My most stolen photo has been stolen over 100 times and almost exclusively is used on other professional photographers’ websites, including one national photography company.
Gonna take a real nice vacation when all the settlements come in.
It takes a special kind of stupid for a photographer to act like they don’t understand copyright.
A tripod plus a remote trigger like a CamRanger that will let you see the composition and adjust the exposure would be the ticket here. Regardless of the camera size, any camera will get heavy and be hard to hold still with his history.
For someone shooting wildlife, I suspect just getting into the field and finding a good position is more than half the battle for someone with mobility challenges.
There’s also other genres he could shoot indoors with the camera mounted, like product photography or macros even that might be more accessible to him, if he can learn to appreciate another genre.
The hot takes of a friend who knows fuck all about photography are not really relevant. Bottom line: don’t break the law and anything else goes.
Some of the best and most lauded photography of all time is documentary in nature and takes place in public.
Just take good photos and don’t post images where the people in them don’t add something to the frame. There’s lots of people posting lackluster street photo images where the people in the frame don’t make sense or don’t serve the photo. Avoid that, because it’s creepy or wrong, but because you should only post your best work. If having a person in the photo is what makes the photo good, then go for it. In that context it’s not important that the subject be flattered either, in some instances the opposite might be what’s needed for the photo to be good. Study the greats, learn the difference between good and bad.
Now as someone who owns a small media company and has 10 photographers on staff, I’m going to say that I doubt your instagram has as much weight as you think it does on your university application. People graduate from art school with straight up objectively terrible portfolios. They apply for jobs with me all the time. So I think someone evaluating your profile for admission doesn’t have the bar set extremely high. The expectation is that you’re not super trained at this point. They are probably more concerned about judging a general interest level, if they even consider it at all.
Worry less about this and more about learning your craft technically. I feel like technical skills are wholly undervalued in fine art photo programs. I often prefer to hire people with less experience because they have less bad habits I have to train out. The best people on my team didn’t go to art school.
Oh, NO DOUBT there are some shittastic female boudoir photographers out there. I follow one mainly because she keeps stealing our interiors photos to use to promote her sessions. Her lighting is fucking terrible and she knows fuck all about posing larger bodies. There’s shitty photogs everywhere. But the female boudoir photogs usually aren’t sending sus texts after the session or trying to have a deeper relationship like the badly behaved male ones. There’s literally instagram accounts for models to keep track of which photographers are sketchy.
Why even bother doing boudoir? Like you said, commercial work pays way better and is less emotionally fraught. I shot a couple back when I did weddings and it was better than doing newborns but it’s not a genre that’s going to result in additional sales from other parties, and the client willing to invest 4 figures or more is kind of rare unless you have a super popular boudoir brand.
If it really “speaks” to you artistically then just hire a model. Much easier to make sure you’re getting what you need for your portfolio when you can call all the shots on styling, make-up, wardrobe, etc.
My biggest pet peeve with boudoir photographers is that a solid 95% cannot pronounce the word “boudoir” correctly. How is anyone supposed to take you seriously when you can’t even say what you do. If I hear “boo-door” one more time…
As a professional photographer of over a decade and a woman, I’ll just say that it’s been my experience in the industry that the dudes doing hobbyist boudoir sessions for free tend to be creeps that just want to take photos of pretty young girls. Most don’t even understand how to light properly to flatter the subject and their posing skills are well, trashy. It’s always come off a bit predatory to me. Maybe they manage to behave well for most shoots but there’s eventually rumors and negative stories that get out. A good boudoir photographer is booked solid for weeks if not months out and isn’t working for free. Someone with a more fine art style should have a substantial portfolio of work and a great rep and should probably be paying you to model and should include hair/makeup.
If you decide to go through with this, make sure his work is good enough that you feel it’s worth your time. Insist on seeing the model release and making sure you understand where these images could end up - depending on your career or future plans, it could be a bad thing to have suggestive photos of yourself living on the internet if you end up becoming a teacher, or running for a local election or really anything where you’re in the public eye, especially in a leadership role. Is it fair? No. But it’s the reality of being a woman. People will use whatever ammunition they can find to tear a woman down. Would you be okay with your parents or (future) kids coming across them?
If you’ve considered all that and are okay with it, then go for it, but absolutely bring someone with you. If you get any pushback about bringing someone, that’s a huge red flag. Maybe even have some kind of code word so your buddy can invent an emergency that requires you both to leave if you’re uncomfortable with how the shoot is going.
Did you look at any of this guy’s work before hiring him? Did you look at full jobs and not the greatest hits? Does he have a studio? Did he bring lighting and take the time to set it up for a look that supports your project brief? Did he style the items on set to make him look their best? Did he provide a contract?
If you paid less than a couple hundred bucks, well you get what you pay for and are at the mercy of his timeline. If you paid a standard rate for commercial photography in your area, then no, a month is not acceptable at all.
I just delivered a commercial job later than normal - it took me 7 days, because the job itself required a full day out of town so there was lots of busy work to catch up on upon return, and then I had some familiar obligations due to a death in my family. Kept the client advised of the timeline and delivered a ton of work.
Payment upfront in full is not unheard of, but neither is taking a deposit and getting a final invoice when the final images are ready for delivery.
If this person has a real business entity you could leave reviews, but based on what you said about the shoot length, this person sounds like a rank amateur.