Brilliant. It’s going up on my blog.

I totally agree. I think we photographers are feeding the problem. Clients come to me with ridiculous demands; I can’t believe enough people bow to them so the trend continues.

[...] just saw a brilliant Youtube video from the Digital Wedding Forum about the Vendor-Client relationships titled “Stop working for free”. This video is addresses the oft misunderstood wedding [...]

Love this video! Thanks for posting this on the blog.

That is SO GOOD!!!! It really puts things into perspective, and I want to add it to my website, under the FAQ’s section, where the question is ‘Joe Blogs can shoot the wedding and burn me a DVD for $600, can you do that for me?’!!!

Awesome….and I did share it!

The main thing that strikes me about this video is that for this to be made, it means that most of, if not all of us are hearing the same things from potential clients.

We gotta get together on this.

That was really great advice. I need to remind myself of this from time to time as I tend to be pretty flexible to nice people that I connect with…

Great I am going to send this to a ton of friends including wedding planners.

“we” will never be able to “get together” on this because of how many new people come into this business every day. For every one that gets out, there a five more that get in. You cannot fool yourself into thinking that all of these people are crummy photographers, and you also need to know that a large percentage of the public doesnt even know the difference.

The real answer is to stem the flow of new people coming into the business. Make it harder for them to get in in the first place. Make them show some commitment first. Raise the bar. What will do that?

State Licensing. That is the only answer until the PPA starts hailing their certification to the general public. I am talking about hard-core ads too that scare the crap out of brides, so they will only seek out a PPA photographer. Will they do that? Of course not. Because that would then piss off Nikon and Canon and all of the “rock star” guy who sell their stuff to all the newbs that are taking your business away and distorting the perception of our profession in general.

See…its the rock start photographers out there selling thier seminars and their actions and their how-to series that are killing the business. Why do they do that? Because they see the market flooding too, so they will make thier money off of that instead of their photography itself. Why shoot a wedding for 10,000 when you can do a weekend clinic for 15 people for 1200 bucks, make more money, not have to do any editing prints or albums?

We are feeding this fire ourselves people.

It is time for a revolution among the pros. We need to make the price of entry higher and raise the bar. What do people understand? Government laws. Licensing is the way to go. It would have to be done right, but I just dont see any other solution to the dilution.

Still a great video though. What it doesn’t tell you though is that if you dont do it, the restaurant down the street, or the CD store or the hair shop will.

If we all love a free market, you just have to live with this problem then. Otherwise, you have to tighten down the market somehow.

Let’s start that movement…

I don’t think there is any way to raise the bar of entry into photography. Personally, I am just not scared of someone with an amateur DSLR, poor marketing, and poor photographs. I know what it costs and the time it takes to do a good job in this business and most amateurs just won’t weather that storm. On that note, I believe that these masses of people who dip their toes in the industry and shoot/burn for $500 with their amateur DSLRs serve a certain market who just doesn’t want to spend much on their wedding photography anyway.

Now, when it comes to the $3,000+ market; I’m just not seeing the floodgates of amateur photographers making much headway with their amateur equipment and amateur marketing. The photographers serving this market to any degree deserve to be there and the brides will choose photographers with great portfolios, great service, and great marketing. All three of those things take time, commitment, money, and perseverance to achieve. These are the photographers who have committed the resources and time to the business that those who are just trying to make a buck haven’t. They deserve to be there and in most cases will do a fantastic job.

I think what this movement does is make the industry much more competitive and ultimately provides an unbelievable product to brides across this country. The best will rise to the top and do really well no matter what (in most cases).