Sure. If you want to attract business as a freelancer, you have to build a personal brand. This goes double if, like me, you're a journalist that is paid in part because of their particular voice and point of view. Of course I don't mean you should shoot your mouth off about politics or whatever, but it's important for people to see behind the curtain a little bit. It makes reaching out to them easier because you know who you're dealing with and that they aren't just some faceless hired gun.
cruciblemedialabs
joined 10 months ago
Jesus...r/titlegore
If you were hired by a client, and you only shoot that client, worst case scenario is that the "official" photographers lose out on a sale to that person. As usually a large batch shooter in the same situation, one person not buying my stuff is not going to make or break the job for me.
Grey market. You can buy gear much more cheaply in various other countries, so sketchy retailers basically buy inventory from those countries, import it, sell it slightly below its domestic MSRP to incentivize buyers, and pocket the difference. Basically, it’s a way to inflate profit margins while still undercutting other retailers. Problem is that just about every manufacturer is wise to this and refuses to have anything to do with the gear in question, and the only way to know for certain that you don’t have a grey market product is to check the serial number with the manufacturer, at which point the retailer already has your money and will usually make it very difficult to get it back.
It depends.
It depends.
It depends.
Generally a boilerplate template is fine. Some people prefer to have an attorney make them up something bespoke, but for someone just starting out, just google "photography contract template".
RE: payments, every job is different and payments will depend on how you want to make your money. I do sports a lot, and those sales are almost entirely online through my web hosting platform that I've set up to take as many payment methods as it will allow for the sake of convenience. When I've shot events, it has depended on the protocol for the people that hired me. Some people want to be sent an invoice and pay via wire transfer, some people want to mail a check, some people will give me cash as I'm about to leave and just trust that I'll deliver what we agreed on. Doesn't matter too much to me as long as I get paid. Deposits are nice, but some people really don't like paying for something until they've seen the finished product. This is where a contract is 100% mandatory because people will screw you if you let them. It's happened to me and it's happened to everyone who does this kind of work for a living.