So, a number of people have been asking about commercial photography jobs lately. I usually don’t pitch shooting catalog or band stuff to people I meet in day-to-day life. I think this is mostly because I prefer to just hang out and be sociable on a random evening and partly because I am pretty overworked as is. I’ve been getting a lot of sort of odd back door requests for commercial photography lately, so I thought I would just post rates here in case anyone is interested in hiring me and
Our day rate for jobs such as clothing catalogs is $X,XXX.XX [CENSORED BY FORREST WHO DOESN’T WANT ANY MORE GODDAMN WORK RIGHT NOW]
Our discount half day rate for band promo is $X,XXX.XX with the exception of album/CD art or merch which starts at $X,XXX.XX
We generally throw in some extras such as casting and sometimes some bonus press for free, but certain expenses such as extra equipment or location rentals or models can cost extra.
We are very interested in shooting interesting and original clothing lines for product placement and for press coverage on our sites and in print. If you have good photos of your line already, please submit to submit@blueblood.net and we may interview you for coverage on BlueBlood.net which is the most visited lifestyle site doing significant forward fashion coverage on the net. You may send clothing to:
Blue Blood
8033 Sunset Blvd #4500
West Hollywood, CA 90046
If your line is mostly rude T-shirts or something along those lines, clothes are not returnable. If you do couture evening wear or expensive corsets or high end latex, then we can make arrangements to return your clothing after shooting. Please email before shipping.
If you are in a cool band, you can go ahead and have your label send a package to the same address listed above. We might give your band some press coverage on BlueBlood.net or in one of the magazines we contribute to and we might not, but that is pretty much how press works. Let us know when you are playing shows in Los Angeles and if you have some cool promo photos available we could use to cover your music. If Forrest and/or I like your look, we might photograph you ourselves.
If we give your band or fashions coverage which includes our original photography, please do not thank us for doing you the favor of good press coverage by coming back to us with requests for a million more favors. If we do press on you and exposed what you do to thousands of people in a magazine or millions of people online, if anybody owes anybody a favor, you owe us a favor, not vice-versa.
If you want to talk about trading free shows or custom clothes or something along those lines, we are often up for punk rock barter.
For the record, I generally avoid commercial photography jobs, even though I’d make more money doing them, because I don’t really enjoy them as an artist and I don’t really have the time. For those of you reading the numbers and deciding to hit me up for rent next time you need it, I’ve paid enough people’s rent this year. I’m not motivated by money, so I mostly do work which feels artistically good and which I think is good for my community. If I put a gallery of burlesque photos Forrest and I shot for free up on BlueBlood.net and 120 million people look at them this year, that is a lot of expensive bandwidth, but I feel things like that are good for my community because they give exposure to a lot of people. That is journalistic.
If the object is just so one person or business can get paid off of my sweat, then that is commercial work and I need to be compensated so that I can continue doing the journalistic and artistic work without charging anyone.