getting a job at kmart or walmart portrait studios?

[brisomphotography]

I will give you a quick bio to get you caught up in my life:

basically its real simple, I've been a roof and floor truss designer for 10 yrs and I got demoted to truss estimator

- that was a big wake up call, because I knew I hated it and never really liked it

- I have allways wanted to be a photographer ever since high school - which was a long time ago as I'm allmost 42yrs old

- and now I've decided that I'm going to go for it and become a pro photographer
a. I know its not going to happen overnight
b. Its going to take years
c. I haven't quit my day job

but at least it gives me hope to get out of my current dead end job

now, the question is - would it be wise to try to get into one of those portrait studios at walmart or kmart? - (my thinking is, hey at least its photography)

It's a tough choice for me - I mean right now - my job is paying all the bills plus I have a bit left over every month to get a little bit more of equipment - but I don't like my job

How much does one make at these type of places? Also, I am interested in portrait although its not my main niche - that is product, but like I said, its photography.

any advice?

thanks
Brian S

[KABeach]

Don't do it.

These "photographers" pay from $7.50-$10/hr... The photography is predesigned and there is no room for imagination... preset lighting, preset props, preset backgrounds...

Depending on the company and the time of year, you will have maybe 10 minutes per subject - not enough time to even really know the customers name...

These places have HUGE turnover - average employees last less than 6 months - the companies just use them up and spit them out.

Learning photography from a place like this would be like trying to learn to be a Chef by working the drive-through at McDonald's.

Cheers,
Ken

[brisomphotography]

whoa! - somehow I expected that answer

I would be better off just trying to hang in at my current job and keep doing my own photography on the side, huh?

[KABeach]

Well, there are as many ways to break into photography as there are photographers...

One of the most popular ways seems to be start a small side business and do it as well as your regular job. This will allow you to develop and grow as a photographer, and to refine your business skills (you will need to understand accounting, finance, marketing, sales, etc...).

Since you are looking at commercial, another option is to spend some quality time putting together a decent portfolio - then see if you can score a gig assisting... Assisting working commercial shooters is one of the best way to learn the industry, and get some connections.... Skilled assistants can make decent money...

Cheers,
Ken

[brisomphotography]

yes, I'm working on buiding my portfolio now, I have my web site up - still need to tweak it a bit..

I tried to contact some photographers in town here but I live in a small town, so everyone does it alone here.

I thought of shooting product relating to local businesses - for example, shooting kitchen utensils, etc and then contacting all the local kitchen supply stores here in town and just dropping them a card and maybe a flyer - kind of like a one page mini portfolio. would this be a good move?/wise?

thanks

[PavelOlavich]

Study a lot. Take a course at the local JC. Learn from sites like this one. Lurk, and ask questions. Do the homework...practice a lot. Go on lots of shoots. Learn PhotoShop. Get some books, instructional CDs/DVDs.

Keep your mind open and experiment. Harmonize what all you hear and learn.

Not all pros know what the heck they're doing. Not all amatuers are ignorant.

Learning photography for future pay is a full time job.

Find a mentor, and/or a shooting buddy that you can learn from.

Look at lots of pictures from others, on the net and other places. Go to gallaries, museums...ask yourself why a composition works...find out why.

The learning never stops.

[KABeach]

Originally Posted by brisomphotography

yes, I'm working on buiding my portfolio now, I have my web site up - still need to tweak it a bit..

I tried to contact some photographers in town here but I live in a small town, so everyone does it alone here.

I thought of shooting product relating to local businesses - for example, shooting kitchen utensils, etc and then contacting all the local kitchen supply stores here in town and just dropping them a card and maybe a flyer - kind of like a one page mini portfolio. would this be a good move?/wise?

thanks

Well, I'm not sure I'm the best to help you on these specifics - I'm up in Chicago - a large market with many options and opportunities... Obviously a small market needs to be approached differently, with a different set of opportunities...

I do think you should make sure your "ducks are in a row" before you start soliciting business - make sure you can handle the photo end of it... When you are first starting out, you don't want to just satisfy your customers, you want to thrill them.

Second, make sure there is actually a market for what you want... for example, small parts photography (table top) is towards the low end (pay wise) of commercial photography - in this area, it is quickly moving out of the larger studios and being done by part time shooters - at a fraction of the price the commercial studios do it at... try to move into a growing market, not a shrinking market...

Cheers,
Ken

[Frumious Boojum]

I worked at a Sears portrait studio for a couple of months (seasonal employee).

The best thing about it is that it gets you experience with working with people. The pay was low ($7 an hour), but I didn't really care when I went into it. I just wanted the experience.

