FaceTime Portraits

More Virtual Portraits photographed with FaceTime

Since my last post about my Virtual FaceTime Portraits a lot has happened on that front. At this point I have photographed 80 plus people with FaceTime photoshoots and I am still shooting almost every day. The Washington Post has assigned me with a story for which I had to photograph 17 people across the United States and I photographed a musical Quintet in the Netherlands.

FaceTime portrait

What I keep telling people is that as a portrait photographer I normally move intuitively around the subject. I adjust the cameras angle and position relative to the subject subconsciously, small movements can make a big difference. All of that I now have to do with words. When photographing the violin players for the Quintet in the Netherlands I was telling them that it is sort of like them telling someone how to place the fingers on the strings of the violin to play. I would argue that my results are a little bit better than what that situation would produce but you get the idea.

FaceTime Portrait

Another interesting development I have watched for the past weeks is that FaceTime photoshoots are happening all over the place now. To the point where companies like Nike are trying it out. Some photographers are projecting the FaceTime call onto surfaces of all sorts and then photograph the projection, some shoot it in color, some focus on professional models, it’s all over the place.
This brings me back to what I said in an interview with aphotoeditor.com about my project. While the technical quality of these shoots is mostly pretty rough, I believe this technique will be used in the future even past the Covid lockdown. Cameras on phones will get better, 5G will improve call quality and clients will think twice about flying someone around the world when they can just send a high end Iphone to the subject and do the shoot remotely. It will be niche, I am sure but I am also sure that it will be done. Technology just has to catch up a little bit more. Nobody had a PDA in the early 2000’s, then mobile internet allowed the Iphone to do what it did.

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

One think FaceTime does not seem to like at this point is movement. Subjects have to be rather still for the quality to catch up and not look glitchy. But with a great connection and a newer model device I have been able to get FaceTime Portraits that look amazing on a screen. They go through some post processing, sharpening and grain mostly, and then are completely usable for screen applications. I also printed some portraits and made collages and grids which I then photographed with my DSLR and got a high res file of.

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime photoshoots force the photographer to dive deep into the creativity bucket and that’s why they are great! There is almost no control over technical aspects of the camera, no exposure, focus, or any other trickery. The photographer isn’t even holding the camera. I had people stick their device in the washing machine and shoot out of it, hide behind colored plexiglass and involve their spouses to act as moving tripods. It becomes a creative exercise for both, the photographer and the subject and especially during times of Covid lockdown offer a fun escape from being stuck at home.

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

FaceTime Portrait

Social Media Photography

Shooting for social media and what to charge for it

It’s been thrown in to the usage for a while but I was thinking about it more recently and then started looking into what people charge for social media photo use at this point. Are people charging based on reach, engagement, time? The numbers are so easy to access for social media I was wondering if a post that will receive an average of 500K views will be priced similarly as an ad in a print magazine with a circulation of 500K or half that, or a quarter? Which is it?

I dug in a little and found this article on aphotoeditor.com. It’s from 2014!!! In social media terms thats ancient! Instagram had 300 million users then (It now has over 1 billion)! I was surprised, though. The rate was much higher than I would have thought. Also, take note of the graph: YouTube is huge!!! And it still is! Don’t forget about YouTube!

There was also THIS article, from 2014 as well, but still worth the read. The main thing I got out of it is that rates were rather all over the place at that point which makes sense. But what about now?

I found THIS article on PDN (from 2018). It has a lot of info in it and I suggest you check it out. One thing that I hadn’t considered as much, but this article talks about it, is this idea: Once a photographer posts an image endorsing a brand, competitive brands may not be interested to work with this photographer for an unknown time. Thus taking the photographer out of that marketplace which requires a higher rate to make it worth it!

“Keating warns, “Understand that when you’re attaching your name to a brand that there’s a reasonable expectation that a competitor will no longer be interested in hiring you. It’s probably not forever but it’s a period of time, maybe a year, maybe less, it depends on the client.” While clients might ask for some exclusivity, she has to explain, she says, “This is why you need to pay more for this. They [the photographers] will be out of the marketplace for a while.” This applies equally whether the sponsor is paying the photographer a fee or bartering free gear.”

— https://www.pdnonline.com/photography-business/photo-clients/how-photographers-charge-for-social-media-advertising-jobs/

I then looked at a couple photographers that came up in google searches for social media pricing. They were all local portrait/wedding photographers across the US who offered social media packages. Not really what I was looking for but still interesting to see. The average prize for around 20 photos was $1500. I don’t know what goes into those shoots but I would think they have small production if any. If you are a local photographer and do 3-4 of those a week you are doing pretty good!

It seems photographers have started treating social media for what it is: Advertising. There is still a lot of education that needs to happen out there but I was relieved by what I found. One thing that the graphs really drove home is the size of Facebook and especially YouTube. I knew the stats but seeing it in this graph really made me realize the power there.

I’d love to get some input on this from anyone who has it. Leave a comment!