/p/ - Photography » Thread #1252000

[11 / 1 / ?]

164KiB, 763x500, unknown.jpg

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:24:00 No.1252000 View View Reply Original Report

Quoted By:

/P/hotography work experience

What's the best approach to take when contacting potential businesses/photographers?

I'm interested in doing some free photography work. Either as a studio assistant or retouching work.

What's the pro's/con's of doing free work experience?

If you have done so in the past, how did you find it?

cheers ausfag

Konan !d7000s8hh.

Konan !d7000s8hh. Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:38:00 No.1252022 Report

Quoted By:

age experience gears location?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:39:00 No.1252023 Report

Quoted By:

OP here.

I'm thinking of just emailing these people directly.
Rather than posting on gum tree an saying hurr durr im a faggot looking for free work XP.

-I'm all self taught
-own a Canon 5DMKII
-can provide some examples of my work

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:46:00 No.1252034 Report

Quoted By:

-22
-Sydney
-currently working boring 9-5 IT job. just to pay for gear etc.
- the plan is to keep at my photography hobby on the side until I can make a switch to photography fulltime.
- atm I'm interested in shooting band promo/fashion/PR/ portraits etc
- also a filmfag owning some 35mm SLRs, RF, Pentax 67 MF
- been shooting for last 4-5 years as a hobby. making slow progress.

OP

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:46:00 No.1252035 Report

Quoted By:

almost every freaking day on craigs list i see internship positions for hire for photography/design studioes. They will gladly take you for free in exchange for someone willing to do free retouch work.

Personally have a thing against free internships. Always feel like its a scam to get free work in exchange for promises of future employment. At least with Temp work you know the score. Okay your skipping out on paying benefits but at least I'm getting paid for the work

Post on Craigs list. look online. Trust me mention the word work for free and its not a problem. Also if you know ps and lr thats a plus i've seen. Alot of photo places are "old men" establishments where the idea of digital is some magical thing that the older photographers don't understand. Read not all

Konan !d7000s8hh.

Konan !d7000s8hh. Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:46:00 No.1252037 Report

Quoted By:

really you have a 5dmk2?
can i assume that you have alot of money then?

also what kind of photography are you interested in?

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:48:00 No.1252040 Report

Quoted By: >>1252050 >>1252052

pretty general advice here, but it might be useful i dunno.

you WILL want to set up a site with a portfolio (even if it only has a handful of pics) with a domain name (not just a flickr page - but one of those as well won't hurt)

make sure you use an appropriate professional sounding email address like yourname@yoursite.com (you know - as opposed to narutokun1994@hotmail.com)

and of course, visit (on foot) potential local hirers (newspapers, magazines) with businesscard in hand.

Writing a letter by hand or walking into the headquarters on your own steam will make you stand out far more than sending an email. But send emails as well.

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 20:57:00 No.1252050 Report

Quoted By:

>>1252040
I've got a domain. currently building a simple folio. non of this flash ridden musical bullshit

>professional sounding email address
already done. I always cringe/lol when I see peoples business cards with a fail email address.

Good idea. Approaching in person would show you are keen and have big balls. (like tony montanna)

Yeah I've been working in IT for last 4 years so can afford decent gear. Obviosuly it's been a slow upgrade process. P&S > Fuji slr> Canon 40D > 5DMKII

I shoot live music so I wanted something that could cope well in dark lit environment + high ISO capability. Plus full frame is just sweet.

thanks for the advice so far bro's

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 21:00:00 No.1252052 Report

Quoted By: >>1252087

>>1252040

Agree strongly with the portfolio and legit sounding domain. Domains are cheap and just having a presence means they can access your portfolio instantly

Otherwise i wouldn't fret. If you live near a major city it helps also. I live near manhattan so the deluge of photography/design studios makes finding one to work for free a snap. Its finding one that will pay thats the main issue

Be prepared mentally that since its for free as a digital retoucher you will be abused for your skill especially if the photogs there are old school

As an assistant i'd go for that, at least you can learn something about working behind the lens in a work environment. However the digital experience is something that will shine through on your cv vs. photographers who don't

Again your working for free so in that sense be selective of the place you set the hours. Only good thing about doing work gratis

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 21:37:00 No.1252087 Report

Quoted By:

>>1252052
cheers bro

Anonymous

Anonymous Wed 27 Apr 2011 22:57:00 No.1252130 Report

Quoted By:

OR

Do it yourself.

The thought of sucking some other photographers dick before I got to touching a camera was not appealing to me. I started my own photography business right after uni last year.
I had a decent camera to begin with and I just rented lights and back drops for the jobs before buying my own. I manly did business portraits and local bands at first. Now I'm doing real estate, promo shoots and some fashion as well.

It's only my second year but I already have nice client base building up.

Capcode	All Only User Posts Only Verified Posts Only Moderator Posts Only Manager Posts Only Admin Posts Only Developer Posts Only Founder Posts
Show Posts	All Only With Images Only Without Images Only Spoiler Images Only Non-Spoiler Images
Deleted Posts	All Only Deleted Posts Only Non-Deleted Posts
Ghost Posts	All Only Ghost Posts Only Non-Ghost Posts
Post Type	All Only Sticky Threads Only Opening Posts Only Reply Posts
Results	All Grouped By Threads
Order	Latest Posts First Oldest Posts First

On these archives

Your latest searches