Portrait Work

[SieSmith]

Has anyone got any advice about equipment needed / places to print / prices to charge for portrait work?

I was asked a few months ago to do some portraits for one of my wife's work colleagues. I did some, basically just at the cost of the printing, just so that I could learn. She really liked them, has shown them around, and now I've got a couple more requests to do the same kind of thing.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers, Sie

[jinky]

I`ll be looking out for responses to this too Sie as it is somehting that I ponder. I have had a few different pieces of work come in on word of mouth. Some I`ve done as trades for stay a couple of hotels, some for a construction company I`ve charged £40 per hour inc processing so 2 hours for a one hor shoot, some youth charity stuff I hve done for fixed lower fee as it was something I wanted to support but the most difficult has been the few portratit jobs I have had to do. Only a couple and they have been friends and ex-colleagues. That meant some I did for cost or purchase of a gift - son one lot bought me a big wide background I got off ebay for about £50 - full size thing that is a ****** to fold up! My ld boss I said I`d do for a nice meal out and a bottle or two of wine. In the end he treated me to a great meal and chat and then sent me a whole case of my favourite so good deal. Some friend`s I did n return for hosting / feeding us and ended up again getting some photography gear I didn`t really need as a pressie. I want to charge a fixed fee but portraits - well posing really - are my weak area. So don`t know is my long answer.

Re: gear I now have three flashes I use with Niko CLS system - maunual or TTL depending on what I do. Noy oitgrown CLS yet in terms of distance outside but will get Yongnou triggers off ebay first time I feel I need them. I use black and white cotton sheets with velcro fasteners which are a nuisance to iron every time - hence the new background. Got a set of the free Lee filter samples ages ago I use to change background colour and use props like glasses to shie through for pattern / texture when I need it. Got 3 stands - 2 umbrellas and one softbox umbrella - again cheap off ebay and work very well. Bought the big white pop up background after the hassles with sheets but been a good stopgap. I probably need to buy a stand for bacjkgrounds but cannot justify it yet as portrait work is so rare for me. Other than that I make do with props etc and try to persuade them to do outside shots

[xavier]

Hi Sie Smith I'm not sure what you have in the KIT, but if you digitail camera you should be able to print at home ( depending on the size your costomer wants). after that as Paul said its a matter of lighting & backdrops. one thing I would ask and point you to is a soft focas filter for portriats.

[daisiemaetulip]

why dont you charge a session fee? say of 50 quid then if its a good cause/friend deduct the first shot from that?

[SieSmith]

Thanks folks for the replies.

Good tip DMT - you mean charge just for turning up and then they pay for what they order on top of that. Like you say, for friends you can throw one or two in for the fee. Like it.

Xavier - kit at the moment is 450D, kit lens, 50mm f2.8 macro, couple of tele-zooms, 430 EXII, off-camera cord, freebie wireless trigger, lastolite 5in1 reflector kit. I can print up to A4 on my printer, but think i would stick to getting them printed out professionally by a printing place (at the moment I use Costco - pretty cheap and have not had a problem yet).
I was pondering getting a cheap lighting kit - Interfit do 3 EX150 lamps with a background for just less than £350 (- any experience of these, anyone? ).
Hadn't thought of a soft focus filter though - was relying on doing anything like that in PS.

Jinkster - thanks for the comprehensive reply - very useful. Some good ideas there for cheap but effective backgrounds, thanks Paul.

Cheers, Sie

[riddell]

Most important thing to work out is your time (and expenses)

So if you do a portrait session how long does it take? and then add travel time and travel costs, also include setup times etc. and factor that all together.

You then need to factor in the extra time to post process, colour calibrate etc.

Then finally when you get an order for a print, your extra time to give that print a final polish / crop / airbrush whatever. Plus the time to deliever and pick up prints from the lab and / or postage etc.

It might suprise you just how long it all takes.
Once you know all that and understand how much you need to earn (-taxes) you'll have more of an idea.


Paul
www.photographybyriddell.co.uk

[cosmicma]

the easiest way is a fixed price per print according to size
a package deal would go down well too ie 1 or 2 large prints ( 16 x 12 ) and 4 smaller prints ( 8 x 10 ) for a fixed price
this sort of thing can all be done in house
other things to consider is.. are you going to frame the photo's or leave it up to the client or are you going to use the cardboard frames and let the client decide on the frame

things like this determines the price you will charge

i find when people come along and ask you to do a portrait because they've seen someone else's that you have done at sometime it's usually because they don't want to spend a lot of money or they would have already had them done at a studio and paid the price

i find people fall into 3 categories where portraits are concerned they will go to a studio and pay the price to have professional portraits or they will know somebody with a camera who's good at photography or last but not least they will be approached by the door knocker who offers a package deal on finance and will end up paying an absolute fortune but because there paying weekly don't realize it
not to mention the supermarket/shopping precinct portrait setups you see around but i don't really count those
somehow you have to fit your price into that lot
something to keep in mind when your trying to work a price out

iv'e done a few over the years and it's helped keep my printer in ink for a while but thats about it