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

[Keith]

 Hi Sorin,

 Good luck with your venture, but I don't think you're going to have much luck. A few reasons: 

 1. Everyone has a friend with a camera and, with modern equipment, just about everyone 
     can  point-and-shoot.  Nowadays, 'good enough' is often at a very low level. 

 2. Taking photos is kinda like teaching Tango - everyone thinks they can do it.

 3. Dancers are notoriously mean. Whenever we have a dance event in a bar or restaurant,
     there has to be a minimum charge. Otherwise people bring their own water, dance all night 
     and don't even buy a single drink.

 Having said that, I have a lot of respect for professionals in any field and the difference
 between professional photographers and enthusiastic amateurs is enormous. Not just in the
 quality of the photos, but in the way they conduct themselves. In a word, they're
 unobtrusive, whereas amateurs get in the way and annoy everybody. It's like they're saying -
 look at me and my big camera! I've read a few of the other replies to your post and I suspect
 most people have never worked with a professional photographer.

 Good luck to you - everybody loves a good photo of themselves - but most people just won't
 pay.

 Keith, HK




 On Sat Aug 11  2:03 , tango at bostonphotographs.com sent:

>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
>
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