What a way to make a living

[pecunium]

I've been looking at photograpy jobs.

Being a strange sort of business I don't find very restricted listings. I could apply for a GS job, as an employee of the FBI, doing crime scenes in New Orleans. Requires a TS/SCI clearance, and a willingness to move; one gets 12 months, and then they can move you at will.

Yippee.

A German agency want's papparazzi in LA. They pay 50/50, when they sell the pictures.

The AF has an open listing for photographers; they don't say there are openings, but if they need one, at some AFB, you can have your name in the hopper.

Lots of ads for Photo/Sales, which means hustling for School Photos, Soccer Teams, etc., and then doing the work. You have to pay a slice to the company which offers the reputation.

That wasn't the really good one.

No, that was the following.

JOB DESCRIPTION
Our photographers shoot high-quality real estate virtual tours, composed of both still photos and 360 degree panoramics. All orders, scheduling, and billing are coordinated through our main office, and photographers need only to go take the photos and upload them to our server. Each tour typically takes 30-45 minutes to shoot, and we usually shoot 5-7 tours per day during the peak season. We work Monday – Friday, typically between 9am and 4pm. Scheduling is flexible, and photographers are able to schedule their availability as needed.


LOCATION
We’re currently looking for a photographer to cover the South Bay and Peninsula areas, between Burlingame and Santa Clara. The bulk of the tours will be in this area, although we may ask you to travel a little further on occasion.

WORKLOAD
We’re ramping up our marketing efforts in the South Bay and Peninsula, and expect the workload to be 5-7 tours/week by February/March 2008. This means you’ll have some time to get up to speed, and be ready for the peak season, which lasts roughly from February through September.

REQUIREMENTS
* Camera Equipment. Because this is a contract job, photographers must supply their own camera equipment. Minimum requirements:
- 4MP Digital SLR
- 10mm – 14mm lens (not fisheye)
- 1 off-camera flash unit (2 preferred, for best lighting)
- rotating flash bracket
- tripod with degree markings
* Experience/Photography Skills. Experience shooting virtual tours and/or real estate is strongly preferred, but is not a requirement. Photographers must have mastered basic concepts such as lighting, composition, and exposure, and be able to hit the ground running. We pride ourselves on high-quality, well-lit images. We can help you dial in the details of what makes a good real estate photo, but we simply don’t have the time to train you how to take good photos to begin with. If you don’t have virtual tour experience, you need to be able to learn very quickly.
* Reliable Transportation. Photographers are responsible for their own transportation between properties. Reliable transportation is a must: driving 100 miles/day is not uncommon, and you must arrive to your appointments on time. Neither public transportation nor a friend’s car is considered reliable transportation.
* File Management/Technology Skills. Photographers need to manage and organize large numbers of photos, sort and rename them appropriately, and be able to transfer files over the internet via FTP on a daily basis.
* High-speed Internet Connection. Photos are uploaded to our server the same day they are taken. Since a typical schedule might produce several hundred photos per day, a reliable high-speed internet connection is an absolute must.

PERSONAL SKILLS
* Flexible. Real estate is a fast-moving business, and your schedule can change quickly, even while you’re out shooting.
* Reliable. We must be able to count on you to get to all of your appointments when they’re scheduled.
* Professional. You will often have contact with real estate agents and homeowners, and need to have a professional attitude and appearance. No, you don’t need to wear a tie, but flip-flops and tank tops are not okay.

Got all that. A detailed list of what they want, some very specific equipment requirements.

The final product, looks something like this. View Sample Tour (it's on the lower left, opens a Java Applet frame).

Here's the kicker

COMPENSATION
The pay depends on the virtual tour package ordered, but averages $35 per tour. We currently don’t pay mileage.

So, with a sunk cost in equipment of not less than $3,000, and a minimum time of not less than 3 hours, they aren't offering anywhere near enough money.

I think I'll pass.

Comments

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

You'd make more working at In-N-Out.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

$35 flat rate? They must not actually want good photographers, just adequate people hoping to break into the business. I made that much money as a barista at Peet's.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Depends on how you measure it. Doing the math, the gross is about $11.50 an hour (assuming one isn't doing more than 30 minutes at the house, and no real editing of images, just selection, has to be done).

But add in the hidden costs (amortisation of not less than $3,000 worth of gear, gas; wear and tear, vehicle insurance, DSL at home, record-keeping because one is a contractor, social security contributions, etc.) and the take home drops to about 8 bucks an hour.

And for what? None of this is good for portfolio, and it's full time work.

Feh.

TK

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yep. It's a standard problem when dealing with people looking to by photos. They don't know what's involved. They see it as, 30 minutes work, for $35, so it's $70 bucks an hour, right?

Forget the $1,800 dollar lens they want, and the $400 tripod, and the $600 flash costs, and the bracket, and the camera.

Nope. Anyone who has the gear can do, right?

