Why shouldn’t I shoot my family and friends for class?

Just finishing up my Portraiture class and I must say its been the toughest one yet. Not tough because the assignments where hard but tough in the fact that each assignment required a new person. In total I needed to photograph 25 different people in 6 weeks. It was hard to find all these different people and keep them to your schedule. Everyone has family they could always use but the problem with that is your family wont end up as a paying customer later on.  They will always expect you to shoot them for free. It seems pretty sad but that is the way it works.

In all of my assignment this past 6 weeks the hardest was to find 8 people to photograph together. To accomplish this I put some feelers out weeks in advanced but most of those options fell through. My last and final option was to ask a friend if she knew of anyone that I could get to photograph. I figured since she has 3 kids and herself that would kill off half of my requirements right there. However this particular week none of her kids could show up for the event. I was lucky though because she know a lot of other people and found me the 8 I needed in the nick of time. By the end of my shooting I had people asking for a card, wondering if I could shoot an up coming event.

I was grateful that these people who I didn’t know was asking me if could do other work and that they would be contacting me in the future. Without shooting these strangers I would have never got my name or my information out there like I did. I learned the in the end it might pay off to shoot people you don’t know because they may want your services in the future. The event that I was asked about is for the republicans in town so they will probably want a hand out, however it might be one of those handouts that gets your name out there for paying work. These politicians might need head shots or things like that. While doing the event for free might make them think you will do everything for free, you can quickly let them know what you charge for those types of services.

So I recommend getting yourself out there and looking for ways to network and find potential future clients. You obviously wont get paid to shoot them for your class assignments but if they can see the quality of work you can provide them, then you might very well have made a connection to turn them into a client.

Here is my funny face shot of my 8 people. In the end this probably was my best assignment. 

TBT

Thursday Ambassador