Joseph Voegtle Photography

When you’re shooting the only thing you should be concerned with is getting the shot, safely of course.  Nothing else matters,your comfort is pretty much irrelevant.  It’s  cold out, so what.  It’s hot, raining, snowing, so what.  You’ve been hired to get the shot the client needs, they don’t really care that you don’t like to sweat, or that your fingers are numb from the cold.  They are paying you to do a job, not make excuses for why you can’t do on schedule.

If you’re not a professional and you weren’t hired to get the shoot that doesn’t let you off the hook either.  You may not have a paying client to keep happy or a deadline to meet, but you should still be going out and shooting even if the current conditions are less than ideal.  Like I’ve said before, even if the weather isn’t picture perfect there are still a lot of great opportunities to shoot and you can use adverse weather to your advantage in creating an image, it can add a feeling or mood that you wouldn’t get on a nice sunny day.  And if your about to use the “it’s not good for my gear” excuse, stop reading this and go read this post first.

You may have to get down in the mud, or snow to get the angle and composition for the shot, you may have to stand on a ladder, or lay flat on your back and shot straight up.  Things like this are no reason not to shoot.  Kneeling,  squatting, bending over, leaning, etc. are all things that can be uncomfortable, especially if you have to do them for extended periods of time.  If that’s what it is going to take to get the shot, then do it.

If you know the shot you need to get is going to require doing things that are not physically comfortable, there are things you can do to make it easier on yourself.  If the ground is muddy or wet put down a tarp or plastic from a roll like this.  Don’t want to lay on hot asphalt or gravel, you can use Anti-fatigue mats, or just fold an old blanket and use it, or a yoga mat, there are tons of thing that would work for this.  If it’s cold out you can get some hand warmers from almost any sporting goods store, or store with a sporting goods departments, they even make them to go in your feet. Gotta stand on a ladder, get a platform that fits your ladder, just make sure it’s rated to hold people and not tools.  Working some where up high and your afraid of heights, get a safety harness and lanyard, you can probably find a local tool rental store and rent it by the day when you need it.

The only way the weather is a legitimate excuse is if you need a certain type of weather for the shot and what you have is the exact opposite of that.  Safety should always be a top priority, so if there’s lightning, hail, or the wind is up-rooting  trees or creating a hazardous condition that could get someone hurt or killed , then you simply don’t shoot.  No shot, no schedule, or amount of money is worth getting yourself or someone else injured or worse.

The important thing to remember is that there is a big difference between uncomfortable and unsafe!  It’s uncomfortable to lay in a mud puddle and shoot, but it’s unsafe to stand on the top of the railing on a bridge.  Being uncomfortable is just that and doesn’t carry any long-term or permanent effects.  Being unsafe can lead to a lot more than just being uncomfortable, and can have long-term and permanent effects.  Always worry about being safe but don’t worry about being comfortable.

Sometimes it’s worth thousands of dollars or more.  When a photograph is of a cherished moment in your life it’s worth at least a thousand words, it tells the story of what was happening and how you felt at the time.  When a photograph is used for marketing it’s not just worth a thousand words, its worth thousands or even ten of thousands of dollars.  Scratching your head trying to figure out how and why photos are worth that much?

When a client has hired you to shoot something for them that is going to be used to sell their product or service what you deliver has value well beyond just what you charged for the shoot.  If a client has developed an idea for an ad campaign for their product or service they are betting on that campaign to generate revenues that are several times what it cost them to put it together.  The cost of an advertising campaign will vary depending on the size of the company and whether the campaign is local national or international.  A small to medium-sized local business may only spend a few thousand dollars on a campaign will a large international company may spend millions of dollars on a campaign.

Even if you’re not shooting something for a major ad campaign the shots can still be worth thousands of dollars to the client.  The shots may even be intended to sell just one item, one time.  If you are shooting real estate for the listing agent , those shots are  only ever going to be used to sell that one piece of property and most likely only one time.  The same thing applies if you are shooting cars for a dealer to use on their website, they’re only going to sell that car once.

Whether you have been hired to shoot the whole campaign or just a small part of it your fees are only a small part of the cost of the project.  The client hired you to shoot it instead of doing it themselves with a point and shoot because they know the need high quality professional photos.  So remember even if you only charged a few hundred bucks to shoot it, it still needs to look like a million when the client sees it.