Quote Originally Posted by GAtegs
Just to play devil's advocate here for a second...say I am Joe Shmoe with my rusty cars down the street from your nice dealership. What about the people out there who don't really care about having a nice, pristine vehicle? What about the person that goes to your dealership, sees what you have for sale for $XXX and then sees what I have for 25% of that, and maybe thinks to themselves that, to the average person, it is perfectly fine and acceptable to have said rust bucket? It's called competition and it's something you need to accept.
1. Call it what it is then. Call yourself "lot full of rust buckets" and then it will be competition because you are competing on a level playing field w/o false advertising. If you have a lot full of Katrina flood cars that LOOK like cars on my lot, yet you paid pennies on the dollar BECAUSE they were UNDER WATER.....then you are not comparing apples to apples.

2. Another analogy:

Are you going to take your race car to a Jiffy Lube to get worked on? Why not? They have the same brand of tools, they have the uniforms, they have the time......why not then? Maybe because they don't have the KNOWLEDGE? Well, if some sucker is willing to buy a Katrina car just because you're selling it for less than I am selling a non-flooded car......is he a sucker for not doing his homework or are you a snake for not telling him? Either way he gets the shaft, right? Does that make you a better DEALER than me??? Not in my book. Same applies to Photography.

Much like APC, fart can exhausts, and huge park bench spoilers gave our hobby a bad name. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry who happens to pick up a camera and calls every shot he/she takes a "photoshoot" waters down our hobby.

Go look on CL right now. There are a ton of ads looking for photographers for FREE....... Why? Because there are tons of people doing it, so why not? They want studio time, lights, professional results.....FOR FREE. Ok, so photographers have to spend thousands of dollars, their own time, their own efforts, and you want to give them WHAT in return???? Nothing? Whatever.

Let's all just walk into Walmart and take stuff we want for free. See how that works. Wait, let's go to the Dr's office and let them do what they do and then just flick them off when they ask for payment. Better yet, let's all go to where YOU work and get YOU to do what YOU do only to turn around and tell you when you want to get paid. How would you feel if some bum off the street came in and YOU lost YOUR job because he was willing to do YOUR job for cheaper than YOU????? Is he going to do as good a job as YOU????? Doesn't matter because it's all about "competition", right?????