If I had a family member that did roofs professionally, I wouldn’t feel comfortable or respectful going, hey, could you just come swing hammers for a few hours and redo that little patch over there during the holidays? Don’t worry about getting all of it, we have the next few Christmases to get the rest…
You have mouths to feed, and bills to pay girl. If I was in your shoes, I might say “I just have the extra capacity to do one quick shot this year without putting our family income in jeopardy. I have a lot of deadlines I have to meet and am already burning the candle at three ends. If we want to hire one of my colleagues, they do great work, I think they run $500 for a session which is pretty normal for that much work, I can ask them if that’s what you’d like to do.”
Many people as you well know think it’s just so easy to push the button and your fancy camera does all the magic. (“yOuR cAmeRa tAkEs grEat pIctureS”).
To get a truly great shot that stands the test of time, it needs to be significant, captured with some degree of accuracy, and also a bonus if its lighting and composition are decent… Some have more weight than others, depending on what the subject is. (Tieninen Square, Mohamed Ali over Sonny Liston, Afghan Girl, and Half Dome to think of four examples.)
For most of us, that day may never come. However, I don’t have any of those above four pictures hanging in my home. I have my family, that I shot with a remote trigger from my phone to my camera on a tripod at a local park. I have a large canvas of a beautiful tree that stands alone in a field not far from the house, in a snowstorm at Winter solstice. I have a rolling shot of my friends Ferrari 156 Sharknose that I took on a winding country road, from the back of a 2006 Chevy Cobalt, with the boot propped open with a snow shovel, that made it into Road & Track magazine.
Images might not be considered great to the masses, but they are great to us, and that’s good enough for me. I look for the significance in the lives of both myself and those around me, and try my best to make them look as beautiful as possible. Shots people pay me for and proudly hang in their own homes, or use to represent themselves and their businesses, or to just be there simply because they are enjoyable to look at everyday. So I guess I do alright. Find the great in what’s around you, but if you want to take great shots, it always helps to stand somewhere interesting with a full battery and an empty card.