I’m in the business myself, and the way I handle this is simple. When it’s coming from people I know personally, I look at it like I’m going to do it for free, I weigh that decision that way and only say yes if I accept that. I let them know my rates are quite expensive, and that I’m not asking that from them because I’m doing it as a favour/for the art/for myself (depending on what we’re talking about, weddings, portraits, short films, something for their business etc). Then I let them decide if and how much they’d like to offer, and I’m happy with anything, because I’ve already accepted this was something I was gonna do “for free”.
Weddings in particular, I did a bunch when I was young and these days I’d never pursue more work in that niche, I only do it for family/friends and then the last thing I want is for money to sour things.
Obviously you can’t be doing that all the time, thankfully I don’t and have plenty of properly paid work as well. But you gotta make the difference between favours and clients and can’t look at it the same way, if my wife’s cousin asks if I can help her film some clips for her cupcake side-business I ain’t gonna treat it like a corporate client and ask the 1200€+ day-rate.
I like that. It’s kind of similar to the “don’t lend money you wouldn’t be comfortable giving as a gift, because if it doesn’t come back, you have to be ok with it”.
I’ve learned that lesson a few times. It’ll stick one of these days.
I’m in the business myself, and the way I handle this is simple. When it’s coming from people I know personally, I look at it like I’m going to do it for free, I weigh that decision that way and only say yes if I accept that. I let them know my rates are quite expensive, and that I’m not asking that from them because I’m doing it as a favour/for the art/for myself (depending on what we’re talking about, weddings, portraits, short films, something for their business etc). Then I let them decide if and how much they’d like to offer, and I’m happy with anything, because I’ve already accepted this was something I was gonna do “for free”.
Weddings in particular, I did a bunch when I was young and these days I’d never pursue more work in that niche, I only do it for family/friends and then the last thing I want is for money to sour things.
Obviously you can’t be doing that all the time, thankfully I don’t and have plenty of properly paid work as well. But you gotta make the difference between favours and clients and can’t look at it the same way, if my wife’s cousin asks if I can help her film some clips for her cupcake side-business I ain’t gonna treat it like a corporate client and ask the 1200€+ day-rate.
I like that. It’s kind of similar to the “don’t lend money you wouldn’t be comfortable giving as a gift, because if it doesn’t come back, you have to be ok with it”.
I’ve learned that lesson a few times. It’ll stick one of these days.