Photography agencies that operate, particularly in real estate, are designed on the urban model of loads of jobs each day that enable a fast turn around. The agency makes a fortune, the photographer makes a living and the estate agents get some pretty average photographs.
It works for some.
Working in this same industry in the Highlands and Islands is a different story. The rates that the agency pay per property are the same (woeful), the travel fees are low too… and since you work as a freelance they get to ignore minimum wage legislation too. I have had more than the odd day that once my costs are taken off (diesel etc)! If I average out my earnings pre-costs for a month of work (which is pretty close to full time) I am earning £10/hr… unfortunately I spend half of that on diesel just to fulfil the workload so I am making £5/hr net.
And yet me clients are expecting high quality, professional photography for that money. They aren’t going to get it though because it isn’t worth my time to actually do a proper job. It is a run and gun at best… although sometimes the house is so lovely, or the owner is so pleasant that I decide that, yes, I will do a proper job and submit some absolute belters… and this is where the next problem arises. The photos that I produce are sent off to another outside agency for “enhancement”. If my information is correct (I was contacted by one of these agencies who said they worked for my main employer) they use a large Indian processing house whose work is… questionable… they attempt to create an HDR image from a single jpg and then slap a fake sky on. The results can range from okay to terrible!
For this service the estate agents are being charged (reportable) around the same rate as I would charge direct, perhaps slightly more, yet if you are paying a photographer that money then you are going to be getting more thoughtful photography, bespoke processing to suit the house and HDR images that are created from 3 RAW files at different exposures to actually produce a true HDR image. Going direct is going to provide considerably better value!
So why do people use agencies?
Anyway, my plan is that over my second year in the industry I want to try and distance myself from the agency work and start getting more direct or sub-contracted work instead. It would be nice to be earning at least minimum wage by next summer!!!!
