The business side of photography
If a photographer wants to successfully complete a job, they first have to successfully start the job with a well-written estimate.
(This post is for new photographers.)
A potential customer asks you for a price to photograph something. What do you do?
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This same store today sells beauty supplies.
(This post is mostly for new photographers doing corporate or commercial photography rather than retail photography.)
Unlike a department store which sells hundreds or even thousands of products, a photographer basically sells one product – themselves – and that comes in a very limited supply. A retail store’s business model is based on volume. A store has an unlimited supply of products to sell to dozens or hundreds of customers each and every day. A store gets a steady stream of money from lots of small purchases.
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This is another view-from-my-office photo.
A photographer asked me to take at look his recent food photos (mostly photos of product packaging). His customer wasn’t happy with the pictures. The photographer wanted a second opinion before replying to his customer.
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This is another view-from-my-office photo.
Yesterday I was exchanging e-mails with a photographer who shot a commercial job two months ago. The photography has been completed, the photos have been delivered, and the customer has paid. Two months ago. His customer is using the photos in transit ads. The photographer asked if he should now charge more for this usage.
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There have been only three times when I had difficulty getting paid. All were in the mid-1980s when I was just starting out:
1) My first corporate customer was a very small pharmaceutical company. The company wanted the photos shot on transparency film because the images were for a slide presentation. I asked if they also wanted prints. No, they did not want prints, only slides. The job was done and the slides were delivered. The customer refused to pay because I did not deliver prints.
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How long should you save image files after they’ve been delivered to the customer?
A photographer should inform customers about their photo archiving policy. How long will you keep the photos? Can a customer depend on you, for years to come, to redeliver the photos? If you promise to archive photos but you lose them, can a customer sue you?
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This is another view-from-my-office photo.
Right now, most Canadian photographers will be doing their annual income tax. Some business expenses are not deducted in full but instead they are depreciated over time. Capital Cost Allowance (CCA) is used to depreciate the value of photo equipment, computers, and other business purchases that have continuing value.
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