The business side of photography
Media accreditation information for the upcoming 2012 World Football Challenge was sent out a few days ago. In this case, “football” means soccer.
One of the rules stated: “Media who are approved for credentials should not wear apparel supporting any of the competing teams.”
Normally one would assume that this rule is so obvious, it need not be said. But the fact that this professional sports event had to actually mention a dress code means a problem exists.
Continue reading →
Want more proof that business portraits are important?
A 2012 eye-tracking study showed that the number-one thing viewers look at on LinkedIn pagse is the person’s profile photo. There’s no reason why this behaviour might be any different on other social networking sites.
This study [link to PDF], produced by a LinkedIn competitor, examined how professional job recruiters viewed online résumés. The first thing recruiters always noticed was the profile portrait and it held their attention for about 19% of the total time spent on page.
This can be bad news or good news.
Continue reading →
Just a short list of a few resources for learning to price commercial photography. I’m not vouching for any of these. A photographer would be foolish to base their business practices on numbers from someone else’s web site. Use these for informational purposes and to help understand the underlying principles.
• The News Photographers Association of Canada Cost of Doing Business Calculator (CODB) is a good place to start. You may be quite surprised at what your CODB is.
• The Canadian Association of Professional Image Creators has a PDF listing suggested minimum usage fees (i.e. licensing fees only). Main page > Useful Resources > Resources > Reproduction Fee Schedule. The site has other useful information.
Over the past three weeks, I received four inquiries for corporate or commercial photography services.
One request was: “We need a photographer for a conference in Toronto. We don’t have all the details yet but we need your price asap.”
The second: “We are a construction company and we’re looking to have professional photographs taken of an upcoming project. Could you please provide a basic outline of your pricing and what it includes.”
The third: “We’re looking for a photographer for tomorrow from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM. What do you charge?”
The fourth request, to cover a corporate event, included only the date, time and location. When I phoned to ask for more information, the public relations person said she couldn’t give out any details, she didn’t know what pictures they wanted, and she didn’t know how the pictures were going to be used. But she needed a quote as soon as possible.
Continue reading →
The photo assignment has been completed and the finished pictures and invoice have been sent to the customer. But for whatever reason, the customer’s plans have changed and they now want to reduce the usage or even cancel usage altogether.
Should you, the photographer, reduce the original license fee and send a new invoice?
Perhaps the customer originally requested a five-year license for some business portraits but their plans changed and now they want only a one-year license. Maybe the customer initially wanted a license for sales brochures and web use but now they’ve decided to go web only. Or perhaps the work included a license for magazine advertising but the customer cancelled their advertising campaign.
In the previous post, it was mentioned that some professional photographers will list their creative fee and licensing fee separately while others will combine the two fees into one number. Which method is better?
Combining the two fees:
• Some customers find a single fee easier to understand.
• The client doesn’t know how much each fee contributes to the total. This allows the photographer more wiggle room if they have to negotiate the creative or licensing fees.
• The client doesn’t know how much each fee contributes to the total. The photographer can benefit when relicensing the picture since the client doesn’t know what the original license fee was.
When estimating and pricing photography, commercial photographers base their price on the combination of a creative fee (also called a photography fee) and a licensing fee (also called a usage fee). Some photographers will list these two fees separately while others will combine the two into one number.
The creative or photography fee depends on the complexity of the assignment, the time involved, the photographer’s talent and experience, and the photographer’s business overhead.
The licensing or usage fee depends on how the client intends to use the finished photography.
Continue reading →
