What is your sales proposition? why should people hire you?
Right now all you’ve told us, a community of photographers that you’re asking for business advice from, is that your sales proposition is that you are cheap. There’s plenty of that going around.
Agree that no photographers shoot the same. If you’re just doing a shoulder up kind of headshot and don’t have a starting point and have to do it super quickly, one foot pointing forward, heels together, turn the other foot around 90 degrees to create an L shape with the feet. Then look back towards the camera. This will result in a turn in the upper body and a slight angle to the face which can work very nicely.
For a more involved shoot I am more likely to try and get them natural, get them to talk to me about something that gives them joy and so on. I’ll gently guide them to move aspects of their body that might be working against them but don’t want to make it too rigid.
Look up Jerry Ghionis and other posing masters. I like Jerry’s concept that you either rebuild a house (pose) from scratch if the person is incredibly awkward, or you renovate (let them do their thing, then alter their pose a little for the camera). I tend to ask people to be comfortable and then renovate rather than start from scratch.
Working with your local team can open up a lot of opportunities as well if you get your foot in the door. I never exploited all of them because I worked for the club and had to set professional boundaries. However clubs need a lot of photographs both match-day and promotional, they have community events, gala dinners, and the team is full of cashed up young men who are getting married, having kids etc.
It can be an effective network depending on what you want to shoot.
Yes hire a photographer AND a model/s (or the actress if appropriate) where everyone has the full understanding of what the works are being used for. An alternative could be if there is an AI image generator that doesn’t block adult content but I’m not sure if that exists as it would be a total car wreck.
I get that shooting MLS is fun. I shot the top tier league in my country as well. Difference is I was being paid and shooting every home game near me. The other shooters were selling their images through an agency.
You really ought to work out what your business plan is or switch to lower impact shooting such as working directly with a local team and covering home games.
It’s your time of course and you can do what you want, but that amount of time for no income is poor from a business perspective and if you’re claiming on tax we’re talking business.
Not unreasonable price wise but working a job without an agreement is.