A couple of comments:
As to selling yourself cheap, don't do it! First, you won't get the
respect that you deserve for your work, and second, how will you finance
that new PZ-1p body you need now that the last one took a tumble at $100
per shoot? I've done cheap work before (and I continue to do it on
occassion) under very specific circumstances: the people involved really
couldn't afford more, the gig was fun, and I wanted to be involved in
the resulting project for one reason or another. I find myself working
cheap for bands that I really enjoy going to see anyways and who I'd
like to think have a shot at going somewhere. I'm currently working
cheap on a web based project that could metamorph into a print based
project, with some people who I very much respect and admire and whose
work I'd like my own work to be associated with.
As to cheesy commercialization, I charge exorbitant fees to a couple of
local pros to "fairyize" their pics, which are posed studio shots,
mostly of children, featuring fanciful costumes and sets. Most of my
fairyizing is judicious use of the median tool in Photoshop, with some
other stuff blended in. I charge a lot because this work takes me a lot
of time (and my fee is hourly), and also because it's...uh...well...
It makes me feel quite the cheese when I'm doing it, but I have to get
right into it, otherwise the effect won't be right. I think my point is
that if you're going to be cheesy, throw your whole self into it, and be
cheesy with all of your might!
I have too many friends who don't ask for enough up front for weddings
and the like, and then when faced with demands from the client for cheap
prints or the like ("Twelve dollars for an 8x10? I can get one done at
Wal-Mart for six!"), they find themselves not making any money, or worse
still, losing money. Clients who are unwilling to pay for good film,
good processing or good printing are not worth having. I had someone
try to convince me to shoot a wedding on Kirkland film, because it would
shave $100 off of the materials cost, and as soon as they did that, I
knew that they would never in a million years pay for enlargements (and
they'd probably expect to be given the negs, too), so I declined their
wedding. Stuff like that is not worth the hassle.
-Aaron
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