I recently got an unpaid job shooting a dance music event and turned up on time and shot a few good photos. Pay attention to what I just wrote... 'a few good photos'.
To be honest the genre of the photography is still quite new to me and isn't one that I particularly enjoy. In the long run I could end up with potential clients from meeting new people and getting my reputation around but this could have its downfalls as well.
What I'm referring to though is the 'few good photos' problem. You see, that is what is wrong. There are only a few. I shot over three hundred photos and only two hundred are usable. The majority of the ones that went wrong are blurred out of focus, and some are due to smoke machines. Okay so I can't get away from the latter, its an obstacle many photographers cannot overcome. Perhaps there was no point in taking photos when the smoke machines were filling the room with a haze that destroys the opportunities of potentially good moments of capture. The main problem I was not even dealing with was that of a non proper focus. That was a mistake. I know that some photographers believe that sharpness is overrated but in this case sharpness is essential.
With all this in mind I think its important to address the fact that even though a job may be unpaid and seem like to much hard work for nothing, you should still make an effort to getting your photos right in the first place. Something I'll have to bear in mind.