However, they treat those with actual photography experience extremely poorly. You'll be overworked 8, 9, or 10 hours without a break. They won't properly train you EVER so that you can help each customer anywhere in the store (such as cashier or print ordering). They expect you to be able to do perfect shots of the worst behaved kids in 15 minutes or less -- which is rather unreasonable. Kids are hard to deal with, especially when it's a stranger. And those red-headed girls were a complete nightmare! I've yet to shoot a red-headed girl of 6 years old or less that wasn't at least a half hour or more to get one semi-decent shot. Not sure why... they seem to have been more bitterly tempered than the other girls. Guess that's where the whole "feisty red head" thing starts...

Some parents you'll just want to slap or, better yet, report to child services. One woman came in with a 2 year-old son who had an autism. Cute kid, it's just that half of his head was severely deformed. Well, he was a bit difficult to photo in the first place, but a team of two of us were doing all that we could to do some great photos of him. Well, every time we managed to photograph the deformed side of his head, she would say, "That's ugly. Take another." Yeah, the mother was calling her own sun ugly... trust me, they were great photos.

Ok, I got off on a tangent. That mother still severely bothers me to this day.

More complaints...

They discriminate A LOT. Basically, unless you're female or a stereotypical gay male (meaning rather masculine gay men have no chance), there is very little chance that you'll ever advance in the company or last long. This comes from talking to others in the company. In my entire time there, I only saw one other male that worked there and he was a manager from another store. Oh, and if you are female, no matter how bad you are, you'll probably get the chance to run the store if you're friends of someone else. The manager of the store that I was at was completely rude to several customers for no apparent reason. The assistant manager -- well, for a company that seems to value appearance of employees a lot, she constantly dressed and presented herself as a slob (one that had been with the company for years said she only got the position because of her girlfriend... hearsay, but experience tells me it's true).

Finally, if they have a problem with you, they don't tell you so that you can correct this.

My last day working was the day after my birthday. Looked on the schedule, they didn't have me scheduled. The two managers were leaving for other stores, so another manager apparently made the schedule. I asked about why I wasn't scheduled and she said, "I don't know why you're not on... call tomorrow and talk to the new manager and see what your schedule is." I got up early the next day just to call the manager. When I talked to her, she said, "You were only seasonal. They should've told you that your season ended yesterday. I'm sorry they gave you the run-around, but call back in March and we'll see about putting you for the easter rush." I didn't bother calling back.

I talked to somebody who still worked in the company a couple months later. She asked around and they told her that they fired me because A) my piercings (I can't believe that -- I stuck to company dress code and ALWAYS took them out before I went into work...) and B) I was in the floor too much (which I guess I can believe. They like taking EVERY photo from above. My philosophy when shooting children -- they're looked down upon enough in life, at least I can get down to their level when photographing them).

Sears also has the worst knowledge of practical photography of any of the studios. For one thing: Lens broken? Replace the ENTIRE dSLR. For another thing, they won't allow anybody to hold the camera. It's bolted down to a huge rig that's quite hard to maneuver. I nearly knocked that thing onto some kids a few times.

It's also the only job I've ever had where you can't help out in places where you should be needed if you're the only one in the store with the knowledge to help out. Every other job I've ever had was happy to have you do something not on the job description if it happened to help in an area of need.

I haven't seen a K-Mart photo studio in a while, but since they own Sears now, I'm sure CPI is the one doing K-Mart photos, too. So stay away.

From what I hear, though, Wal-Mart actually pays a lot more than Sears, which I find odd considering that Wal-Mart is notorious for paying everybody low (however, like Sears, it's an outside company doing business under the store's name).

[brisomphotography]

from my latest google search, Olan Mills is in Kmart now - very odd, because I remember back in the early 80's at least in Sarastoa, FL that Olan Mills was considered a good portrait studio - odd

well that sounds pretty bad, I will think about this for a good while, my day job all of suden doesn't seem so bad.

[Frumious Boojum]

Originally Posted by brisomphotography

from my latest google search, Olan Mills is in Kmart now - very odd, because I remember back in the early 80's at least in Sarastoa, FL that Olan Mills was considered a good portrait studio - odd

Olan Mills might be in K-Mart still (or CPI in Sears) due to long-term contract agreements -- the Sears purchase by K-Mart wasn't that long ago. Conflicting contracts are pretty common during buyouts.

I'm sure one of them will be out the moment that those contracts are finished and it will probably go to the lowest bidder. However, there's probably time before something like that happens, if it happens at all.

As for K-Mart's photography - the last time I actually seen their photos, it was about 7 years ago with the portraits for my sister and her first jerk .. I mean husband. The photos I thought were VERY average. Not great, not horrid. Just very average. About the quality you'd expect from one of the better photos with Santa.