Asked to shoot T&I's for a company

Would this be worth it or should I walk? Or what should I ask for?

Shooting T&Is for youth sports league, pretty much straight hourly at $17 for 5 hours. My gear, their cards. W9 form so I get to pay the taxes...

Is this worth it? I know the pros would say walk, but what about the not so pros that are breaking into the scene?

That is actually about the going rate. There is not a tremendous amount of photography skill required and I generally hired amateurs that I could teach to use my system for consistency. What you don't want in this type of photography is someone that wants to get creative and such. It is certainly good experience and you can make a few bucks, but this is not what your high end portrait photographer is going to be doing.

convergent wrote in post #6453556
That is actually about the going rate. There is not a tremendous amount of photography skill required and I generally hired amateurs that I could teach to use my system for consistency. What you don't want in this type of photography is someone that wants to get creative and such. It is certainly good experience and you can make a few bucks, but this is not what your high end portrait photographer is going to be doing.

Thanks for the reply. Would you say that is the going rate for using my own equipment as well? I relate this kind of work to mostly production work so not using creativity is ok with me...

$17 an hour for 5 hours = $85. Not worth it to use my own kit, even if they pay for travel. Just my opinion of course. I'd probably do it if they provided gear and compensated me for travel...assuming it wasn't on a Saturday.

cdifoto wrote in post #6453702
$17 an hour for 5 hours = $85. Not worth it to use my own kit, even if they pay for travel. Just my opinion of course. I'd probably do it if they provided gear and compensated me for travel...assuming it wasn't on a Saturday.

What would be worth it using your own kit? Travel is local so not a big deal.

I'd have to get at least $500 so that if my camera, lens, and/or flash gets broken in the process of doing this job, I can repair it and hopefully still have some cash leftover for myself. Or they'd have to sign a contract that states they will pay for any and all repairs.

I'd also use the cheapest camera, lens, and flash I own. In my case that'd be the 10D, 28-105 ghetto, and Vivitar 283.

cdifoto wrote in post #6453796
They probably couldn't afford to have me do it. I'd need to make enough to repair everything (camera + lens + flash) if it gets broken and still make some money for it to be worthwhile.

So on the low end they'd have to give me at least $500, or at least provide a valid contract that states they will pay for any and all repairs on my kit.

Yea they wont go for that...its a new company and by the looks of things, are looking for people to just press a button. Some companies around here are looking for people with 2.8 L glass and offering $10hr...pretty insulting really...

Yeah, I figured. Like I said, they'd have to provide the gear if they want to give me some sort of pathetic hourly wage.

well really after taxes more like 60 bucks thats seems a little low to use your own gear granted it seems once you are setup not a big deal, but 60 bucks to me seems low for 5 hours of work. just my 2 cents

Well, decided to turn this one down...thanks for everyones input.

To get back to your answer... I was up until recently a franchise owner for the largest company in the country that does this kind of work, and that was the basis for the "going rate". The use of your equipment or not, to me, isn't that big of an issue because I typically supplied my shooters with equipment. Depending on the experience level, I had no problem getting photographers for $12-15/hour, and that was the max I paid for them using my gear (for T&I... I paid a bit more for Action shooters). For someone using their own gear it would have been more like $15-18, and I'd only pay more if they were taking on other responsibilities besides shooting... such as being a shoot manager. That is what you can expect for T&I shooting. The person that mentioned $500... that is never going to happen. Plus you'd be getting photographers at those rates that you didn't need. The hardest part of T&I shooting is not the photography, and my shooters were expected to shoot exactly as I trained them... not to get creative, not to change camera settings, etc. The idea is consistent quality, exposure, color, etc. Their biggest concern was dealing with the kids and getting them to show their best, and I gave them assistant to help with that. In fact, I'd rather hire someone that knows nothing about photography but is really, really good with kids; than the other way around. I can easily teach them the photography. I or my shoot manager would be metering and making decisions on what to do with camera settings... so that all our cameras were consistent. This is also why I almost always wanted them to use my gear... so I had total control over it. There are a lot of people that are very happy doing this kind of shooting, and it pays better than many jobs out there, for a part time gig. If you are expecting to get $50-75/hour as a photographer, you need to find a different genre.

