[Tango-L] Professional video & photography services at milongas/festivals

Sat Aug 11 12:57:11 EDT 2007

Hi Sorin,

When we were celebrating the 5th anniversary of our group
earlier this year, one thing I really enjoyed was
assembling for display photographs of our milongas taken
over the years.  People really enjoyed seeing how much they
and the community had changed.  So I appreciate the taking
of photographs for entertainment and archival purposes. 
>From this aspect, perhaps it is the organizer you should be
approaching about photographing their event.  Chances are,
though, in a large community there are people willing to do
it for fun.

However, I also know how difficult it is to get really good
candid shots.  When I edited a high school yearbook for 2
years, we’d typically only get 1 or 2 good publishable
action shots in an entire roll of film.   I took a look at
several events on your website, and I hope you don’t take
offense, but your work suffers from the same problem.  Some
of the work is interesting, but, as I said before and as
Jake pointed out, good candid action shots are hard to get.
 It also usually requires some cropping.  Jennifer Bratt
has some excellent photographs you might want to check out.

Nowadays, when I take photographs, it is usually with
friends or we’re dressed up special or it’s a moment I
really want to preserve.  That’s something I might be
willing to pay for a photograph, and if it shows really
good content (that’s what I like about Jennifer’s photos),
I’d be willing to pay up to $10.  But I’m a bit of an
archivist.

Hope this helps.

Trini de Pittsburgh

--- tango at bostonphotographs.com wrote:

> As some of you may know, I am a passionate photographer
> and in the last
> few months I covered a few festivals and milongas (you
> can see the results
> on my website under EVENTS). I have a 9-5 job, as a
> computer programmer
> but I'm getting to a point where I'd like to stop doing
> that. As such, I
> put some thought into becoming a full time photographer.
> Part of that
> research was to see if one can combine tango with
> photography and try to
> make some money (not necessarily make a living just by
> covering tango
> events).
> 
> So for a few of the festivals I covered, I offered prints
> for sale, at
> what I thought would be a reasonable cost ($3.75 per 4x6
> print).
> Alternatively, I also offered the full resolution files
> for a similar
> cost. While I was not expecting much, I was quite
> surprised to see that
> among the three festivals I covered (Alternative in
> Providence, Yale in
> spring and Boston in June), only ONE person purchased 3
> prints. That's it.
> I was wondering if anyone cared to comment on that. Is
> this what you
> would've guessed? I know I would certainly pay to have
> some good shots of
> myself. One reason I can think of is that people could
> see (and download)
> a decent size picture from the web for free and
> apparently that is good
> enough for most people.
> 
> To try to clarify what kind of future a professional
> "Tango photographer"
> and/or "Tango/videographer" might have, I have a few
> questions I would
> like to ask the community.
> 
> 1) If a screen resolution picture of you dancing is free
> to download,
> would you have any interest in a 4x6 paper print at
> $3.75? How about in
> having the full resolution file for $3.75
> 
> 2) If a screen resolution picture of you dancing is NOT
> available to
> download (but rather just a tiny thumbnail size one or a
> screen size image
> with watermarking covering most of the surface), would
> you have any
> interest in a 4x6 paper print at $3.75? How about in
> having the full
> resolution file for $3.75
> 
> 3) I was thinking about offering (at festivals and/or
> milongas) a service
> to record video of the patrons dancing (on demand). It
> would work like
> this, the interested party would come see me, pay a fee
> (per song), and
> we'd agree on timing. Then I would record them dance with
> their favorite
> partner (using a device that allows me to film from a
> height of 12-15feet,
> which would allow me to track them at all times). They
> would then get a
> DVD at the end of the evening with a high quality
> recoding. The price I
> have in mind right now would be $10 per DVD + $10 for
> each song recorded.
> So to have a full 3 song tanda recorded, the fee would be
> $40. If one more
> DVD (with the same content) is needed, for the other
> partner, it would be
> $10 extra. Is this something you would be interested in?
> Do you find the
> price: too high, low, about right? An example of a
> recording I made is
> here :
> 
> http://youtube.com/watch?v=tATLum7aDCc .
> 
> Obviously the quality the youtube video is abysmal
> compared with the
> original file which the customer would get.
> 
> I would appreciate any thoughts you might have on this
> issue.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Sorin
> my photography site: http://www.bostonphotographs.com
> my milonga review site: http://www.milongareview.com
> blog: http://sorinsblog.blogspot.com
> 

PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
  Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh’s most popular social dance!
  http://patangos.home.comcast.net/

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