When I first started Shoott, my primary goal was to see if we could come up with an innovative business model to improve the gig economy for professional freelance photographers. I had spent the prior decade as a freelance performer, producer, wedding coordinator, events assistant, tutor, and pet sitter and I had so many friends in the same boat.

One time, I was a dancer in a show and I found myself taking the train home with the lead actor; it was his girlfriend’s birthday but it was close to midnight, so all he wanted was to get a six pack to share with her since it was so late. On the way back, he discovered he only had $2 in his account so he couldn’t even afford the six pack. I was shocked: he was not only talented, but also incredibly hard working, and even he could barely make ends meet. 

I ended up lending him the money (he paid me back as soon as he could!) but that evening, I saw how even responsible, “successful” artists could struggle so much. And over time, I watched talented artists give up their dreams due to the immense financial strain and I began to wonder if there could be a way to support artists so they could stay artists.

Start by thinking of your artists: what is their struggle

The hallmark of an artist’s life is instability:

• You don’t often know when your next gig will be

• You need to make enough money to even allow you the time and freedom to keep creating so you often need to take on a “day job”

• You must learn skills to find clients, keep your social and online media up to par so clients can find you, manage client demands, run your own business… the list goes on

• You must keep your equipment, knowledge, and business materials up-to-date which can be a costly investment, both time-wise and financially 

• Even after you work gigs, different vendors have different pay periods and we’ve heard far too many artist horror stories where the vendor just never paid them and ghosted them - $2000 that was promised to them just never materializes.

You’re constantly forced to balance passion with the practical - and the challenges can feel never-ending.

Build a business model that specifically address the artist’s pain points

We wanted to create a business model that could take all the major pain points into consideration, and this is what we came up with:

Goal #1: Make Shoott a convenient addition to our photographers’ lives re: scheduling

Shoott is intended as a supplemental source of income for professional photographers - many of whom have their own businesses and just want to fill their extra time. These photographers then provide Shoott with their supplemental availability that includes what days/timeframes they want to take on extra work and also what locations from our roster they’re willing to go to.

We then work behind-the-scenes to staff our photographers in a way that balances client demand with our photographer availability so a) more photographers can work and b) when they do work, they get enough gig volume to make their time “worth it.”

Overall, we’ll always prioritize photographers working a solid volume of gigs vs having more photographers working but with less sessions per photographer. This also requires Shoott to calibrate an appropriate photographer team size for each city to evaluate client demand against photographer supply which is an ongoing practice of ours due to the seasonality of when people want photos.

Goal #2: Make working for Shoott simple and predictable

We want to be as stress-free as possible which is why we maintain a consistent format: 30 minute outdoor photo sessions using natural light. This allows the photographer to show up with just their camera body and lens of choice and not have to lug around extra equipment.

We’ve had to develop a proprietary platform for our photographers as well as strict policies and timelines around elements like:

• When clients book

• Their schedule for any booked days

• How to find coverage if they need to drop out

• Lateness for the client

• When clients are late

• When photos are due

• How to get extensions if needed

• Photo requirements for clients

• When photographers will be paid (we pay regularly twice a month so they don’t have to guess)

And so on.

These policies are designed to protect the photographers’ time and make working for Shoott as clear as possible so photographers know what to expect. We also have a message center where our team is available to answer any questions that may arise and we try to maintain as updated of guides for our photographers as possible as a reference. Clarity and transparency are incredibly important to us!

Goal #3: Find clients for photographers!

For any type of art, it’s essential to find enough clients who want to support your art, no matter what it is! In this case, the Shoott team’s primary focus is on being able to attract and market to the “right” clients, which we’ve found to be people celebrating their major life milestones and capturing their relationships with their loved ones. This means two things:

• Providing a compelling offer to get more people to try our service. This is how we landed on the free photoshoot / pay-by-pic offer - we found the free offer really piqued people’s interest and got them to book a risk-free session with us. We like how it puts the onus on our providers to provide the best experience/photos to get them to purchase more photos. But the free offer really drives our volume of booking and we’re proud to say roughly 23% of our clients have reported that their session with Shoott was the first time they’ve ever worked with a professional photographer and we’re so proud to be creating more demand in this space. The other good news? We found that even when we provide clients the option to choose, because we have a solid hiring process for our photographers, our clients are typically buying at least 10 photos (our average purchase as of 2024 is around $186 per client!), with only 6-7% of clients not buying photos at all.

• Besides providing an enticing offer, we also need to maintain a strong brand to compel people to give us a try. We’re proud to maintain an average 4.9 star rating across Google, Meta, and TripAdvisor. Providing timely and empathy-driven customer service has always been a top priority of ours and we’re proud to say that it’s paid off. Fun side note: our customer service team is also 100% comprised of part-time artists so our ecosystem of supporting artists extends to our support staff as well!

So how exactly do Shoott’s free photo sessions work for the client?

Clients can head to shoott.com and browse our site for the most up-to-date version of our bookable schedule. Shoott provides a bookable schedule for their free sessions roughly 2-4 months in advance.

• Booking

  • You can browse through our list of cities in the upper left hand corner where we have a master list of all the states and the cities we offer our services in.

  • Once you select your city of choice, you can browse our schedule by date, location, or by the portfolio of our top-rated photographers in your area.

  • Once you book, you will receive a confirmation email detailing how to prepare for your session and your exact meeting point where you will meet your photographer

• Your session

  • Your photographer should text you by 6pm the day prior to your session.

  • We ask that plan ahead to arrive 10-15 minutes early just to make sure you account for traffic, detours, parking, and walking so you can start on time and not be stressed or sweaty by your start time (and tbh if you arrive stressed and sweaty, it’s okay! We’ll make the best of it!)

  • Your session is comprised of roughly 5 minutes of walking/talking + 25 minutes of active photography. If you want to end early for any reason, you can - just let your photographer know.

• Your photo gallery

  • You should receive your digital photo gallery in 3-5 business days.

  • Shoott will be sending you your gallery so please do not ask your photographer since we take over all logistics for them after the session.

  • Your unpurchased photos will have watermarks on them to protect your photographer from clients stealing images without paying for them (unfortunately this is very common). Once you make a purchase, you’ll be sent your photos without watermark and they will be high-res to allow for enlargement and printing quality.

  • You’ll have 7 days to make a purchase and you may extend your deadline to purchase but anything after 14 days will require extra fees due to the storage we have to maintain for photos (the photos are all high res so they take up a ton of space!)

  • You’ll have the opportunity to tip your photographer once you make your purchase. The photographer keeps 100% of the tip minus any credit card processing fees - Shoott does not touch their tips whatsoever.

  • For any purchased photos, you may use them, print them, share them how you see fit but only for personal use; you may not use photos for commercial purposes. If you would like to ask for permission for commercial purposes, you may negotiate that with your photographer after purchase.

Please keep in mind that you must make purchases through Shoott. If you try to bypass our platform or if your photographer tries to sell you photos by bypassing our platform, we reserve the right to ban both client and photographer from ever using Shoott. We love providing free photoshoots but we cannot financially sustain our business and continue supporting photographers if people try to bypass Shoott.

For more information on our sessions, please visit our website at shoott.com and browse through our faqs.