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?

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The Tattoo Gig

OMG. Blogger is a piece of trash. I had this whole entire detailed post typed out and when I went to publish, it said that my blog was flagged as spam and no further publishing could be done to it...this was after I saved my post mind you. Then after I requested a review and found it unlocked this morning, there was a nice two sentence draft of my post saved. What retards. I mean, I had ONE link in ONE published post for The Strobist Blog and they did that to me. I'm angry. Too bad this isn't a pay service, then I could really tell them to go to hell.

Anyways...



My first paid gig. I'm acquaintances through some friends with a guy that opened up Wise Guys tattoo studio next door to a recording studio I'm associated with. I talked to him about a shoot several months back and he finally took me up on the offer. It was $80 for two hours and he purchased $300 in photos after the fact. He got a discount as I'm going to do future work for the shop and I know the guy. My regular prices are going to be a bit higher.

I should be getting the photos back today from WHCC and then I'll post a review on those guys. The test prints were perfect, but the first order using ROES took a bit and was semi confusing...maybe my experience will help some one avoid the problems I had. I'll post about ordering and all that too.

Sorry for the dry post and the lack of details, but after having my first book deleted by some stupid spam protection that can't recognize one like and one post is not spam compared to millions of links to the same site on several post, I don't feel like reciting it again in detail. Pics from the shoot are below. They're small, but if you click on them, they'll take you to the Flickr page with a bigger photo.

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Welcome

Hi and welcome to "A Working Photographer". This is going to be my blog that documents my attempt to break into the working photographer profession. I'll be posting up my experiences through out this mission of mine as well as keeping a running tab of money spent and money made so maybe one day some one wanting the same carreer change and experience can use this for a little bit of reference.

A little bit about me can be found after the link.


My name is Corbin William Kronk. Most of my friends and aquaintances call me Will. I've been dabbling in photography since I was about 16 or 17 and a junior in high school. It was purely film back then. In fact, I still have my Minolta Maxxum HTSI with my Quantary 70-300 lens sitting downstairs in my basement with a set of dead batteries in it.

At about that point in my photography fascination, it was mainly point and shoot and develop at Wal-Mart. I had no formal education in photography and have never touched a dark room. After I graduated, I signed up for Shepherd College as an IT major and wanted to take a few photography classes. Unfortunately, you had to have a photography major or minor to pretty much even get into the classes which left me with nothing but general studies. I really regret that. I think if I would have been able to get into the classes, I wouldn't have wasted 4 years on learning something that I ended up hating.

Anyways...Until about two years ago, I really hadn't touched a camera as everything was digital and the point and shoots didn't have the control I wanted in a camera. Plus this was back when entry level digital meant Canon Digital Rebel and $1000. But I inherited a used Digital Rebel and that's where it all began. I shortly moved up to a 30D and a 50mm f/1.8. The roots. About two or three months of owning the camera I really felt like this is what I could do with the rest of my life and be happy, so much so that at that point, monetary earnings wouldn't be an issue once I got my financial status straight.

In October of 2007, I started poking around on several forums and trying to learn about lighting after unsuccessfully attempting to photograph a friend of mine and having all her pictures turn out looking pretty horrible. I then found my gold mine, The Strobist Blog. This gem of a site was exactly what I was looking for as well as many other photographers out there. I started reading and within weeks had my first flash and set of Pocket Wizard Plus II's. I was ready to go.

Fast forward six months to now and I've already got a decent portfolio, one paid shoot under my belt, and the drive to start really doing this. I feel like I've increased my knowledge and skills a hundred fold since findind that site and learning about lighting and how to get the shot I want regardless of the conditions. So here I am.

I'm 26, a photographer that thinks he's a hotshot and that's really the anti-christ of modesty. I know I'm good and I want to see how far I can take this.

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