All Images, reflections, memories and fabrications ©2011 Tony Hernandez Photography

Saturday, January 2, 2010

First realizations of a future commercial photographer

I've been asked, on many occasions, what a "commercial photographer is" after responding to the question: "what do you do for a living?" So let's just clear that up right now. A commercial photographer is a person who "shoots photographs for money". Plain and simple. Not that all photographers consider themselves as such but, that's just the way it is. It's what I do and how I make my living. My first realization that one could make money shooting pictures came not too long after getting that Polaroid camera from my dad. As my good fortune would have it, my parents owned a bar and restaurant right next door to our house. A locals kind of place in Victory Acres that turned into a Mexican music extravaganza on Friday and Saturday nights. The place would be packed. A live band would be playing the "unda-unda-unda" bass line of the songs while the patrons danced and drank the night away. Sounds pretty romantic, doesn't it? Well, to tell you the truth, it was kind of fun, and a drag, all at the same time. Everyone in the family had to work there at one time or another depending on where one was needed or, to fill in for someone who didn't show up. Filling in was the drag part. The fun part was taking money at the door for a cover charge on the weekends. Being a "trust-worthy" son, I was tasked with collecting the 1 dollar cover as the people came in. This is where the Polaroid camera and making money shooting pictures thing came about for me. I had been messing around with the square shooter Polaroid for a few weeks. It was fun but, there had to be more. Then it hit me! I had a plan. All I had to do was, skim 8 dollars from the cover money, take a short break during the evenings work, pop over to the Circle K, grab a pack of film and flash cubes, and get back to work. Only this time, with my trusty Polaroid. By now, everyone was having a good time. Drinks were being consumed. Life was good. It was then that I would pull out my Polaroid and tell people:  "Hey, I'll shoot your picture for 2 bucks." It worked like a charm. Within a half an hour, I was able to sell all of my Polaroid pictures to the patrons, return the original 8 dollars to the cover charge money, and still have a profit of 8 dollars after. If I did it a couple of times in an evening, I had 16 bucks by the end of the night. Not bad dough for a 12 year old kid in 1972.










©2010 Tony Hernandez Photograpy

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