Should I Work For Free?

The Art of Photography

Ted Forbes

Diy, Art, Arts, Visual Arts, Image, Technology, Photography, Tv & Film, Culture, Tutorials, Gadgets, Photographers

4.5 • 942 Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2015

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Photography can be a funny business and there are times as photographers when we are asked to work for free. Sometimes this is formally called "pro bono" work, but its all the same. I got a question this week from a viewer who asks if its good to do for "exposure". I can tell you that in my 20 year career I've run across this offer of work for "exposure" more times than I'd have liked to. I've got some fairly strong opinions on this as well. You will have to make up your own mind as to what you want to do with your career but hopefully this video will give you a few pointers that might help. Subscribe for more videos! http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=theartofphotography Twitter: http://twitter.com/tedforbes Instagram: http://instagram.com/tedforbes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aop.podcast Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/tedforbes Website: http://theartofphotography.tv Watch More Episodes: Build a photography portfolio website in 5 min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Fp44Pp5Yb4 Photography Portfolios: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=difQ-HsiH94 Portfolio Ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9NZ9GAEG3g And get on our mailing list to stay up to date on photography news and the latest episodes: http://theartofphotography.tv/about/mailing-list/ Thanks for watching - if you like this video, remember to share it with your friends! Ted Forbes The Art of Photography 3100 Main St #135 Dallas, Texas 75226 My name is Ted Forbes and I make videos about photography. I’ve been making photographs most of my life and I have a tremendously deep passion for photography that I want to share with you on YouTube. The Art of Photography is my channel and I produce photography videos to provide a 360 degree look into the world of making images. We all want to get better so lets do this together! I make videos covering famous photographers, photography techniques, composition, the history of photography and much more. I also have a strong community of photographers who watch the show and we frequently do social media challenges for photographers to submit their own work. I feature the best and most interesting on the show when we do these so come check it out and get involved! So come check it out! If you’re a fan of DigitalRev, Fro Knows Photo (Jared Polin), Matt Grainger (That Nikon Guy) or Tony Northrup - you’ll love The Art of Photography. I make video’s giving you a deeper dive into photography techniques, composition and history to compliment the other channels you love to watch. New shows come out every Sunday, Tuesday and Friday.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody Ted Forbes here welcome back to the art of photography I want to do a real quick video today to answer a question that I got in an email yesterday
0:06.6	And this email was sent to me by a gentleman named Glenn and I asked Glenn if I could use this in the show he said yes I could because I think this is a really good
0:13.7	question that really should be addressed and it deals with should you work for free.
0:18.1	Glenn had asked me, he said he had an opportunity that had come up and it was with a high profile client that was asking him to do a
0:25.9	project pro bono and he was because he's starting out wanted to know if this was
0:31.0	something he should do to maybe get his foot in the door.
0:34.8	And this is a tough question.
0:37.0	And I know that everybody's career path is different.
0:40.2	There is no formula, there's no way you can do it. And personally working for free is a very
0:46.0	controversial topic. Personally, I hate the idea and I don't work for free. And I want to talk about this a little bit on this video.
0:55.0	I make a couple suggestions.
0:57.0	First of all, working for free.
0:59.0	If it's a high profile client that wants you to do free work, I would question the quality of the
1:07.5	project that you're about to do. So for instance what I'm saying is if they're
1:10.9	high profile and they know what professional work looks like, my concern
1:15.0	is that they don't take this particular project very seriously in their high profileness
1:20.1	and want to use you as a means to maybe get this work done and pass it off to
1:25.1	somebody they're doing a favor for because you're just starting out and you'll
1:28.4	probably do it for the exposure. Even as these words come out of my mouth
1:31.6	it's a little bit annoying because you would never
1:34.4	ask your accountant to do your taxes for free.
1:37.8	You would never have somebody come fix the sink and say, hey, I can get you some exposure. If if you fix my friend's sink too and you
	...

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