Notice: This post is made out of frustration and you can leave your thoughts and anger here too.
I am 25, female, german and a freelance photographer. Since a year I am trying to get into concert photograpy with pay. The first 10 concerts I did of course for free to build my portfolio but now I reached the point where I want to get real jobs and some respect for my work.
But as many fellows know it is a hard world out there and you have to give 200% effort to get 2% chance on landing a job. So one of my strategies were writing pm‘s to concert photographers on instagram with the question if they could be so kind and spill the tea about experiences in the business.
Guess what? The answers were vague and short or you would get ignored. Further it would stop at telling the simple thing of which lens they used. I get it that everyone has their own style and tries to protect it but you can nit be replaced that quickly by just helping one out with some info.
Can someone tell me about similar experiences?
Is there someone who is not afraid of giving informations about this photography sector?
I would really like to not feel alone anymore with this behavior.
Thanks guys!
Summary: Freelance photographer trying to get into concert sector but struggles to get paid jobs. Succesfull photographers won‘t have a conversation about their experiences. Hence their the biggest gatekeepers in my opinion!!
I mean, yes there are gatekeepers, but from my experience this is less about gatekeeping and more about availability/motivation to answer questions. I often get PMs asking for feedback, advice, etc, and I try my best to be helpful, but like most people I have a lot on my plate and it takes actual effort to answer in a constructive and helpful way. You're asking people to give you their time which has value for nothing in return. Like you don't want to give your time for free shooting concerts, it's very feasible that these photographers also don't want to give their time and effort for free.
I see it more as a cost vs benefit for them. What are they getting out of the conversation? Is it even a conversation, or shooting a bunch of questions at them? At that point, you're asking someone to mentor or teach you without any value for them in return.
My advice? Find someone who is open to taking on an assistant or mentee. Learn from them while also helping them. There's value in that for both of you. Just hitting someone up in their PMs with a bunch of questions is not really respectful of their time and the time it took them to acquire the knowledge you're asking them to just feed you.
Thanks for sharing your opinion!
I do see benefits from looking for a photographer to assist them. But I don‘t think its realistic when it come to concert photography. Like what is there to assist or help? I would probably stnad in the way.
About the disrespect aspect: I dont think its disrespectfull of asking questions. Yes, you can just ignore them or answer them. Why does everthing need to be revalued these days? What about just helping someone? We all know how hard the beginning is and then when we get our flow we become these kind of people ourselfs?
That cant be it.
You’re asking a working professional to mentor you (a complete stranger) for free with nothing to benefit them. It’s not gatekeeping. You can ask questions but not getting a reply or a reply you like isn’t them being rude or secretive. It’s more an issue of you not fully understanding how this industry works. In a world where everyone has an incredible camera in their pocket at all times, my profession as a photographer feels more precious than ever, and I’m only ever really thinking about how I can be improving and growing my own career.
Someone mentioned trying to find a professional photographer to mentor you, and this is really the only good option if you’re serious about the craft. You’ll learn a lot about concert photography in particular, and will also be benefitting the person teaching you. You might even get paid.
If you do end up becoming a professional, you’ll look back at this post and see what we mean.