What do you charge for photo shoots?

[Angelhales]

Ok so Ive put this in here as the description did say "earning money from photography" so I hope my logic here is ok.

I've been building my portfolio up all year and people are now telling me that they feel like they should be paying now as they feel I'm good enough, and I've heard this quite a bit now. But I have no idea what an earth prices are for charging?!

Now I dont want to get into the whole printing thing and would rather do a "You can buy a disc of X amount of images" etc. Which I would rather include in the price as well if possible.

What do others charge for various services and how long have you been a photographer etc? I'm not looking to earn megabucks but dont want to undercharge so much that people are suspicious.

[swan lover]

Hello Angelhales, this is what I've been taught, work out your cost for producing your ''product'' be it print, print in a mount etc etc and add up to 300% to your cost for a decent profit margine, you could look at what the ''competition ar echarging so as not to price yourself out of the market.
If this helps one local wedding photographer is charging £9 for a 9''x'7'' picture no mount.

Hpoe this is of help

Swan Lover

[GeoffWessex]

Erm, yes, but that wedding photographer has had to get himself to the location, and bring his equipment with him, and it would have been his client/customer that asked him to do that - so he's including an invisible part of the cost - the fact that he's working for somebody else - as well as adding a standard rate for his time and transport. With those things included, the 9 pounds is fair trading.

You can't really include all your 'expenses' unless you're working on behalf of somebody else..... if you're selling your own personal work - not at somebody elses behest - I'd go along with including the costs involved in turning your picture into a print.

[edit] I should add, you also have to see what the competition is charging, decide on whether your pictures are as good - the obvious example is the wedding photographer - and see if you can be competitive. With your own artistic work - the stuff that professional photographers love to shoot but can't spare the time - you charge what you think you'll be able to sell at. When I see mention of "Professional Landscape Photographer" or "Professional Wildlife Photographer" it makes me wonder how they could have made the transition between shooting the 'bread and butter' weddings and family shots to spending weeks on the other side of the world and coming back with ten sellable images. [/edit]

[KeithT]

I wouldn't personally sell a disc of my images to anyone. That is a very risky way to sell your images unless you have control over printing rights. Prints from a good pro print shop isn't that expensive, and I usually pay around a fiver for a 10x12 print myself. I get them dry mounted with overlay matt at a small gallery near me for a tenner, and my particular gallery will also include shrinkwrapping them ready for sale in that price. Check your art/gift galleries near you. Shop around and see what others are charging for similar work and base your price on that. Normally speaking you should make a 100% mark-up to be in pocket.

[Angelhales]

I absolutely do not want to be getting into getting the photos printed and selling them etc. A. I'm not interested in that side of it. B. I'm a single mum with very little time on my hands as it is.

Ignoring the side of things in terms of products photos etc what do you generally charge for your time? Or dont you as you make on products?

[GeoffWessex]

It's not just time that you're charging for. I go back to the wedding photographer analogy. The going rate for a professional for a whole day's wedding is (depending on experience of the photographer to some extent) around 1500 pounds. But people don't just pay that for the attendance - they want some sample prints, possibly one or two albums and the opportunity to buy more prints or albums (though you can sell the licence for the digiatal image as well).
Same with, for example, fashion photographers - they have an hourly rate so that they can give a rounded figure in the bill, but they're also expected to 'come up with the goods'..... the images.

[Angelhales]

In my experience with clients so far they have all been happier to use a disc giving them the images they have chosen and then they are able to get the prints done at a hell of alot cheaper than what photography prices are. Which is why theres no way prints are the way I'm going.

[AndyStevens]

A friend of mine is a pro wedding tog and offered us our wedding shots as 'disc only' - he did us a favour at £300 for pre-wedding, wedding ceremony and post wedding shots (all on one day). He checked/tweaked them and then gave us a CD.

[GeoffWessex]

Originally Posted by Angelhales

In my experience with clients so far they have all been happier to use a disc giving them the images they have chosen and then they are able to get the prints done at a hell of alot cheaper than what photography prices are. Which is why theres no way prints are the way I'm going.

Are you saying you give the customer the disc with all their chosen photographs as part of the deal? You are giving them full rights to put those images on their own (or their friends') computer and making prints for themselves. So you're giving them the copyright. Fair enough, that's one way.

Another is to give the customer a disc of reduced size images, with your watermark on them. Then they come back to you for prints or buy the photograph (and its copyright) off you, in which case you give them the full resolution image, without watermark. For a price.

A third method is to take the photos, put them on a password-protected gallery hosted and run by a third party. You tell the customers the password and they (and their friends and family) can pick and choose which ones they want, and at what size, with cropping if they feel like it. Then it's up to that third party to provide the prints, albums, books as required - you set your own prices but the printer/gallery host get 15% of sales. The top company in the USA is SmugMug - but I believe there are similar companies in the UK. With this method, you charge for your time, maybe some samples, and that's it - you just wait for the monthly cheque to arrive from the "print fulfillment" company.

As for what you charge for your time has to be set against the competition - undercut them and you could run up against problems with them (it's easy to drop unfavourable remarks about other photographers).... undercut them too much and potential clients won't think you're worth bothering with. But you've still got to work out how much you need as an hourly rate and be able to 'package' that as a day's work, bearing in mind your costs (transport, equipment, advertising, other overheads).

[KeithT]

When releasing files without any printing rights attached would certainly a dangerous thing to do if you are trying to set up a business. There would be nothing to stop the purchaser of the disc selling them to anyone he or she chooses. Printed mugs and teashirts for instance would normally be extra income for the photographer and to have this taken out of ones hands for the sake of a disc sold for a few quid would be foolish in my view. However, you would need to calculate how far someone could take it if they so desired (and they could pass them off as their own work and you couldn't say much about it) and then add value into the price. If your images took a day to shoot and several days to edit then you should be charging by the hour. So, for sake of argument, your time is 24 hours at £10 an hour, that's £240. On top of that you would add cost of disc, petrol and fair wear and tear on your gear, so the final cost may work out to around £300 for a disc. Now to be honest, would anyone pay 300 quid for a disc full of images and then have to get prints made into the bargain? I doubt it myself, but if you charge much less than that you might just as well work down the local pub in the evenings pulling pints. It would be less hassle. Good luck with your choice Angel, as I think you will need it - and I hope you don't take that the wrong way.