I wrote a small article about this but cant find it. I copied down the blog entry, but cant remember what happened to it. I will try to write it out from what I remember and bits and pieces I have saved. I didn't know her previously, nor kept in touch but I hear shes still out taking pictures and had a few of her shots put up on the municipal website.
It's a common rule with professional photographers to not work for free. Your time, your work, is valuable and you should not give away that for nothing..that said; there are some exceptions! (names were changed to protect privacy)
Actually, technically speaking I did not "work for free" but I gave something out for free; it was a donation of an old camera and print to a teenage girl. She was staying at a crisis support center for youths and I was told she didnt have a lot with her, so for something like this it would basically be like Christmas for her.
I'm going to call her Jamie. A few months ago Jamie put out an advertisement which I came across. It illustrated her desire to become a professional photographer and she was offering to take people's pictures for money ..providing they had a camera for her to use, for them.
Now it's not everyday you saw this, so I was intrigued, until I read further into it. She has a deep desire to be a professional photographer, and was staying at a crisis/treatment center under the care of youth workers/guardians. I was to get in touch with them if I wanted to contact her, first, and they were asking for donations for a camera for her.
I had an old powershot sx100 that I had learned basically everything I know of the building blocks of on. I dropped off this camera with them and we talked briefly about how much of a difference this camera would be for her; it would be like christmas for her.
I was surprised..I felt bad for not being able to give her a DSLR. So to make up for that I gave her about 4 sets of batteries; the manual, the cord, everything it came with and a CD to work the software on the computer.
When I met Jamie a couple of days ago she was with one of her youth workers, and I will call him Simon.
Simon introduced me to her and said that this was the girl who I had donated a camera to. She handed me a note, and smiled and said thank you.
I read the note..let me say that it inspires me everytime I hit a low point with photo. I had it framed and put on my wall. It is beautiful. A work of art on its own.
She talked about how it was the best thing anyone had ever done for her, how caring and compassionate I was and despite not even knowing her or who she was I would give her a gift like this. Despite not knowing her, I read her ad and I thought of myself a few years ago; desperate for a DSLR to advance my skills. I used to envy people with XTIs and kit lenses because they had the building blocks of what I needed to create my vision.
Photography is an expensive hobby to get into, and an even more expensive one to continue. It is one hell of an expensive venture to make a business at it with even a minimum wage profit.
It touched me deeply to hear from her, meet her, and receive this note from her. Within it she said that it was her dream to become a professional photographer and she would do anything to create that dream into a reality. She would keep this camera that I have donated her for life ...and burn my name within her mind for what I have done to help her out.
This is why you should work for free..sometimes the payment is not monetary...but priceless, all the same.
I have never been so moved by something like this before. I have donated money, clothes, gifts..prints and services for charity before...but never has any one person moved, touched and made me work 11x harder as deeply as this girl. Pretty sweet.
