Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/05/20
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 08:41 PM 5/16/01 -0700, you wrote: >Five years ago i really totally burnt out and tore up my wedding contracts. I was a wedding photographer for a few years back in the 1980s, I burned out on it too. Too stressful, too many "backwoods" receptions to cover (with gen-u-wine "trailer trayush (of the single-wide variety) well-soaked in cheap beer), too many deals where the final print order devolved into a "discussion" on why they should pay me the contracted price for prints when the drugstore would do it for a fraction of my price -- if only I'd hand over the negs (and I wouldn't :)), too may times having to take a number and stand in line behind the utility company and other "important" creditors when it was time to get paid... and the final straw was when one angry jerk -- a college professor as I recall -- threatened to sue me unless I took down a nice 16x20 I had on display (paid for out of my own pocket of course), because he found out that I was showing off a picture of him and his EX-wife! (I smiled, waved the contract under his nose, pointed out that I had rights to display my work any way I chose, and said "see you in court, jerk" and that was the last I saw of him.) Gee, at least they paid the bill before they got divorced. I did get burned on a big finishing bill when a customer -- a "semi-pro" -- used my over the counter services for a big order, and then stiffed me when *his* clients stiffed *him* because they got divorced before the order came in. And Murphy reigned supreme through it all. Of all the camera breakdowns I've encountered, all but one occurred during a wedding. (The one exception was when a quick release released real quick like and sent my camera crashing to the floor prism-cover first.) It's amazing what a grain of rice can do to a nice TLR when it works its way into the transport gears... About the only thing that never happened was having the lab eat the negs, but don't think I wasn't sweating about it each time I kissed the VPS goodbye. (And I did have one lab sit on my order for a couple of months, consitently ignoring me, until one day they returned the undeveloped rolls with a note saying they'd gone out of business. MIColor from TC MI as I recall. Ouch.) If you held a gun to my head and ordered me to cover a wedding, I'd say go ahead and shoot, then cover the damn thing yourself. Heheheheh Thanks for the memories. I think. :)