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Re: [OM] Why shoot film

Subject: Re: [OM] Why shoot film
From: "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:30:07 -0600
 >I don't think AG shoots those weddings for free!  :-)
Right!  I may be a bit less expensive than the top two photographers in my
market, but I'm firmly priced in the "gasp, you charge WHAT?" range.  I
don't break out a film camera unless people are buying my higher-priced
packages either.  The Wal-Mart crowd gets digital-only.  In a nutshell,
every 36-exposure roll of film costs the customer $100 USD.  Last wedding I
shot had five rolls of Delta 400.

But I don't shoot very many weddings.  Frankly, I enjoy my Saturdays too
much.  I also prefer to focus my photographic efforts on projects and
customers not quite so demanding.  Might pay less... Ok, it pays a LOT less,
but life is much nicer this way.

Lately, I've been changing up subject matter too.  Granted, I do a lot of
portrait work--that's usually pretty fun, low impact and profitable, but I'm
much happier working on non-people projects.  I've almost completely stopped
shooting stock. That market has changed completely. It used to be that we
could make a bit of money shooting stock.  Not anymore.  Every dog with a
DSLR now gives away that which we used to get paid $1000+ for. Back in the
'90s, I used to do quite a bit for a few magazines long since gone out of
business.  I did stop contributing to the bicycling magazines when I
couldn't keep pace with the F5/EOS-1 crowd.  I got technofied out.

Through the years, one criteria has been applied to my photography:  It must
not only pay for itself, but it has to contribute to the household income.
I know there are others hanging out on this list that have this same
criteria.  Fortunately, in my case, it doesn't have to be much, but enough
that if I didn't have to support the household budget, I'd be able to afford
about any fancy camera on the market.

Now, how does film come into all this?  For the regular bread-and-butter
photography it really doesn't.  But I'm wanting to migrate my profit-center
to other types of work. For the "art-centric" crowd, "different" is good.
That's where I'm migrating my work and hoping the dollars follow.

AG
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