THE CHEAP PHOTOGRAPHY GIG SERVICES AND THE PROBLEMS TO LOOK OUT FOR

Life has been challenging for most of us during the last few years. Maybe it’s me, but there seems to be an increase in the number of gig services advertising for part-time employees to provide skilled work, but offering pay that is incredibly low, just enough for people to keep their heads above water…but only just. These companies list some of the largest companies as clients and then employ those that are financially challenged to do their work, requiring a lot of work in return.

As photographers, we all have many competitors. Most are other photographers, but that’s okay as in that regard there really is no such thing as true competition, as other photographers can also be our best collaborators. But the cheap gig services appear to be moving into the photography industry as well, and so they are the competitors that concern me. No, that’s incorrect, they don’t concern me as we provide far superior service. No, they frustrate me. We have no issues about competing in terms of quality or delivery, but in terms of quantity and price, that is an ongoing frustration. Let’s look at a typical bulk food photography service vs that of a professional photographer.

A reasonable expectation for a professional food photographer is to dedicate a 10-hour day to a client, delivering 10-15 quality images that have been very carefully created by working closely with the chef, offering food styling where necessary, crafting the scene lighting, tirelessly composing and recomposing the scene until it’s acceptable to everyone as well as leading their crew and capturing the desired frames. This may seem a lot but to be honest, I’ve actually simplified my description of a typical food shoot day!

So, let’s do some easy math, and here I’m picking a fee out of the air that could be considered as being low for the industry, so please do not think you are going to hire the best photographers for this fee, I’m just using it as I have to use something to make a point. And I’m going to use round numbers so that I don’t need to use a calculator. I like to be efficient, or is that lazy? For the sake of argument let’s assume a specialist restaurant photographer charges $1000 for that 10-hour day. Your 15 images just cost a little over $66 each and each took 40 minutes, on average, to create. And remember they still have to be edited after the photoshoot, which generally takes significantly longer than 40 minutes.

Now the gig service provider comes along offering a deal that is far cheaper, offering the restauranteur 20 images, for which they will pay the photographer $3.75 each, or $75 for the entire shoot. We all have our ideas of what a reasonable income is. I’m going to throw out $300 a day as a reasonable minimal expectation. To make that our over-worked and underpaid photographer needs to conduct 4 photoshoots a day, delivering 20 images from each. That’s a staggering 80 images every single day compared to a professional photographer’s 15. That’s even if the photographer is offered four shoots a day. Four shoots a month is probably nearer the mark, which does not represent much of an income.

But anyway, back to our math. Let’s assume that our overworked photographer also works a 10-hour day, and let’s say he or she must drive 30 minutes between clients. That leaves a working day of 8 1/2 hours, just over 2 hours with each client, and 6 minutes to create each image on average. So, at the end of all our math, the gig service offers restauranteurs images that take 6 minutes to capture versus a specialist photographer offering an image that takes 40 minutes to create.

If we take a simplistic view of this, it would be only too easy to assume the gig service is offering a better deal. But something has to be sacrificed to achieve this. Any guesses what it could be? Ten out of ten if the word “quality” popped into your mind. And if it did, you’re correct. I’m not knocking the photographer here as they can only do what they are able to, given the support and pay they receive. But with the expectation they work under there is little to no time left for food styling and composition. At $75 per photoshoot, there will be no money for even an assistant. And certainly, no time left for crafting nice food pleasing lighting either.

So now restauranteurs have a decision to make, 15 quality images for $1000 or 20 images for a far lower amount, receiving images that may not be lit correctly, with food that the photographer has not contributed to the styling of and perhaps only having the most basic composition. It’s a typical quality versus quantity tradeoff.

And how do the images get edited? I haven’t found any provider yet that manually edits images, they tend to favor an automated process, which is understandable given the sheer volume of photographs that are generated every day. A key component of a restaurant photographer’s job is to capture the restaurant’s branding message. That is mainly captured in the shooting process, but editing can come into play as well and can also contribute to that. But with a hastily taken image and an automated editing process, all that is left can only be an average photograph of a meal, nothing more. So much for branding, so much for quality, and the saddest part of all, is that those photographers capturing 20 images per client may well be talented people who are capable of so much more. As is typical with these gig services that are popping up all over the place, their only interest is a fast buck. And do restauranteurs think this is a good deal? To me it’s just the start of a slippery slope to business failure, as those cheap gig services care as little about the restaurants as they do for the photographers they take advantage of. On the other hand, a good professional photographer will help your business grow by promoting your brand, and so I call that a great deal!

True Images Photography provides professional beverage and food commercial photography that gets your business noticed. Feel free to book a free 30-minute consultation here.

Do look around the rest of the blog here for more helpful posts, and if you have any questions please reach out. I’m happy to advise. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn where I always answer messages with a detailed reply.