This is my new cat, Cindy Sherman. The image is unrelated to the post, but I wanted to post a picture and didn't really have anything relevant. Deal with it.

As some of you might know, I have been assisting Greg Ceo for the last few months and every now and then he passes me a gig of my own if he’s unavailable or already booked. At the beginning of the month he put me in touch with a small publishing company that produces magazines and brochures for (among other things, I assume) chambers of commerce in different towns and cities.

The gig was not something I was totally stoked for, but it was paying $650 and honestly I need every dollar I can make at the moment. They needed me to travel to a small town about an hour away to shoot for the chamber of commerce there. They gave me a shot list of somewhere around thirty images in various locations in and around the town. I was given points of contact but no addresses– that’s something I was told I’d have to get on my own. The images included everything from portraits to architectural interiors and exteriors as well as lifestyle shots of people water skiing, shopping, and eating at restaurants. I was told up front they expected it might take 2-3 days, but I did some very rough planning and I didn’t see how I could get it all done in less than 3 days, probably 4.

So let’s look at this overall now. 30 images, 4 days of shooting, with two hours of travel each day. $650. About $160/day, or just over $20/image. Okay so this is admittedly way way way lower than I would have billed them had I been asked for an estimate. However, as I said earlier, I needed the money. Did I mention I wasn’t very stoked about the gig? Read the rest of this entry »