The business side of photography
A photographer wrote to say:
“I don’t know why sending out job quotes still stresses me out too much after all these years. I tie too much emotion to my business at times.”
She went on to say that she wanted to learn to separate her business from her emotions because, she said, it’s not personal, it’s just business.
If you view your photography as art then perhaps you should also view your business as an art. And art tends to be emotional.
What every photographer knows, and seemingly few clients understand, is that every photo can be shot in many, many different ways and each can have a very different cost.
When looking to hire a photographer, a few clients will initially refuse to reveal the exact details of their photo project. Some other clients may not know the details or they haven’t fully decided what they want. Nevertheless, the photographer is expected to give a price for a job they know little about.
When you’re trying to figure out and price a photo job that doesn’t have complete information, the advice often given is that you should ask the client for their budget and use that as a guideline. But if you ask, “What’s your budget for this project,” the client may answer with something like:
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Earlier today, I received a call from a company asking for a quote to produce seven business portraits. After I sent my quote ($1,640 plus tax), the person said they had received quotes from three other photographers.
All four photographers, including myself, had quoted prices around $1,500. Unfortunately, the person continued, the company’s budget was “well under $500.”
Everyone has a camera built into their cell phone. Push a button and the picture appears instantly. Photography is seemingly free. This is the downside to digital cameras.
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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.
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The usual way for a commercial photographer to quote a job is to provide the client with a price for the requested photo assignment. But another method is to provide the potential client with a few variations of their proposed assignment along with the corresponding price for each variation.
Wedding photographers have always done this. For example, a wedding photographer might quote: $6,500 for full-day coverage plus a large album and a DVD; $3,500 for half-day coverage and one album; $1,500 for two hours coverage and an album of small prints.
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This past week, I turned down three jobs. :-(
Two jobs were turned down because their dates, six weeks from now, conflict with days that I’m holding for tentative assignments from another client. Two definite jobs turned down in favour of two possible jobs. What was that saying about “a bird in hand” ?
Perhaps photographers shouldn’t accept tentative jobs too far in the future, at least not without a deposit.
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