It makes me want to throw in the towel

I know it's beating a dead horse....

But when a client after discussing a Portrait session with details and all link me to this.....

It gets OLD!

Notice that there are no pics attached to the CL post.

Looks like an upsell, perhaps not a good one, especially since you have to be "approved" for the free package.

I contacted him and tried to help.
Told him how to get into the bussiness and gave him the entire spill about the industry etc...

He said no one will let him 2nd shoot and that he knows what to do but thanks anyway...
He said its no upsell. photos and everything on a cd

It's whatever, people live and learn it just gets fustrating.

As a former pro who now shoots mostly to satisfy myself and to earn the odd bit of upgrade money I find myself caught in the middle on things like this. When i do a paid gig, I almost certainly dont charge market rates. I also do a good bit of free work for friends and folks deserving of a break. I'm probably guilty of undercutting the market, but on the other hand, I'm not advertising my services. Generally I think a pro worthy of the name should be able to outclass guys like this and not really see them as a threat.

lol, My area is full of crap like that. I think thats why there are like 2 pros in my area these days. I love looking at the facebooks look at the wedding I just shot for $50. I have yet to see any with even 1 good picture.

I have a friend with an XS and she is always booking weddings for $50. I think the only reason she keeps getting clients is because she adds bling like text and clipart over her crappy photos and peoples eyes are drawn to the bling. I always ask her what is going to happen when her battery or memory card dies and she seems to think thats impossible. She has a kit lens a 55-250 and a nifty 50. I always get a good kick of looking at her facebook page. Then she sees a idea like using a pic frame and she will abuse the hell out of it and use it for every client. Funny stuff.

I love photography, and I mostly got into it cause my son is disabled and he doesn;t hold still so you got to work to get a good shot. His school was sending crappy pics every year so I bought some gear, learned how to use it and I submit his school pics myself now.

I love it when a real pro drops by her facebook and slwams her pictures, she gets all butt hurt. Pretty funny stuff to see the back and forth conversations.

There are still people out there that are willing to pay good money for photography services. If you are chasing the same market as the person that placed this ad then you should consider throwing that towel somewhere. I know several photographers that never advertise on place like Craigslist or Facebook and are making a very good living from weddings and portraits only. I also know one that uses CL alot to entice people to contact him and once he gets in contact with them he will upsell them to more expensive services and prints. You never have the chance the to upsell people unless you can get them to contact you.

There are those that are simply wanting to shoot for the sake of shooting and build a portfolio, we will always be faced with that issue. It's not the best industry to try and make a living in but it certainly can be done. You can't sit on your laurels and expect that business is going to come to you. I see so many that use free portions of the web for advertising and expect that their inbox will be filled with requests. If aren't going to act like a real business and actually spend some money to promote yourself chances are that you will wallow in this segment of the market and have to fight the weekend warriors for business. Its just a fact of being in business. When I started doing this full time several years ago I did chase wedding work but changed my focus a couple of years ago to something more lucrative. I will still do weddings if they contact me and are willing to pay my price but I don't spend any marketing funds on them. You have to be willing to change.

I understand, I was saying when I'm LINKED to that by a client It gets fustrating.
I seem to attract cheap skates every now and then. lol

Just show them your portfolio and tell them to compare it to the cheapskate and tell the m you get what you pay for.

Yeah I do and it takes care of it.

Maybe I was just in a bad mood already and it didn't help getting linked to that..

lol. I'm good now. Thanks.

JPJ2007 wrote in post #15143989
I know it's beating a dead horse....

But when a client after discussing a Portrait session with details and all link me to this.....

It gets OLD!

Three years from now.. that guy may be charging 5k a wedding. Initiative, motivation, and business sense are more important than package amounts when starting out. He might be the best photographer in Nashville..that no one has given a shot. Or he could be a bum!

A couple years ago, no one would've hired me without a portfolio, even though I knew I could do better than most pros. I had to do a couple freebies, build a name, and then I could start charging what I thought was fair.

Free wedding photographers will be here forever. The one you're laughing at now might be the one taking your high end clients a couple years from now!

Actually you shouldn't feel too bum-out. Get to know your market and you might find out there are plenty of opportunity out there. Everyone has their little niche and his clients are not in your true market anyways.

Example of my research for my market (Sacramento CA):
Population - 610,000
Weddings in 2012 - 11,600
Projected wedding in 2013 - 11,800
*** so let's say that roughly 5,000 couple use family or opt with no photographer that still leaves 6,800 couples looking for photos of their wedding. Let's also say half of them choose free photographer or photogs under $1,000 then there would still be 3,400 couples looking for a decent wedding photographer. So let's say my market have 100 "real" photographer - this would leave us with roughly 34 weddings per photographer.

I hope this website makes you feel good
http://youarenotaphoto​grapher.com/

youarenotaphotographer​.....LMAO

Scary to think that some if not all those people were paid for their work.

I dont proclaim to be the best but I could have outshot those images.


Made me laugh more at the captions..LOL

very creative captions

Why are you reading craigslist in the first place?