TIPS60 - Staff2Freelance - the importance of having an archive of your staff images

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on your portfolio and your own archive. I'm John Harrington. When you're a staff photographer all of your images, generally speaking, are archived on location at your workplace, but what you want to do also is have your portfolio samples, your best examples of your work as a professional photographer, archived in a safe place so that, should you lose your job, you're in the position where you can actually demonstrate to other future potential employers that you're a capable and talented photographer. So it's important for you to have an archive copy of your portfolio images offsite from your workplace because if the company loses their servers or decides to shutdown unexpectedly and you don't have those copies of the work offsite you're in trouble. Now of course, you need to be consistent with your workplace policy. Don't take work away from your office that you not allowed to. Check with your photo editor, check with your supervisor, make sure it's okay for you to have those copies. But you want to do that sooner rather than later so that you're always prepared for the unexpected.

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TIPS60 - Balancing shooting what you love and shooting what pays the bills

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts about balancing the fun photography and the photography that pays the bills. I'm John Harrington. When you do going out and taking phone calls for doing photo assignments, some of those assignments are exciting, a lot of fun, a lot of energy, you come back and you're like so blown away because you totally were in love with the the assignment that you did. Then there's the ones that you groan and say, ""Gosh, I wish I didn't have to go do this today"", but the reality is that you have to strike a balance between what you love to do and what pays the bills. There are a number of times I've gone out on a variety of different assignments and I gone, ""Oh, I just would rather not be here"", but the reality is that it is what pays the bills. I would encourage you if you're doing a lot of that bill paying photography go out and spend some personal time doing the photography that you love just to kind of keep your creative juices flowing, to keep yourself happy and upbeat. There is always going to be a balance of doing what you do for love and doing what you do because it has to pay the bills.

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TIPS60 - When do you just say "no"?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on the power of ""no"". I'm John Harrington. When you say ""no"" when someone makes an offer to you or makes a request off you that's unreasonable, that gives you a great deal of power. Now I'm not talking about power over somebody, but power in controlling what you do what you provide in the services that you are rendering. If someone's offering you or making you an unreasonable offer, you need only say ""no"" to that client. Now if you don't have any other alternatives, if you have to say ""yes"" to that particular job or that particular request because you need the money, your rent is due and you have no money in the bank, then you really don't have the power to say ""no"" then you are at the discretion of that clients request and you may have to fulfill it. But if you have other options, if you can afford to pay the bills because you have the reserve, saying ""no"" is very empowering. In addition when you say ""no"" just say ""no"" nicely, ""Gosh, I can't do it for that rate but I'd be happy to discuss with you a rate that works for me."

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Please post your comments by clicking the link below. If you've got questions, please pose them in our Photo Business Forum Flickr Group Discussion Threads.

TIPS60 - How much time do professional photographers actually spend making photographs?

Here is another of our videos offering tips and inisights into the business of photography. a transcript of the video is included after the jump.

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TRANSCRIPT:Here are a few thoughts on on how photographers actually spend their time. I'm John Harrington. Most people, when they think about photographers and photography, think, "" Oh, I'm gonna be traveling the globe, slinging the camera on my shoulder, the camera bag, seeing the world, taking pictures"" and that's that. The reality is it's nowhere near the case. Most photographers spend, on average, about twenty percent of their time making pictures. The rest of the time is administrative. If you think about a wedding photographer for example, they may spend six to eight hours on a Saturday making pictures and maybe six to eight hours on a Sunday making pictures, but they're spending Monday through Friday doing post-production, talking a prospective brides and grooms about working, there's such a variety of things that they're doing that isn't making pictures and every job has its boring aspects, but for photographers you really can count on about twenty percent of the time to be making pictures and the rest doing administrative and paperwork. So that's about about how long photographers spend making pictures.

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