Why do I shoot for free?

I've read that once you decide to go pro and make money, that you should refuse to shoot for free. Purely opinion of course. I still do free shoots. I guess you could say I'm getting paid by having photos to add to my portfolio in trade for my time. I only do it on my terms though and usually unless a really good friend request a photo here or there, I'm the one asking them to stand in.




Come to think of it, the last real shoot I did, I paid to be there. It was only covering studio rental fees, but the shooters that attended got some hints from Don Giannati, the Lighting Essentials guy.

He was in town for a workshop he was running in Baltimore on Saturday, so one of the guys setup a meet and shoot the night before. He brought out Briana, the model that ends up in most of his pictures. Yeah. It was worth it. This guy knows his stuff and even though, regretably, I did not make the workshop I can vouch that it works. There's several shooters in the DC/Baltimore/NOVA Strobist group that attended his workshop and several photos of theirs that I've seen from the workshop and from afterwards amaze me in the jump in quality. Two in particular that I know from previous meets had a jump from doing pretty good to doing great. I'll definitely be attending that when it comes around in September.

So back to the free shoots. Is it worth it? For me it is. I love having material that I think is great to wow clients. Having a couple of photos to choose from is OK, having a multitude is even better. Plus it's all really like a big round of practice, preparing you for the big thing. Boy scout's motto right?