Negotiating and Pricing are easily the hardest parts of photography. Way harder than shooting a nice picture! And the sad fact is that it takes so much energy and dedication...and experience...learning how to do it that it sometimes overtakes everything about the project. They want this, I want that...it's automatic opposition; many times being the first exposure to each other. Of course you want to do the job, and you'd probably do it for free...if you could, but you have to make a living so you can feed your kids and keep taking pictures. And frankly, it's hard to make a living in photography right now. But you can't do it for free and you must settle for a negotiated price for your services.
I could go on and on about how to negotiate, but there are plenty of excellent books out there that can help you much better than I. What this post is really about is not letting the money get in the way of doing a good job once the price is settled. Good or bad money, you chose (or not) to do the job. And once the job is accepted it's up to you to make it happen. It's time to let go of all the pre-shoot negotiations and bad feelings and kick ass. I've heard of photographers that let their reps do all of the money talk and prefer to know nothing about the budget during the shoot (unless it's restrictive of course). They do this because a lousy budget can make you make decisions based on hard feelings and not sound financial choices. When you carry hard feelings into a shoot you tend to not put as much energy into it and you settle for less than stellar because the pay is less than stellar. I recently had a job that required me to take a second try. The second try paid no more money...but it really wasn't the client's fault. It wasn't mine either...it was just "a thing". I could have easily said, "sorry, Charlie, I showed up and shot the empty parking lot, pay me." And the client probably would have paid me. However, not only would this have set a terrible tone for future shoots, it really backfires on me. I would have missed an opportunity to make great work. And that's really why I'm here, to do good work.
Now, I'm not saying to do anything for free. That's missing the point. The point is that once you accept a job, it's up to you to deliver the best shot you can. If you aren't satisfied with the end project, no matter what the obstacles, then you have just cheated yourself. It's the same mentality a rodeo clown must have. The bull doesn't care how much the clown is getting paid. The clown has to do just as good a job at $1/hr as he does at $100.
