Professional pinhole photography partnership.

Hi,

I am again jobless, or almost jobless because I got a temporary part time job so I still have to keep looking a way to earn money and pay my bills.

So I was thinking about the possibility of working with pinhole photography, making large format portraits and covering events like weddings (in day light).

I consider myself good with pinhole photography, and I feel I can develop myself much more. So I am very confident about taking portraits and covering events. But I am not confident about business, network and service sales. I just don't have skills for such things and I find it very hard to develop them. And I have tried a lot.

So I see a partnership can be a solution.

So I wonder if there is somebody here who would consider think and maybe experiment a partnership, working together offering services with pinhole photography, and see if it works out.

To me it would be great at least to try, and I am willing to take my very small saving and move anywhere I can for it, if necessary.

I applaud your creative thinking, and truly understand where you're coming from, having lost my means of work many years ago due to changes in technology, but in my 63 years of living I have known only a handful of people who were able to make any money from photography or any form of art. I have known people that made sales, and I'm one of them, but when you figure in your costs and time, I could have made more profit by working in McDonald's. For most people it's a labor of love that decreases our income rather than increases it. Besides, when something that is fun and creative becomes a business venture, everything about it changes, and not for the better. The days where someone (someone with immense talent) like Edward Weston could set up a portrait business by hanging a sign on a small building and make a living from it are long gone. They may come back at some indeterminate point in the future, but they're not here now.

However, I've been wrong before, so maybe you can make some money doing what you propose. I don't wish to discourage anyone from following their heart's path. Just throwing out a few words of caution.

Couple of ideas that you can maybe use:

Freiburg is famous for tourism and university. If you want to make photography as profession try also do to the photo tours for tourists and some photo courses for local students. For sure there are many hipsters and other students that would like to learn how to use film. Make some huge prints and impress them in the front entry on the university and give them flayers with the courses info. Contact all local photo labs, stores ... and ask them for cooperation. I know a guy who sells photos on the street to tourists in Dubrovnik (Croatia) and makes good money for 3-4 months. Also consider polaroid or "Afghan camera" for tourists. Try all possibilities.

Thanks for comment.

I searched about selling prints in the streets but here they don't give permission for it. Only food, toys and clothes. Nothing else.

And if I know Germany well, I would need a certificate about history or turism I supose, to get permission to offer tours to turists. And I am sure they don't give permission to offer tours in the streets. The same way they don't give permission to offer portrait services for tourists in the streets (yes, I have tried).

The only thing they give permition is for selling handmade clothes, toys and food, and only in very feel places and very feel dates. And the line to get the permission is long. And they give permission only for 3 or 6 months. Even selling tshirts with my photos of touristic places in town they don't give permission.

The only best way to earn money in the streets if you don't sell food, toys and handmade clothes, is asking for money when you are homeless or play music hoping people will through some coins or buy your CD. Nothing else.

And to offer courses I would need open a business before even trying promote it to see if there is market for it. As I had to open a business even before have actually sold any print, just to be allowed to put price tags in my website.

I could try but it would have to be somewhere less burocratic (like in Croatia) and where I can experiment to see if works, registering my business and dealing with papers when I start actually have business, earning income, and not before.

France is not far from here but the towns nearby are very small. But maybe I could try there. But I habe heard that they are very burocratic too. I once tried to live in France but rent a room there is a nightmere, as well as open a bank account.

This is also the reason I prefer have a partnership with somebody who is better about marketing, business, red tapes, because I can't deal with all that on my own.

momus said:

I applaud your creative thinking, and truly understand where you're coming from, having lost my means of work many years ago due to changes in technology, but in my 63 years of living I have known only a handful of people who were able to make any money from photography or any form of art. I have known people that made sales, and I'm one of them, but when you figure in your costs and time, I could have made more profit by working in McDonald's. For most people it's a labor of love that decreases our income rather than increases it. Besides, when something that is fun and creative becomes a business venture, everything about it changes, and not for the better. The days where someone (someone with immense talent) like Edward Weston could set up a portrait business by hanging a sign on a small building and make a living from it are long gone. They may come back at some indeterminate point in the future, but they're not here now.

However, I've been wrong before, so maybe you can make some money doing what you propose. I don't wish to discourage anyone from following their heart's path. Just throwing out a few words of caution.

Click to expand...

I fully agree.All so-called photography 'businesses' I've watched,excluding my own, have turned into non-profit organizations eventually without having that goal in their mission statement.There is just to little customr demand for it these days. You are better off making money from other photographers;pretty much like the gold rush, where the only ones maling money were the ones catering to the fortune seekers.

Márcio,

there are possibilites for you, probably.

Because I am too lazy to write so many pages, give me a call. You should have a PN now.

No, I am not looking for a partnership, I have been always a lonely wolf.


Have a nice Sunday


horst