TK

[shekkara.livejournal.com]

Plus the time cost of doing file management and uploading? What if they want any post-processing? Sheesh. And people want to fly to the moon for free, too.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Yeah- they just listed the photo gear needed- nothing about the expenses for computer gear, professional level software and a broadband connection.

I used to have a TS/SCI clearance. I'm glad those days are behind me...

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

The moment I saw the job listing the danger light went on. One rule of thumb I've learned so far with job seeking is that overtly detailed duty specifications always means trouble. With very few exceptions that sort of job description is used by rip off companies, who want an expert and pay them burger flipper wages.

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. I wondered what the punchline was going to be. I wonder how that's working out for them.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's working out, tolerably well. It's the sort of thing where the loss-leader/shaft the photographer aspect of it is sort of hidden.

Me, I've been doing this, off and on, since it was all done with soup and paper, so the hidden costs; to me, are a bit more evident.

But the kid, fresh out of school, who has the gear (and so doesn't see it as one of the costs they are paying) and needs work, and doesn't want to be slaving away at Sears, it looks ok.

Some of the problem is the back-end hazard. I'll bet the people who take this job aren't settting aside taxes. Lets say they get the average five shoots a day, in the season, that's almost $900 a week; gross. $3,600 a month doesn't look too bad.

But, of course, they don't actually get all that.

So I suspect they don't keep people, but they don't care about that. They need someone to go in, set up; snap the panoramics, and leave. I'll bet they get enough for the year.

Next year, just do it all over again. Their profit margin makes it worth it.

TK

[tlatoani.livejournal.com]

I see what you're saying -- the equipment's a sunk cost, so they don't think about it that way. But the amount of time involved when you take the file handling and post-processing into account (as shekkara says) still makes it a bad deal.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it's a horrid deal. Pure exploitation of the shooter.

TK

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, sounds like exploitation -- or what's known as "Good Modern Business Practice" in CEO circles. Probably not much more than Minimum Wage (if that -- "independent contractors" are probably exempt), even if the "sunk costs" are figured differently, as I do -- the equipment sounds, mostly, like things already owned by the serious amateur photographer, so it would seem reasonable to figure only (trivial) depreciation for wear. Transportation costs could be $15 or more per assignment, which puts it in a less rosy part of the spectrum.

The job seems to be targeted to reasonably-advanced amateurs who want to pick up some pocket change by occasional freelancing, and who probably won't bother with the "self-employed" paperwork or reporting this income to the IRS.

As a regular/real Job, however, or even a serious secondary one, it's certainly beneath consideration by a middle-class white male who doesn't have a family to support or a mortgage to pay off.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Well, not exactly.

The camera, sure. A tripod, yes. With a degree-marked head... maybe. Call it 60-40.

Bracket for flash, not so likely.

The 10-14mm non-fisheye lens... not so much. That's the serious investment in the kit the require.

A decent dSLR can be had for 400 bucks.

The cheapest of those lenses (worth using) is about $1,200.

Given the quirks of most photographers, early in their career, the lenses they want tend to the longer ones, so the really wide angle lenses talked about for the panorama's they want, less likely to be in the serious amateurs bag.

Add that to the M-F 9-4 working times, it's going to be grabbed by people taking photography classes at colleges, and borrowing the lens.

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of intrigued by the FBI wanting a crime scene photog with a TS/SCI... Srsly, what sort of crime scenes are we talking here? Ones that take place in some super-sekrit gov't facility in NOLA? Weird, weird, weird. Still, if you don't mind moving around I bet it's interesting work, and a TS/SCI isn't that hard to get as long as you've been good.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

My guess... part of the FBI's brief is domestic counter-intel, and counter-terrorism. Massaoui's house, for example, was photographed, dollars to donuts that was a classified crime scene.

I'll bet it's like any other job of that sort, mostly dull. The interesting stuff... well with whom can you talk about it?

TK

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

I suspect that the FBI Crime Scene Photog community is a lot like the Tomahawk shooters community (where we also carry TS). Small (REALLY small, if someone has been part of a Tomahawk strike team, odds are good that they are never more than one degree removed from any other random strike team member), tightly knit, and get us together in a secure space and we do nothing BUT tell stories about The Weirdest Tomahawk Moment.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I have a weird Tomahawk story, which relates to clearances (and we'll ignore the need to know aspects of shooters swapping stories, I can make the same arguments that Tomahawk shooters make... sharing the details will make it easier for the other guy to avoid mistakes).

I was a machinist. I got handed a blueprint, for a real SOB of a part on the Tomahawk.

The classification box was very poorly written. I must have spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out if we were breaking the law by having the blueprint.

TK

[slave2tehtink.livejournal.com]

I had an FC1 (E-6, Fire Controlman type, one each) who would keep TS classified documents under his pillow on his rack. We finally broke him of it, and then found out our idiot Division Officer (divisions being a small unit in the Navy, he was an E-1) had been doing the same damn thing.