started I've got a free ebook and I've got it linked down below so you can go grab that it's just got some you know basic cursory information pricing is a very complicated topic which I'll be delving into more in detail in a future video but what I did for this very first shoot was just call up some friends in the restaurant industry and some other folks that I knew and I just did hate like what should I even be charging and so I honestly don't even remember what I charged granted it's probably not what I charged today but I remember thinking oh my god nobody's gonna pay me real live money to do this and I was so I mean I was so excited and I was so terrified at the same time you know and that's when you grow the most is when you're doing something and you're scared out of your mind but you know that okay probably can do this that's like the perfect scenario right because you have the skills in order to rise to the occasion but it's gonna stretch you because you're just a little bit scared it's a good thing now in preparation for this video of course I had to go back into my archives and actually look at those old photos and it is so it's so fun to look at old photos that you've taken right because I some people like oh it's so cringy and I'm like no it's so great because you can definitely see how you've hopefully improved since you took those old photos but you can also see like hey you know like I had good taste I knew what I wanted to do I just didn't necessarily know how to execute it so now to find these images I had to go into like my OG archives like the Oldham oldies because I have since like come up with a much easier naming convention and a whole system and how I organize my files which I can another video for another time but I did find these and one of the very first things that like popped off the page that I clearly did not understand or have any knowledge of was the difference of JPEG versus raw that I did this shoot completely in JPEG which is not a bad thing and if you are confused as to what is the difference of JPEG versus raw I've got a video all about it right up over here but I went into this as a paid person to do photos having no clue what raw was but how do I know that I didn't know well first of all all of the files that I have are all JPEGs but what I think is funny is that I titled the name of the folder West in Phoenix downtown Raw that I had this idea that maybe if I just named the folder raw that they would be raw and now I'm not sitting here telling you that you have to shoot JPEG or raw but it is important to know what is the difference so that you can make an informed decision and not just call the folder Rob but that if you really want RAW files that you know how to actually get them that's why I always look at old photos like a badge of honor like hey I did that even though I didn't know necessarily everything that I know now I still put it out there I still did the work it's how I got to where I am today so be proud of those old photos don't shame them they don't deserve to be shamed but like you can see this tuna tartare which I mean the chef's did an excellent job with all of the food and all of the plating so it was really fortunate in that regard for this shoot but clearly like I didn't really know how to like level things up you can see that white line in the back which I would have definitely cropped that out or framed it differently so I didn't have that white line but it's also not directly vertical and so just you know not lining things up quite perfectly but we've got some decent lighting decent exposure nice bit of mix of highlight and shadow so hey not too bad Simon you did all right and now looking at this photo which i think is a chicken sandwich I very clearly did not understand having light being directional because now if I'm just remembering the whole setup of this scenario there was a big old window with some really nice natural light coming through it but clearly I have lit this from the front so it just really makes it feel kind of flat I didn't have that directional lighting that makes things feel just a little bit more 3-dimensional dynamic it's a little blue to could have warm that little puppy up just just a skosh so now looking through all these photos I'm remembering that this was all shot on my sony a6000 which I actually still own that camera I have bought it used from B&H which they have great used equipment and it still works to this day it's a great little camera it's a mirrorless camera but I had shot all of this on the kit lens because I did not know what the difference between lenses was yet or why I needed to buy a 50 millimeter or why a hundred millimeter macro was helpful like I look through these images and I go is a pretty darn good little kit lens right there and to be honest I got lucky but I didn't even know what an f-stop was because I to be honest I was shooting in Auto and so looking at these photos I can see that okay you know these were shot with the kit lens like I look at this desert and I can see that I'm really close up which is something that I love to do now get really close up to it but it really would have been a stronger image had that been a macro lens and so not that the gear is that important right we always go back the photographer's most important part of the entire equation your creativity that you bring to it but that it is helpful certainly as you progress in your journey to add some lenses that can really take it to the next level like to me a hundred millimeter macro that is like an indispensable lens for me personally and for my style and would have made images like this one and even that tuna just a lot stronger and so now looking at these photos and kind of along the same