I'm For Hire

I've taken my photography to a hobby level.  I would love to take my time and talent to help a company flourish.  Sales is not my thing, but I would definitely love to help assist a sales department in promoting product.  I love marketing and am always up for brainstorming creative ideas to help bring a product to the consumer.  If you have a job opening in your company that you think I could fill, let me know and I'll see if it's fitting.

"Donate Your Time and Talent"

This phrase has been stuck in my head lately.  There are a lot of people and organizations who send requests out to photographers to donate their time and talent.  I just thought I'd write and tell you about my time.  This is about my life as a photographer and other photographers may have a different perspective on donating their time and talent.

What is time?  Time is a lot.  It's worth a whole lot more than money because we only have so much of it.  When someone requests a photographer to donate their time they usually want a photographer to give a specific amount of time towards photographing an event.

What is my time in regards to this?  First of all, donating the time is not just all that is donated.

• It's the prep time to prepare for the event, 
• the gas money to get to the event, 
• the time to travel to the event, 
• the wear and tear on the vehicle to get to the event, 
• the time afterwards to edit the photos, 
• the time it takes to prepare the photos to get them back to the organization, 
• the wear and tear on the camera because all cameras wear out and new ones need to be bought, 
• the hard drive space taken up for the files which will eventually lead to another hard drive purchase when full.

So, in a nutshell, whatever time you expect a photographer to donate needs to be doubled or even tripled.  If you are hosting an event where you charge admission and have some expenses such as tent rental, catering, etc, why do you not figure in a bit of the admission cost for a photographer?  A decent photographer is worth paying.  Getting a volunteer photographer may result in photos no better than something you could take with your iPhone.

I already do much of my photography without pay.  An old barn, abandoned house or cemetery cannot be billed for services.  On top of that there are many organizations I do not charge for any photography services.  This can be very time consuming so adding anymore donations of my time can be too much.  I also have a husband and 3 kids and it takes time away from them also.

If anything, consider setting a small portion of funds aside for a professional photographer.  If your organization is on a tight budget, offering a small amount of cash for the photographer's time does help pay for the gas to get there and a USB drive to put the photos on.