[Gary Bagshawe]

Going Pro part 5…….
Pricing.
I see a lot of posts on the forum asking what should people charge for taking photographs, well there is not a definitive answer to that but I will try to explain what I have done in the past.
With picture agencies it is a no brainer, they tell you what you are getting and if you have enough images with them you will get a steady income stream from them, that said I would tell everybody who can be bothered to read this not to send your images to microstock agencies, these are the ones that pay a few pence for each use of an image. The main reason for this is that if you send images to them you can not send them to a “proper” stock agency as well where you may get paid £200.00 for a single use of an image.
Ok so back to pricing, It depends on where about in the world you are and what your local market will stand. Find out what other photographers in your area are charging and for what. Look at the quality of their work and make damn sure you are as good as they are if your going to be charging around the same price.
One of the issues that seems to crop up on the forum is that of copyright. Well to be honest im not going to go in depth here but if a band calls me up to photograph them I really cant be arsed to ask what and where the photographs are going to appear, it is to much like hard work On average I will charge around £200.00 with all images on a CD/DVD ,(File info included with photographers name etc) the same for model portfolio shots but include 5 prints in the price, extra prints would be charged at A5 £8.00 A4 £16.00 and A3 £32.00.
I get asked a lot by the models for all the images on a disk, this is a tricky one as I would lose print orders so my usual reply is that if you order a print of a shot then you can also have it on a disk.
I did a Public relations shoot back in February in the snow outdoors, Oh what fun that was, It took me about 30 minutes to get the shots and about the same to process and burn to DVD, for this I charged £120.00 which is not a great deal of money but that is what the market will stand, the following week a similar company asked me to do a similar shoot but it involved a bit more time travelling etc, I quoted £175.00 and was told that It was not within their budget to go that far on price. So I didn’t do the shoot.
Lesson learned, PR shots in and around Sheffield £120.00.
There is a lot talked about hourly rates but on many jobs it isn’t possible to price them based on an hourly rate, as a starting point I charge £120.00 for the first hour and then £75.00 hour after that, but this is only a very rough guide.
For weddings the sky is the limit, I know photographers who charge upwards of £5000.00 to shoot a wedding, having done a fair few myself I can understand why this is. However a more realistic figure would be around the £1000.00 mark including 20 A5 prints but not the album. Many people suck their teeth at this price and tell me that they can get a guy to do it for £400.00. Well why are they still talking to me then?
Really weddings are hard work and the post processing that has to go into it takes a lot of time as well, but if you can deal with it it can become a very lucrative source of income, If I pushed myself and advertising into doing weddings I would probably only have to work 6 months of the year but They really are not my kinda thing so only do certain ones.
Well the above is by no means a definitive guide to pricing but it may give you an insight as to how I price things up. If you have any questions about pricing things up then either pm me or drop the question in this thread and will try to answer as best I can. Cheers Gary.

[Markulous]

Excellent series - very informative and useful!

[sawdust]

Fantastic info I have a few jobs in the pipe line and now have the confedance to go and do them thanks Gary
I through five balls and won four coconuts at a victorian fair once

[Gary Bagshawe]

Originally Posted by sawdust

Fantastic info I have a few jobs in the pipe line and now have the confedance to go and do them thanks Gary
I through five balls and won four coconuts at a victorian fair once

good for you!

[sawdust]

A must read bump

[Summerleft]

Quick Q Gary lol at the minute Ive got a few things going on but not enough to give up the awful temp work, what kind of things are the bread and butter jobs? as you said stock agencies and weddings maybe? but anything else? I would worry about the amount of pics needed to get anything decent from the stock agencies , are there any agencies that come recommended?

[Gary Bagshawe]

www.photographers direct.com are a very good stock agency, only take 20 percent and have a list of regular requests for photographs that people are actually looking for.
As for bread and butter stuff..... portraits, weddings (yuk) , model portfolio stuff and public relations photo's, may be worth going along to a business network meeting. These people are all business people with the power to buy and usually meet once a month either for breakfast or lunch and exchange ideas and services.

[Summerleft]

thanks for that , ive just registered with PD and sent some work, now will see if i get accepted :S

[Summerleft]

o got accepted so my pics arent so crap lol