$10 Photoshoots? Ourspot: A Place to Hire Amateur Photographers

$10 Photoshoots? Ourspot: A Place to Hire Amateur Photographers

With the current state of the photography business flooded by part-time professionals, Ourspot (or something like it) was ultimately inevitable. The website, which launches in San Francisco today (New York and Los Angels coming soon), is an online marketplace where anyone can hire an amateur photographer for as little as free to as much as a few hundred bucks.

Photographers are able to upload a “portfolio” for potential “clients” to browse. Those “clients” can pay whatever they like. The site suggests $10 for “fun” shoots, $25 for a “standard” shoot and $100 or more for something “custom.” Ourspot takes a 8%. The site’s founder, Sam Yam (yes, his real name), has said he is not trying to “cannibalize the market” for higher-end jobs like weddings. Good luck with that, Sam Yam. My personal favorite detail the tagline on their front page, “Be a Photographer.” It’s now apparently that easy.

What do you think?

Screen Shot 2013 03 06 at 8.55.57 PM 710x285 $10 Photoshoots? Ourspot: A Place to Hire Amateur Photographers

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DeathNTexas
Actually that is a pretty good analogy. They go for the cheapest option simply because it is cheapest. Money is their only concern, which is fair enough. But they don’t actually care about the outcome.
For lack of a better term, some people have no taste. And the truth is, I don’t want those people as my client.
FerpectShotz
I agree with you that this is most certainly not gonna affect the pro market. my wife hired a pro wedding photog in NJ for our wedding last Sept for about $3000 and we didn’t even get 10 halfway decent pictures from him. She really regretted hiring him (A distant family friend) rather than one of my pro wedding photographer friends. I am pretty sure that in any next event shes gonna be damn sure that she hires the right photographer even if she has to spend a little extra.
DeathNTexas
Yeah, there was a time when the separation between an amateur and pro was pretty simple: Equipment, Education, Resources (darkroom, studio, etc.).
Now, the equipment is cheaper and better, you can be self taught through books and the internet, and $1500 will get you a darkroom in a box (that will do more than you could ever do before). So the industry is in upheaval trying to find new, less tangible ways to differentiate amateur and pro.
phcphcphcphc
Fiverr for photographers. Great!
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000168027874 Genesis Imaging
I thought FStoppers was pretty cool until I read this. What are you smoking? This is absolutely absurd. This idea will only benefit people who don’t recognize a great photo when they see one and those “so-called photographers” that neither recognize one let alone know how to produce one. The people who call themselves pro photographers and pawn themselves off on unwitting “clients,” make me want to puke. For those trying to learn, practice on the dog, your sister or anyone else you can find but don’t call yourself a pro and charge people to shoot them.
KevMillz
Pretty frustrating. What do you propose we can do to stop these “so-called photographers”?
We’ve all heard the complaints about them, nothing new about your post, but what are the solutions? Criticizing them on sites like FStoppers does not seem to be working, but only serving to make one look like a bitter old-school photographer unwilling to change with the times.
http://www.facebook.com/EvilDaystar Eric Lefebvre
Kev, let’s ignore the whole not making a profit thing … the moment these people charge for their service they enter into the wonderful world of client / vendor relations and all the LEGAL issues that surround that type of relationship … things like liability, contractual obligations, acceptable standards of service … it won’t matter to a judge that a couple paid 10$ for a shoot if the couple was physically injured during the shoot. The photographer accepted money in exchange for services rendered? He’s a vendor and as such liable but at these rates he won;t have professional liability, he won;t have backup gear, he won;’t have gear insurance, he won’t have properly vetted contracts and releases …
Imagine being one of these photographers, accepting a shoot at 20$ and then having to pay someones medical expenses out of pocket due to a lack of PROFESSIONAL liability insurance.
This is a REALLY bad idea.
http://www.facebook.com/EvilDaystar Eric Lefebvre
I’m not worried for myself. I’m wondering how this can work (it can;t) and I’m worried about the risk this is placing these amateurs in. They have no understanding of the legalities of client / vendor relationships. At the rates they are charging, they won;t be able to afford backup gear, professional liability, legal fees …
This is a REALLY bad idea.
http://twitter.com/stueyholden Stuart Holden
I think Lee Morris said it best when he commented on lowering your prices hurting you in the long run and sticking with what you feel you deserve. If your service is amazing and people love you they will come back and recommend you to other people. 80 percent of our wedding business is via word of mouth and by the end of the wedding I make sure that they can see that Ive earned every cent :) surprise and delight people!
http://www.facebook.com/david.crockett.71 David Crockett
Whatever, no serious professional would be caught dead advertising on a site like this. And no one serious about hiring a true professional would hire someone on a site like this. This is nothing more than a fancy Craig’s List for wanna be photographers.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brooke-Mathews/1353031221 Brooke Mathews
.
https://openid.stackexchange.com/user/d71603e0-431e-4557-87da-84cf46481d09 DragonLord
