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Author Topic: Assignments by 500px  (Read 7433 times)

Craig Magee

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Assignments by 500px
« on: August 14, 2017, 11:51:52 am »

So I had an email today apparently from someone at 'assignments by 500px', asking if I was Interested in working with them on an interiors assignment.

Has anyone else had similar email? Anyone done it?

They are basically looking for hotel photography on the cheap, $225 for 60 edited and ambient lit images.

Seems to be a bit of a trend of this sort of thing at the moment.
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graeme

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2017, 12:13:47 pm »

So I had an email today apparently from someone at 'assignments by 500px', asking if I was Interested in working with them on an interiors assignment.

Has anyone else had similar email? Anyone done it?

They are basically looking for hotel photography on the cheap, $225 for 60 edited and ambient lit images.

Seems to be a bit of a trend of this sort of thing at the moment.

I suppose the photography I do for a local stained glass firm is sort of 'on the cheap' but I wouldn't do the work you've been asked to provide for that level of payment - particularly if you're trained & equipped to a 'pro' level. ( I'm not ).
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MattBurt

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2017, 12:58:04 pm »

Interesting approach. I do some small real estate jobs for about that much but delivering usually about the half the images. I've got it down to do pretty quickly so it's a decent easy beer money source. The real estate is often not exactly "top shelf".
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-MattB

Joe Towner

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2017, 01:06:01 pm »

It's a new thing they're doing - https://support.500px.com/hc/en-us/articles/230043408-Introducing-500px-Assignments-

$225 for the 1st image might be ok, but for 60 of them, edited?  Hotels get reservations based on how their web images look.  I'm not even sure its worth shooting on an iPhone at that price.  Remember that 500px promotes having the best photographers and such.
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MattBurt

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2017, 01:25:37 pm »

Yeah, I overlooked it was a hotel. That should change the scale over the kind of stuff I do after work for the local realtor.
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Craig Magee

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #5 on: August 14, 2017, 03:14:46 pm »

Should have also mentioned they want 120 images to pick 60 from.
For me being in the UK, getting payed a flat dollar fee isn't attractive due to the fluctuations. Supply them images within 24hrs as they require, but you don't get payed for 30days, could be a reasonable fluctuation in what you're likely to get payed.

The other thing is that there wasn't any branding on the email, and the linked questionaire and pdf contract where just on Google docs.. looked a bit hinky.
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pearlstreet

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #6 on: August 15, 2017, 11:01:23 am »

That's a ridiculous fee. Insulting really. Even doing a quick snap of a room - 120 images will take a while.

I was contacted by a hotel booking service that wanted 60 images for 1000. I turned that down. Can't imagine using my equipment for less than $300
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antongorlin

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2017, 05:16:27 pm »

do you have interior pics in portfolio on 500px?
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Craig Magee

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #8 on: August 29, 2017, 05:58:01 pm »

No I don't Anton, they said they found me on Houzz
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bcooter

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #9 on: September 06, 2017, 09:23:33 am »


The other thing is that there wasn't any branding on the email, and the linked questionaire and pdf contract where just on Google docs.. looked a bit hinky.

I always get nervous if I receive an e-mail without branding and is g-mail and Google docs.  I am also careful when the information is scarce.    We usually get creative briefs that are many pages and a lot of discussion and when I get what amounts to a paragraph, something seems wrong.

Is the sky is falling, or just a cycle?

I think it’s a cycle, mostly dependent on the economy or the perceived budget for a project, especially e-commerce.

At first glance there has been vast changes in our industry.

In the last few years rental studios/stages have now become marketing firms/defacto ad agencies, that offer art direction, photographers, retouchers, etc. etc.
Now they’ve moved to e-commerce and the numbers are very low, until you read the fine print.

With this 500 company, they are reaching out to people that are “photographers", but just a quick glance at the work it seems close to a stock look.

I’ve seen large client’s try and do the same, but it rarely positions their brand well, with just filling up white space on their site, look books and marketing and there has always been people that charge less, but what you don’t do on the set you’re going to have to correct in post.

Most of the time when I receive these type of "bids" it works out that our studio is taking the risk and the return is never written in stone.

In the last few years, some of these e-commerce studios have a system where they shoot the garments on a green screen and/or clear mannequin then pick the model in the computer and boom he/she is wearing the clothes.

There is a savings on the front end with crew, talent fees, though the final image shows the product well, but the humanity is somewhat washed away and of course there is no spontaneity.  If your an accountant I guess it looks like a good deal, but to really gain attention you shoot for aspiration, not just fill up the space and a company or brands website is the way to introduce yourself.

The only advise I have for anyone in our industry is hold to your best professional standards, make a profit, probably get faster and keep going forward, adapt but once again, turn a profit for you and especially your client.

IMO

BC
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David Eichler

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2017, 02:05:31 pm »

"Assignments by 500px gives photographers like you a chance to turn their hobby into a paying job."  Pretty much says it all, no?
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pearlstreet

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2017, 04:17:25 pm »

No I don't Anton, they said they found me on Houzz

I have had some sales from Houzz that paid well. But they contacted me through Houzz.
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GrahamBy

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #12 on: September 13, 2017, 07:28:35 am »

500px is a sucker trap. Useful place to display some photos for sharing if you take the free account, the rest is all BS.
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elundqvist_photo

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2017, 04:23:46 am »

They contacted me last year for an assignment as well, which I had to turn down as it was pretty unrealistic. Similar amount of money, but they wanted neighborhood photos of 5 different locations with 30 photos from each location, and I had a whole day to complete it on. It was important I captured the soul of the area I was photographing. They wanted shops, people and other items of interest.
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BrownBear

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Re: Assignments by 500px
« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2017, 03:59:56 pm »

That's a ridiculous fee. Insulting really. Even doing a quick snap of a room - 120 images will take a while.

Agreed.

For frame of reference, we recently came out of retirement for a shoot requested by a former client of long standing.  It was all tabletop photography with two of their staff dedicated to handling the objects, so basically all we had to do was stand behind the camera and make adjustments to the gear and lights.  Their offer was $20/pic for 240 shots, sorted and edited to specification.  We turned them down.

A month later they came back to us, having given the assignment to a relative beginner who thought the fee was "a lot." Some of the shots were okay and some were schlock. The shooter couldn't bring the schlock up to spec and got so bogged down in editing that they ultimately backed out.

We accepted the contract the second time around at $60 per image. Took 4 days of shooting and 2 days of basic editing, about what we figured- or $14,400 for 6 days, translating into our old fee of $300/hr. That's real world pro shooting at real world fees.
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