Well this is embarrassing. Got my part 107 last month and finally landed my first paying gig doing progress photos for a construction site. Charged them $200 for what i thought would be an easy morning shoot.

Long story short - showed up and realized i had no idea how to organize the shots they wanted, took way longer than expected, and the foreman was getting annoyed because i was apparently in the way of their crew. Plus my editing took forever because ive never had to deliver professional looking stuff before, just uploaded raw footage to youtube

How do you guys handle the business side of this? feel like i know how to fly but have no clue about the actual work part

been there man, first few jobs are always rough. for construction stuff i always do a site visit first now (usually free 15 min thing) to figure out what they actually want and when the best time to fly is. also helps to have a shot list written down beforehand

$200 seems low for construction work btw, i usually start around 350-400 for basic progress shots depending on how much editing they want

oof construction sites are tricky because theres so much happening and everyones on a schedule. i learned the hard way to always coordinate with the site supervisor ahead of time about when workers will be clear of the areas i need to shoot. also investing in some decent editing software made a huge difference in my turnaround time

dont feel bad though, we all have those first job horror stories. at least you got paid and learned what not to do next time