I’m no professional. But while I see Ourspot as a great idea, a base price of $10 is clearly too low. If prices start from around $30 for simple, fun shoots and run up to $150-200 for higher-quality shoots, rather than $10 and $100 respectively, I’d be less concerned about undercutting the high-end professional market. Professional photography is a lot of work, and many don’t recognize the amount of time and effort that needs to spent in post. I don’t do a lot of post-processing, but when it is necessary, I can tell you that it can be and is very time-consuming.
But for those with lower expectations and don’t need true professional quality, Ourspot fills a significant gap at the low end of the professional photography market and is precisely what’s needed, both for clients who need decent images without having to pay top dollar, and for aspiring amateurs who are looking to move into professional photography. Ourspot removes a major barrier to entry for amateurs who want to move up and ultimately “go pro”.
It’s a great idea, but the expectations can be higher.
http://www.facebook.com/kahrlos.lopehz Kahrlos Lopehz
Pesima idea. Aportando para seguir dañando el mercado. Entre a esa pagina y vi muy buenas fotos.
http://profile.yahoo.com/OJOJWRQYTJYJNO2YD5UORVBEUY Honorableschoolboy
$10 for a photographer. I thought Getty Images had already done this.
http://www.facebook.com/MikeZimmermanMZPHOTO Mike Zimmerman
After 30 years in the commercial photography business, all I can say is that there’s always been bottom feeders on both sides of the fence. Hopefully this will keep a lot of them in their own little pond…
http://www.facebook.com/MikeZimmermanMZPHOTO Mike Zimmerman
After close to 30 years as a commercial photographer, there’s always been bottom feeders on both sides of the fence. Hopefully, this will keep a lot of them in their own little pond…
geeeque
Actually I’m kind of glad for a place like this to syphon off the bottom feeders. Maybe enough will get burned that they finally see the value of professional photography and pony up the dough it costs to produce consistent, serious work. What is it about photography that makes people think they can purchase commercially viable work for pennies? I’m a damn good cook, doesn’t mean I could run a restaurant.
http://twitter.com/cechavarrias Carlos Echavarría S.
I am A Professional Photographer, I mean I went to college and firs studied Advertising, then I went to Art school in London and studied Photography, Film, and Video, then I assisted Pro photographers for 5 years in London and ONLY then I bought my equipment and started my own practice.
That was 18 years ago. Today I have to charge the same for a day´s work as I charged then…
Since clients and agencies start to judge our Professional work using Excel instead of Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture, our Professional work is as good as the images of hundreds of self-called “Photo Enthusiasts” or “Casual Photographers” or “Semi-pro Photographers” that write in the B&H comments. (See http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=NavBar&A=getItemDetail&Q=&sku=827036&is=REG&si=rev#costumerReview)I´ve lost many clients to ex-employees of the same companies that decided to buy ”Semi-pro Photographers” equipment and “Set Up a studio” because ”they liked very much Photography too.”I like neuro-surgery very much and I’m setting up a Professional Operating Room, I just have to hire three or four surgical assistants and nurses and watch some videos and charge a third of the current price of a Professional surgeon…………….I wonder if our clients would pay half the price for a surgery or a car repair or an extension of their houses……or a hooker.We will be all working for Corbis, Shutterstock, et al, or just become Photo Enthusiasts too and do the garden….I decided not to buy a camera with more than 22 MP because my clients are saying “the files are too big….” Size matters! Price too!Where is quality?( By the way, English is my second language, just in case…)
http://twitter.com/cechavarrias Carlos Echavarría S.
Maybe a GoPro Camera will make me “go pro” again…..
WintonPro
At these prices it is doubtful that any of these amateur/hobbyist photographers have liability insurance. When someone trips over their equipment or they rub up against that priceless Renoir…good luck. They’ll be paying for it the rest of their lives.
migatomio
oh so you don’t HAVE to charge as low as $10. These are all suggested amounts. Whew. I’m seeing at least some really talented photographers on here..including my own wedding/engagement photographer who routinely charges $3000 a wedding..
http://twitter.com/GeorgeGutenberg George Gutenberg
And the race to the bottom continues
http://twitter.com/GeorgeGutenberg George Gutenberg
Kevin, I’m one of those “old-school photographer” who opened my first studio in 1977. I’m not bitter at all, but deeply concerned about what is happening to the business. I certainly don’t see this as “being unwilling to change with the times”. To me, it’s about the fact that this further devalues the work of photographers in general.
We currently live in a society where much is now “good enough”, fewer and fewer people value excellence as their expectation levels are constantly lowered.
All a site like Sam Yam’s is doing, is contributing to establishing that the new normal is that photography should now cost $10-50.
Sure Sam is “just an entrepreneur”, but he is also directly contributing by continuing the downward spiral that our industry has experienced over the past 10 years. Make no mistake about it, Sam is trying to make money off the back of working photographers. He couldn’t care less about what it does to working photographers, it’s all about how quickly he can build traffic an revenue for his site and then sell it, and move onto another industry to cannibalize. It may not affect you today, but it will by lowering the standard once again.
Unwilling to change with the times? No. This is much like all the jobs that got outsourced in the 80′s and 90′s because people found that they could buy a Korean car for half the price of an American made one.
So the race to the bottom continues!

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