lines of gear is that I had no diffusers I had no reflectors no bounce cards I mean I was literally just me in the camera and so looking at like this photo for example you've got that toast in that upper right corner very overexposed it's just first of all tilted I would tilt it more in so that we wouldn't get so much exposure on the front of it that we get more of that raking light across the toast and just like kind of the toast that's a little further down but you can also really see and this is just my personal style is that you know we've got those really hard lines because what I can tell in this scenario is that I've got light coming natural light coming from the top from that big picture window but that there was probably then also some sort of light off over to the right which was casting that harder shadow from that toast and so had I had a diffuser that I could have made this just a little bit more evenly lit and gotten a bit more of a softer light but again it's fine for what it was they didn't have high expectations of the images I probably didn't charge a whole lot this was a really great training ground clearly for me to cut my teeth but had I known what I know now I probably would have thrown a diffuser into the situation or blocked some of those additional light sources just to really be able to control the light now this guy right here I remember this photo this photo live in my portfolio for a good long time I was so proud of this photo I just thought oh this is like the best shot I've ever taken and again there's some really good things going on here I've got some specular highlights I actually like the direction that I shot it from but in terms of like the focus the focus feels a little off it feels a little I mean it's kind of more on those microgreens on the top whereas kind of pulling it a little bit more forward but again I think I was shooting an auto probably autofocus not necessarily knowing how to place the focus and now this image too I remember this one actually I had on my business cards on the back of my business cards for a long time because I just really was super proud of this image I loved the colors in it and actually given that I had zero diffusion zero balance cards that literally it was just me in the camera shooting this I think it's pretty solid and that we've got a nice depth of field on there some nice specular highlights direction I don't quite know what's up with the table there on the left but all things considered not a bad image and hopefully you can look back at your own images and do this same thing and go okay yeah it's not perfect what I'm not totally sure what I was thinking there but all that said you got killer taste so you stick with that killer taste don't let it go so now looking at this photo and this is something that I didn't necessarily plan to share today it hadn't come into my mind as something that was important to know but definitely something that I clearly did not understand or take into consideration before this shoot was how important the background is that the surface that you're shooting on is and of course we've talked about surfaces before how important they are especially in flat lathes I've got videos about that up over here but I was literally just shooting on the tables that they had there at the restaurant and something with a lot of restaurant tables is they always have like this orange e yellowy color not all of them but a lot of them a lot of the restaurants I have shot in have that same sort of color and this one had like a lot of shine on it and so the direction of the light and the angle that I shot at that the shine is kind of distracting and that that orange is kind of overpowering the food and so just something to consider is when you're shooting on location somewhere else what kind of surfaces are you dealing with do you need to bring your own surfaces how is that going to impact then the ultimate way that the foods look and read in the image and I looking at this one I'm like oh it's like the Flying Saucer salad coming in from the upper right corner something about the way that I've just cropped that and the orientation of it it's not really even showing off the strawberries but you know again things you'll learn in time how to arrange the food how to capture the most flattering side of the food and I just I feels like a flying saucer coming out of the corner of the image there for me now this guy he's not too bad I think this is a halibut I love halibut like as far as food goes I will I will always order the halibut but I'm not loving how hard I cropped that on the right side I feel like I should have given the fish a little bit more room there on the right edge but I actually really like sort of the direction of how this is all plated we're kind of peeking into that bowl that we get a sense of that red sauce that's down there and maybe those are lentils or some sort of beans that are there on the bottom but then I like that sort of direction that that little haystack on top I think that's some sort of like onion straws or something that they've got kind of that diagonal thing going on see if this is again where you got to really rely on the taste and sort of your intuition and I also like that I caught some of the background of the restaurant now I would have probably crafted that so it didn't feel quite so awkward that that table is sort of resting on top of the fish and now I do remember thinking at the end of this shoot I'd forget exactly how many dishes I could go back and count but it was something like 15 to 20 dishes I remember at the end of it I was exhausted I was like ah I just shot for two hours straight little did I know that today I will literally do an eight hour shoot