When it comes to gig work, artists are typically responsible for cobbling together different gigs to make enough money to survive. This means that artists must either find gigs themselves or advertise to see if clients come to them – both activities can take a lot of time, effort, and money to do well. Then, if you’re lucky to land gigs:

• they’re more-often-than-not spread out so you’ll have to spend time and money traveling to each gig

• you’ll need to plan for different equipment for each gig

• since you’re dealing with different vendors, so you’ll paid on different schedules via different systems

It can be challenging to manage all of these different aspects of running your own business when you have different clients!

What Shoott does is make finding and photographing gigs more streamlined and efficient for the photographer by creating a set schedule that funnels clients to specific places on specific dates.

What does this mean?

Instead of clients dictating where they want their photographer to go, we provide a bookable schedule for clients. For example – we’ll say that we’re offering sessions at Times Square on Friday, Central Park on Saturday, and Soho on Sunday and a photographer will be assigned to sessions at one location. Pros to our approach:

• Photographers typically just have to travel once a day for their photoshoots – the clients are assigned a set meeting point so normally, it’s up to the photographer to run around and meet their clients where they are; with Shoott, their clients are meeting them at a set place, making their lives a lot easier and minimizing travel.

• Because we provide our bookable schedule that clients can choose from, this creates volume for every photographer so they’re not just traveling to only do one session a day (unless that’s what they want!) – instead, they get to enjoy photographing multiple clients per day they work, which helps them earn more while also further building their portfolio!

• Shoott only requires a camera + lens for their sessions. No extra equipment to lug around (not even flashes!) because we provide natural light photography. This was designed to take advantage of the best lighting conditions while minimizing the equipment needed to take photos. Photographers don’t have to carry or guard a whole bunch of equipment, which helps them stay mobile throughout the day.

• Our offer for a free mini session + pay-by-the-pic model incentivizes people who otherwise might not have considered getting a photoshoot before. Many clients worry that they might not like the photos and they’ve also shared that a “photoshoot” can feel like too much effort especially when you have to pay a significant amount of money upfront. Our risk-free offer entices more clients to book which also helps create more volume and thus more gigs for photographers to work!

We’re proud to share that as of 2024, despite clients being offered free sessions, the average photographer is still making $140-$150 per photography hour plus tips ($21-$23/session on average) and other extra bonuses for clients being late, etc. We also provide a photo editing service for a small extra fee if photographers want to save even more time.

Overall, Shoott is intended as a source of supplemental income for photographers and we’re hoping to improve our ability to find more gigs for photographers. Our goal is to help talented photographers earn extra income so they can stay artists.

Have more questions about what it’s like to work as a Shoott photographer? Check out our page for prospective photographers.