convergent wrote in post #6459626
To get back to your answer... I was up until recently a franchise owner for the largest company in the country that does this kind of work, and that was the basis for the "going rate". The use of your equipment or not, to me, isn't that big of an issue because I typically supplied my shooters with equipment. Depending on the experience level, I had no problem getting photographers for $12-15/hour, and that was the max I paid for them using my gear (for T&I... I paid a bit more for Action shooters). For someone using their own gear it would have been more like $15-18, and I'd only pay more if they were taking on other responsibilities besides shooting... such as being a shoot manager. That is what you can expect for T&I shooting. The person that mentioned $500... that is never going to happen. Plus you'd be getting photographers at those rates that you didn't need. The hardest part of T&I shooting is not the photography, and my shooters were expected to shoot exactly as I trained them... not to get creative, not to change camera settings, etc. The idea is consistent quality, exposure, color, etc. Their biggest concern was dealing with the kids and getting them to show their best, and I gave them assistant to help with that. In fact, I'd rather hire someone that knows nothing about photography but is really, really good with kids; than the other way around. I can easily teach them the photography. I or my shoot manager would be metering and making decisions on what to do with camera settings... so that all our cameras were consistent. This is also why I almost always wanted them to use my gear... so I had total control over it. There are a lot of people that are very happy doing this kind of shooting, and it pays better than many jobs out there, for a part time gig. If you are expecting to get $50-75/hour as a photographer, you need to find a different genre.

Par for the course. I never said anyone would actually hire me at my rate. I just know what I'd need to make it worth my while. If this was 4+ years ago my response would be much different.

cdifoto wrote in post #6459641
Par for the course. I never said anyone would actually hire me at my rate. I just know what I'd need to make it worth my while. If this was 4+ years ago my response would be much different.

Right... it really depends on where you are in life. I would not work for these wages right now because to me, my Saturdays and Sundays are treasured times that I don't want to give up... so it takes more money than that to get me to give them up.

The folks that I've seen do well with this...
- Advanced amateur photographers that like the idea of starting to shoot for $$$
- Teachers that are good with kids and always need a little extra $$$
- College students that have an interest in photography and always need $$$
- Retired people that have an interest in kids and/or photography and need a little extra $$$
- Soccer moms that love kids sports... although they often are difficult to schedule due to their own needs

The folks that DON'T do well are...
- ANY Professional photographers... any of them. Their rates are too high and they are going to want to be creative and do more than is needed. That is bad because it takes up too much time and kills the schedule, it causes the images to not be consistent, etc., etc.
- Action shooters. They will be bored and expect more money.

I will say that if someone was going to provide equipment and its a one time setup for exposure and then just shooting after that. i would do that for 12-15 bucks an hour. but if thats the case then you as the employer would be making more than that. I thought that is more of what he is talking about. maybe not, but as for being hired to do the whole project i think might be different as you said you would hire someone for that rate so the contract would be much more per hour if broken down that way. maybe i am misunderstanding the situation.

convergent wrote in post #6459831
The folks that DON'T do well are...
- ANY Professional photographers... any of them. Their rates are too high and they are going to want to be creative and do more than is needed. That is bad because it takes up too much time and kills the schedule, it causes the images to not be consistent, etc., etc.
- Action shooters. They will be bored and expect more money.

I guess after thinking about it more overnight, I fall into this category. I love doing the action stuff and I have previously done T&Is while in College 10 years ago and I hated it. Kids were fine, its the parents that were the PITA. I work in production graphics as my day job and thats boring enough, I look at T&Is as a production system of photography which is of no use to me. I look at photography as an art form and creativity is a big part of that. I also didnt spend 4 years in school and thousands of equipment to just sit there and push a button... I am sure its profitable and works very well for people but not something I am interested in right now. With that said, this company did say they would be doing action stuff later in the season, just this event didnt require it. Told them to give me a call when they need action shots. So it could still work out.