I've done ten hour shoots and so just be prepared that if you are gonna get into this professionally you could potentially be on your feet for a long time so I don't even think I wore the right shoes to this shoot just make sure you're wearing comfortable shoes that's a very important thing to keep in mind now two other things that I know for a fact that I had no clue about and did not have in place when I did this shoot was first of all I had no clue about contracts and copyright and so I have since remedied that and I actually purchased a contract online from the contract shop I've got a link down below if you want to check it out I am an affiliate for them but it is a rock-solid contract and you don't have to hire a lawyer because lord knows lawyers are expensive but you definitely want to make sure you have some sort of contract in place that covers your but that if in the event that they don't show up or that they don't like the photos or something happens I mean that you just more or less have coverage your bases to protect yourself to protect your images protect the use of those image the copyright of those images that is something that's very important to have it in place and also just makes you look like a professional that when somebody wants to engage with you and hire you to do their photography that you're able to say absolutely here's my rate here's the proposal and then here is a contract so they know exactly also what they're getting themselves into if there's any negotiation that needs to go on there that you're not just some fly-by-night person who just shows up with the camera and takes pictures and emails it to them afterward guilty as charged but again this is all a part of the journey you don't know what you don't know so don't beat yourself up if you've ever done any of these things and you didn't know what you're doing well guess what most people don't so it's okay and then the last thing that I know I didn't know was how to actually deliver the images at the time I'm 99 percent sure that I just used Dropbox which is the solution a lot of photographers will use that you just upload those to Dropbox send them the link and they can download it but for me today what I use is Zenfolio comm I'm not an affiliate they're not paying me to say this it's literally just the product that I've used for the last couple years there's some things that I don't totally love about it so I am sort of keeping my eyes open for another solution but it does have the ability for you to upload your photos into a password-protected gallery that then you can send to the client and they can download individual images or the whole entire gallery and that it permanently lives online and the client has access to them to download into the future because that's the other thing too is that you can send the images to the client but it is still your responsibility to hang on to those because literally there was a shoot I did like three years ago that the client came back to me two weeks ago and said hey I lost all of those images can you resend me the link so it is really great as long as you have some sort of solution where you're able to store those images and resend them to them in the future so hopefully you learned a thing or two but my big hole is that what you take away from this video is that if you are looking to start getting paid for your photography if you have not taken that leap yet and you're still continuing to do work for free because you're like oh I'm still building my portfolio you might need to quiet down those voices where you think that a little bit and say no there is value in the work that I produce and that I deserve to get paid for it because you don't have to know everything before you start getting paid to do photography if I am any indication of that shooting in Auto on a kit lens not knowing the difference between raw and JPEG not knowing how to control the light honestly getting lucky but at the same time there's value in those images that the client was happy to have them I was happy to produce them and it was just one step along the journey that now has brought me to where I am today because here's the other thing about photography you will never know everything there's no way to know everything you can only continue to advance your skills and so definitely pursue the advancement of those skills continue to improve so that you can look back on your work however many years ago and go oh wow look how much I've grown but at the same time jump in stop being scared stop letting those little voices run the show in your head okay jump into that photography gig take the leap so now in case you couldn't tell I am super duper passionate about this stage in any photographers journey because to me this is where people get hung up this is where you kind of second-guess yourself a whole lot and you just need that little extra bit of like umph to get through it and so if hopefully this is an encouragement then I'm gonna feel super happy about this video but - I'm gonna continue to make more content around this topic for folks in that particular stage of their career and their development and so if that is you and you want to get more information about how to take the leap how to get into professional photography from where you are today then go ahead and visit the link below the I wanna go pro at the go pro but I want to go pro link below that will make sure that you are on the list so that I can send you updates as I share new information new tutorials specifically on this topic so with that thank you so much for stopping by thanks for listening to me yeah I hope you have a fantastic day you stay out of trouble and I will see again here real soon all right [Music] you