Uber: know how to drive, own a car, insurance, use a cell phone to tell you where to make $12, drive from A-B-C-A, and pay 9 of it back to car maintenance over time.
Photographer: Own camera, insurance, lights, lenses, backdrops, computer, software licenses, photodelivery platform costs, know how to use them. Pack up gear into car, drive to shoot, lug all the gear, setup, shoot, position, pose, pack up all the gear, drive back, stow all the gear, transfer images to computer, Lightroom, cull, Photoshop, color/image/wrinkles/clothing fixes, blinks, smirks, stray hairs, put it into a gallery,
The Uber driver spent 30 minutes
The photographer spent 6-8 hours.
If the photographer is gatekeeping you, hire the Uber driver to take your picture for $12.
You can have all the hobbies you want. But undercharging for hobby work does fuck over the actual photographers.
Everyone is looking for an amazing hobbiest to shoot their wedding and beating the fuck out of the professionals doing it for a living because they want a couple of grand for a solid week of work.
Seriously, just ask the people attending the wedding to send pictures to you, people would love to help.
My wife has been doing professional work for years, over the past decade or so, drastically more clients browbeat her mercilessly to the point that she has to fire them. What do you mean you need $200 to come to my house and do headshots, it’s only worth $25.
If you have offers for $25 you should take them. Her stuff is really good, they know they don’t want the $25 they’re just not willing to pay a living wage to get it.
I think it’s more about the gatekeeping.
I wouldn’t call his reply gatekeeping. He’s kind of just promoting a race to the bottom mentality.
I read hers as gatekeeping and his as holding a mirror to that gatekeeping.
Her phrasing of “you want to shoot for x money” is gatekeeping. You can’t have a hobby because I paid more money to do it professionally.
If she’s talking about people wanting to low ball her she would’ve said “a shoot” instead of “to shoot”. It’s also perfectly likely she just misspoke.
Uber: know how to drive, own a car, insurance, use a cell phone to tell you where to make $12, drive from A-B-C-A, and pay 9 of it back to car maintenance over time.
Photographer: Own camera, insurance, lights, lenses, backdrops, computer, software licenses, photodelivery platform costs, know how to use them. Pack up gear into car, drive to shoot, lug all the gear, setup, shoot, position, pose, pack up all the gear, drive back, stow all the gear, transfer images to computer, Lightroom, cull, Photoshop, color/image/wrinkles/clothing fixes, blinks, smirks, stray hairs, put it into a gallery,
The Uber driver spent 30 minutes
The photographer spent 6-8 hours.
If the photographer is gatekeeping you, hire the Uber driver to take your picture for $12.
Just because it’s not an exact comparison doesn’t mean the analogy fails.
Edit: I think there is confusion based on her word choices. I mention it in another comment.
https://lemmy.world/comment/25419707
You can have all the hobbies you want. But undercharging for hobby work does fuck over the actual photographers.
Everyone is looking for an amazing hobbiest to shoot their wedding and beating the fuck out of the professionals doing it for a living because they want a couple of grand for a solid week of work.
Seriously, just ask the people attending the wedding to send pictures to you, people would love to help.
My wife has been doing professional work for years, over the past decade or so, drastically more clients browbeat her mercilessly to the point that she has to fire them. What do you mean you need $200 to come to my house and do headshots, it’s only worth $25.
If you have offers for $25 you should take them. Her stuff is really good, they know they don’t want the $25 they’re just not willing to pay a living wage to get it.