Yes this is a very common scam and its pretty digusting. $1800 is very steep for the actual shoot, usual studios market these “expensive” photoshoots for cheap or free but then will charge an insane markup on prints, usually refusing to provide high resolution / digital copies at all.

This is more typical in the “studio” model, as a general rule you want to ask what you will be delivered, $2k+ would generally get you a relatively good freelance photographer who would aim to give you around 10-15 image full size for you to print as is.

Photographers are almost never going to give you unedited photos or a huge batches of photos, between 5 and 20 is about usual.

I think a lot of photographers are gatekeepers, I see it a *lot* in landscape photography with people talking about how their locations etc are secret, moaning about tourists and instagram photographers etc.

I was a little concerned about it when I started to shoot music regularly, but have found at least in my scene the gig photographers are all very welcoming and friendly and help each other out a lot.

However yeh what you described is not gatekeeping, thats just people not going out of their way to help a stranger who seems to have a misunderstanding of social boundaries. Reaching out is fine but you arent entitled to their time.

Easiest way to get something looking decent is https://pixieset.com/

https://dale41.pixieset.com/birthdaygirlbeyourownpet/ is an example of a show I did a few days ago.

Dont send 50 photos, unless its greatest ever looking show you would be looking between 5 and 10 per band. You arent going to mess anything up, you dont have a contract and nobody is expecting anything from you and probably wont use the photos. But some of them may love them, use them and help you out / promote you so yeh definitely send them along if you are willing to.

Have fun! (and make sure to keep your ss fast enough 1/250 min, worry less about ISO than you will do)

The Heat Company do good gloves for photography.

Remember to keep your lens caps on, maybe get an extra filter, condensation is the worst. I am considering a portable lens warmer although I havent seen it being used successfully yet but I have had way too many photos ruined by my lens + sensor getting fogged up when its really cold.

I dont do sports, I do music, but with music the easiest way to get credentials is to find a publication to shoot for.

You dont need to be employed, it doesnt always need to be a huge publication, just get in touch with the type of publications that would likely use the photos and ask if they can hook you up if you shoot for them.

It is very hard to scroll through social media these days without encountering a photographer who can’t wait to tell us with faux humility that they are “above” awards and doing any work to gain recognition (without acknowledging that is often a tool professional photographers use to promote their business)

I don’t particularly like the game of those type of awards, so I don’t take part, no need to judge those that do.

I like https://www.theheatcompany.com/en-gb/gloves/heat-2-softshell for mild cold weather and https://www.theheatcompany.com/en-gb/gloves/shell with liners inside for really cold weather

Either dust on the lenses, or if you switch lenses and still see them then its dust on the sensor, pretty common, can take it into a camera shop to get it cleaned or you can get a kit to do it yourself

Yeh I have been trying to figure how to do this without using flash, tried with a double exposure but it’s fiddly