Mitch Conner
Leading Member
My original post from last week is below. The pro came off as kind of a jerk but not any more so than other blue collar, small businesspeople I come into contact with. He basically took over the financial arrangements from the reunion committee so it was left to him to argue with the hotel over how many people showed up. A small increase in this number could turn a profit into a loss, I'm sure.
I saw him take just one handheld photo the whole evening. He spent hours on the couples portraits and the group photo. Obviously, that's where the money is. I was able to take multiple shots of every table with no conflict at all since he was in a different room. While setting up the group shot, both he and his assistant both barked at me "NO FLASH PHOTOS!" at different times. I'm sure he would have preferred that I had taken no shots at all. Somebody has already taken the time to paste captions with eveybody's names in small letters on the jpg I emailed out. That's helpful, and to me, more valuable than the pro's shot, which I'm sure will look better than mine. But I'll never know since I probably won't see the pro's shots.
I took about 350 flash shots at a different event using a Lumiquest Promax with diffuser. The Promax is a pain but does much better than a simple Omnibounce, IMO. This was a fundraiser and I'm not a pro so I didn't charge for my "work". I can understand how this might "degrade the image market" but this was kind of a last-minute thing. To me, pros who threaten to sue at the drop of the hat or demand $250 for banal snapshots (ala the Nasdaq thread of 10 days ago) might also "degrade" the image market. Particularly since the shots of the nationally known celebrities will be printed in black and white, it seems to me that basically equivalent results could have been obtained with a non-SLR camera. I have very little experience taking flash photos so maybe there are nuances that I'm missing.
"Will the pro at my class reunion be mad if I show up with a 10D, grip 550EX and Lumiquest? Obviously, I'm not going to sell the photos but maybe he's worried that I'd give them away and lower his sales? Or maybe I'd confuse the subjects and make them "camera weary"? Should I wait until he's finished or just use bright lenses without the flash? Or maybe just forget about it? Trying not to be a jerk here.
I get red-eye with my Stefen Omnibounce sometimes. My recently purchased pocket bouncer should eliminate this problem, right?
Is there a going rate for somebody to show up at a party with a DSLR and take a hundred or so shots for a couple of hours? Is $200 a reasonable shooting fee? Is that in range?
Thanks!"
I saw him take just one handheld photo the whole evening. He spent hours on the couples portraits and the group photo. Obviously, that's where the money is. I was able to take multiple shots of every table with no conflict at all since he was in a different room. While setting up the group shot, both he and his assistant both barked at me "NO FLASH PHOTOS!" at different times. I'm sure he would have preferred that I had taken no shots at all. Somebody has already taken the time to paste captions with eveybody's names in small letters on the jpg I emailed out. That's helpful, and to me, more valuable than the pro's shot, which I'm sure will look better than mine. But I'll never know since I probably won't see the pro's shots.
I took about 350 flash shots at a different event using a Lumiquest Promax with diffuser. The Promax is a pain but does much better than a simple Omnibounce, IMO. This was a fundraiser and I'm not a pro so I didn't charge for my "work". I can understand how this might "degrade the image market" but this was kind of a last-minute thing. To me, pros who threaten to sue at the drop of the hat or demand $250 for banal snapshots (ala the Nasdaq thread of 10 days ago) might also "degrade" the image market. Particularly since the shots of the nationally known celebrities will be printed in black and white, it seems to me that basically equivalent results could have been obtained with a non-SLR camera. I have very little experience taking flash photos so maybe there are nuances that I'm missing.
"Will the pro at my class reunion be mad if I show up with a 10D, grip 550EX and Lumiquest? Obviously, I'm not going to sell the photos but maybe he's worried that I'd give them away and lower his sales? Or maybe I'd confuse the subjects and make them "camera weary"? Should I wait until he's finished or just use bright lenses without the flash? Or maybe just forget about it? Trying not to be a jerk here.
I get red-eye with my Stefen Omnibounce sometimes. My recently purchased pocket bouncer should eliminate this problem, right?
Is there a going rate for somebody to show up at a party with a DSLR and take a hundred or so shots for a couple of hours? Is $200 a reasonable shooting fee? Is that in range?
Thanks!"
