Once in a while, friends of mine ask me to photograph their family / dogs / childen/ etc.

The conversation is not always an easy one. In the early days when I was just starting out with photography, and I was asked mostly just due to the fact that I had a DSLR, it was easy to agree to and I’d just do it for free. These days, photography is much more than just a hobby to me and I’m cautious about taking on new projects for other people. With only a finite supply of energy and motivation, I’m careful to spend it wisely, so to speak.

One idea that has been offered – charging friends professional rates – hasn’t been the solution. While I think it’s fair (and people I know are comfortable with it), almost every paid-for shoot I do leaves me not feeling like picking up the camera for days due to the time / effort it consumes. My solution has been to come up with the following:

- I now agree to these shoots with friends but they are kept ultra short. They’re arranged during lunch, catch up’s or something similar. The expectation is set so that only 5 images are expected to be received, no more. Not dozens of processed images, not a CD of raw shots – but a handful of high quality images that they can expect to frame / keep.

- I do charge a nominal fee – equivalent to perhaps a moderately expensive lunch that might have normally been offered as the alternative form of payment :). The money is kept on the low side to reflect the very short time I spend shooting (< 20 minutes).

- All money collected goes to the dog charity I support here.

This idea was put to the test with friends of mine a couple of weekends ago who had been asking me for some time to photograph their beautiful baby boy. It was a big success for all of us. The results were that the parents got 11 photos they’re very happy with (it was a productive shoot – my expected 5 shots ended up being a round dozen), I found my enthusiasm / energy intact (to the contrary, I enjoyed myself fully) and a handful of lucky mutts ended up with a hundred bucks worth of doggie bones to chew on :).