How To Lose A Million Dollars In 3 Seconds

Times are tough. You haven’t received a pay raise in several years. Maybe your spouse has lost a job. Or you are worried about the longevity of your position, and whether it will be there a few short months from now.

So you decide to shoot a few weddings on the side. Weddings are easy; or so everyone says. Even the guy at the camera shop told you it’s a great way to make a little cash.

So you put the word out there on a few free sites – Craigslist, Facebook etc. And you get your first wedding.

You lowball it, and charge $750 for a full day of photography. You promise the bride a CD with her digital files, which means no true cost to you. So the $750 is pretty much all yours. Right?

The day comes, and everything moves along smoothly. Until “IT” happens.

“IT” can be just about anything.

  • Your camera jams, and with only one camera body, you can’t shoot the rest of the wedding.
  • You rely on one Flash card, and it’s corrupt. Which means the entire wedding disappears.
  • You drop your one and only camera, and it quits working.
  • The bride and groom hate your work.
  • You take the family outside for family portraits, and the grandmother trips and falls over your tripod and ends up in the hospital with a broken hip.

So your first time photo shoot to make a little extra cash turns into a million dollar lawsuit based on a 3 second error. [Read more…]