bellagorephotography

First i'd like to start off by saying I think she's a great artist and she seems to be a cool person.  I can't really judge her because I don't know her personally but I was pretty let down today.

I was hanging out at the tattoo shop that my boyfriend works at, and this guy came in to set up an appointment or whatever.  He mentioned he had gotten a tattoo by Kat Von D, so of course we were intrigued and wanted to see.  It was a portrait of his daughter on his chest and I have to say, I wasn't that impressed.  It wasn't bad by any means but it lacked a nice range of tones...it was all a mid-tone grey.  Anyways, he then went on to showing us pictures of the shop and pictures of her tattooing him and whatnot, but then told us how much she charged him....

$5,000!!!!!!!!  And the even crazier part was that he said it took her MAYBE an hour to complete the tattoo.  I'm sorry, I know she's on Tv and famous and blah blah blah but $5,000 for an hour is insane and I feel bad because the guy got ripped off REALLY bad.  She's good, but she is not nearly that good. 

Not to bring Bob into this because I know he's friends with her, but in my opinion he is a MUCH better tattoo artist.  I've gotten 20 hours worth of work from him on my arm and it's only cost me about $2,000 so far and he gave me a great deal!  Jesse and I didn't even want to show the guy the work we've had done from Bob because we thought it'd make him feel like crap for having spent 5,000 on one mediocre tattoo.  He also said that Kat has a $3,000 minimum which is pretty insane too.

I think Kat has done a good job at promoting herself and has worked really hard to get where she is but I really feel that she's ripping people off if she's charging them so much for only an hours worth of work!  I just think it's wrong...and it made me lose a bit of respect for her.  Just needed to vent...

this is the most recent one Bob Tyrrell did on my bf.

A piece Bob did on my bf this past November.

One from Kat...

So I figured this should be my first journal posting.  I graduated college today with my major of course being Photography and Film, so now I start the beginning of the rest of my life. Intense.

I really want to continue building my sets, but now it's going to be really expensive since I can't use money from school.  I'm just going to have to be even more creative and find cheap stuff!  I feel bad charging models money, but these sets are expensive!  Between all the money spent on my education,equipment, and sets there is no reason I should feel bad about charging models who want to work with me though. 

I guess we'll see how things go!