I recently had the pleasure of going live on Instagram with my friend and fellow photographer, Logan Detty. I invited Logan to join me on live to discuss a topic I hear a lot of photographers and models talk about: When do I collaborate with someone vs when do I get paid for my work?This topic is something I think we all struggle with. Finding a way to balance out collaborative work with turning our passions into a career is honestly sometimes very difficult. To be honest, there really isn’t an exact point where you just start getting paid every time for your work. Logan and I have both been in photography for many years and as we discussed during the live, we both still do a large amount of collaborative work, but for good reason.

"In order to start building a name for yourself in your area, you have to take on collaborative work locally, and A LOT of it," as Logan says. Focusing on your surrounding area is extremely important because in the long run, that is where your client base will form. In my experience, collaborating has been an essential part of my growth as a creator and expanding my client base.

Collaborating has allowed me to network with talented people, create portfolio work, and get my name out to my audience. Building a network of models, makeup artists, stylists, and even other photographers can be extremely important, especially when paid work comes through. By combining everyone's unique skill sets, it makes for a great way to create high quality imagery that you can later use to advertise to paying clients. Lastly, having a group of people with a wide array of audience share your work on their social media and websites really helps more clients reach your work.

Collaborating and helping others without necessarily being paid still goes a long way. Logan told a really great story during our conversation: He had a client cancel due to bad weather. Shortly after, a mother of a young model reached out to him that same day to see if he was available to shoot. Due to the cancellation, Logan was able to take on this shoot as a collaboration. To his surprise, Logan was tipped $50 for that unexpected shoot. He said that the $50 tip meant more to him than any dollar amount he’s paid for commissioned work because it showed how much they valued his willingness to work with them in a collaborative setting.

I added to his story by pointing out that it could even be something as small as buying lunch or coffee for your collaborative group that can make a huge difference in people's minds. These small acts show you have a mutual respect for the time, skills, and effort they committed to the project. Word about a small act of kindness travels much farther than word about a cool photo you took. 

Logan then asked me who the majority of my clients were, and I knew exactly where he was going with this. Believe it or not, the majority of my clients aren’t what you see on my Instagram feed. While I like to show my skills in portraiture and fashion, the clients who truly pay my bills are actually businesses, brands, and more commercial clients. Logan agreed this was true of his business as well.

These clients must take priority over collaborative work, even if your collaboration sounds more exciting. We ARE trying to make a successful career out of our efforts, after all.

We then transitioned into conversation about how to make that step from just collaborative work to actually getting paid clientele. 

When I graduated college, I truly felt this meant I should be doing JUST paid work and not collaborations. Looking back on this, I was being pretty arrogant. What I came to realize was that I hadn’t really proven myself to anyone yet. I had done the work to hone my skills as a photographer/videographer, but now I needed to build my reputation to prove to others that I had something of value to offer them. 

Logan made another great point that " You have to have courage to set your price..."

You need to be firm and not afraid to lose a shoot because someone is not willing to pay you for the service you are providing them. You have to be able to say 'I understand, but we won't be able to make that work. I need to be paid for my time and expertise. Thank you for your interest.'

The conversation actually reminded me of a video I'd watched on Gary Vee's Youtube channel (This one). In the video, Chase Jarvis says something that has stuck with me since I first watched it. He said, "When you transition to a professional you either do work for free or you do it for full price, nothing in between.This makes sure you are in full control of the results of the project. You get to dictate your service and it won’t allow you to conform just to justify a shoot. Don’t get thirsty for the money. Know your worth and STICK TO IT."

'

Logan made a suggestion that might help some of you out there struggling with getting started. To summarize his point, he said, don’t underestimate walking into a coffee shop and handing out business cards. He took this approach when he was getting started and to this day still does it. When he first started out, he set his prices dirt cheap, and planned to take on as many jobs as possible, and it worked. He booked tons of shoots and began to build his audience and platform on Instagram. He doesn’t believe that it’s a sustainable model for long term business building, but it did help him get the ball rolling into professional photography.

In your first few years don’t set expectations too high. It’s not likely you’ll have a highly profitable business in most cases. I myself will have months with very few paid shoots, and I find it really easy to get down on myself. Other months, I’ll be overbooked with paid shoots and I can tell I’m doing the right thing and heading in the right direction. A good way to begin pricing your work is to talk to other area talent, find out what they’re charging, and price yourself accordingly. Logan and myself both find it extremely important keep your pricing relative to others around you. If you price yourself too low, you may overwork yourself or find yourself not being able to profit off the amount of work you're doing, and if you price yourself too high, you may find it extremely hard to book clients.

Going live with Logan was a great conversation, I was super grateful to have him hop on with me to talk about this subject. There was definitely some really valuable points raised in our conversation. I hope whoever is reading this is gained something out of this post. Even if it was just one new thing, you’ve already taken a step in the right direction.

Also, if you’re not already, make sure to follow @logandettyphoto on Instagram, he consistently provides valuable information to people in his stories and live videos. Before we ended our live feed, Logan gave everyone a tool to help keep track of talent you want to work with in the future. Check out peoplemap.co and start creating lists of talented individuals that you could see yourself working with!

Thanks for taking the time to read this post, I hope you enjoyed it!