Photo: magnumphotos.com [ad_1]
How much does a photographer charge for a shoot? This question creeps up doubtfully even on long-term practitioners in the industry, not to mention novice photographers who constantly ask it.
What price to put? Recently I saw an ad on Instagram, the text of which was something like this: “Last month of filming at the old price, from September the price will be XXX — make sure to sign up.” This already opens up the next level of questions: when to raise the price, how to raise it, on what basis? Photography is work. The photography itself is just the tip of the iceberg. There is also logistics, time to work with photographs, the cost of equipment and much, much more.
So how much do you charge for filming? We understand the components of this complex financial calculation.
Photo: magnumphotos.comThere are no divisions here
There are no ranks, as in chess. That is why there are no exact figures: I cannot say that a person who shoots for one year should take exactly X rubles, and who shoots for more than five years XX rubles, the owner of a full-frame camera one amount, and the crop user another. No. So it doesn’t work.
The final cost that you will specify is made up of many factors. It must be made up of many factors. Just pointing your finger at the sky, naming any price, it is unreasonable. Rip off the price from photographer N from Instagram — too. Let’s try to take a creative profession and, as the classic called, “to believe harmony with algebra.”
Adding but not subtracting
What, in the bottom line, should make up the final cost of the photographer’s work? You expected to see here some specific amounts or terms with a pledged value, but they will not be. There will be logic that can be adopted.
Photo: digital-photography-school.comI took approximate and very general categories that everyone can try on for themselves. Based on them, as well as a number of subjective parameters, you will be able to estimate the cost of your work. When forming the price list for your services, it is worth laying:
- the cost of the camera, lenses and other equipment that you spent money on. You bought this technique, which costs some money, and it would be nice to recoup it. The more expensive the arsenal, the higher the quality and the more it should affect your value as a creative unit;
- development spending. An expensive camera is one thing, but you can buy one and shoot for years doing the same thing. That is why seniority is not always an indicator. Aunt Lyuba in the next entrance works as a hairdresser and has been doing this for decades. But where is she and where are the top haircut masters? Therefore, experience is good, but it is necessary to upgrade your skills. All kinds of courses, workshops, master classes, paid lectures, and even specialized literature and photo books that are not cheap should be included in this column. All this increases your skill and makes you stronger. And again: higher quality — higher your price as a photographer;
- logistics. The point, it would seem, is not so important, but sometimes it shows itself. One thing is street shooting or shooting in a studio in the city center, quite another — albeit rare, but shooting outside the city or in a hard-to-reach location. Basic transport costs within the city are also worth considering;
- finally, the most important and extensive: the time of your shooting, the number of photos and the time of working with them. Someone shoots exactly an hour on a timer, and someone takes several hours. Someone throws presets, and someone manually works on each photo. Everything has the right to exist, but only you know how much effort you spend on all this. Therefore, it is important to take this into account, without adjusting to anyone. And this can be discussed with the client on the shore: by specifying the number of photos at the exit and the shooting timing.
* Separately, I would indicate additional costs that, with an adequate approach, should be paid by the client. Namely: studio rental feeif it’s a studio shoot, and payment for consumablesif it’s on film. Such moments are important to stipulate in advance.
Photo: abmcollege.comConverting to specific numbers
The initial data is clear, but how to take them into account is not very. You know the cost of equipment, imagine how much you spend on transport and the rare purchase of advanced courses, you even calculated the time for working on photographs … And what to do with all this? Therefore, I made a reservation about dry calculation, which cannot replace the component of creativity.
Let’s say you once spent money on a top-end camera with a fleet of fast lenses. You want to recoup these costs and set a high price. This is fundamentally wrong! After all, you do not take into account the most important thing — photos. This is the most important criterion.
The criterion is subjective, but there is a good exercise that will help you understand how much you cost as a photographer:
See what others are doing. The very time where you can not only focus on them, but even need to. Open Instagram, VK, services on free ad services. Look for photographers in your city and see what they have to offer.
There is such a thing as the average market value, and you need to find it. Now try this data on yourself: how many hours of work do these photographers offer? How fast do they ship photos? How much are they giving? What examples of their work do they show? How do you like it, are you subjectively stronger or not so much?
Yes, everyone shoots in their own style, in different and different ways. Find photos that are most similar to you and close in artistic value. Here, take them into account.
Now it’s up to the small, to take into account the costs. Let’s imagine a hypothetical example that will clearly show how to do this: you found similar photographers, you saw the price. But, let’s say the photographer works for exactly one and a half hours, and you are ready to shoot two or three. So it should already cost more. The photographer writes that he has a FF camera? And you! We skip. Does he/she give pictures in a week? you within ten days. Roughly the same. But in the text of a person, 40 photos are indicated at the output, while you sometimes give away even under 100, taking into account the shooting time. This is another call. But with color correction you are bad. When a person writes that he does it skillfully, and the attached pictures speak about it. A reason to take a step back.
Thus, you will understand in what you are stronger and in what you are inferior to other photographers in the market of your city. And you can also subjectively estimate how much your work would cost.
The most important thing, as when tailoring a suit, is to do the final fitting: do you feel comfortable with this price? Enough? Justifies the investment of you, skills, technology, time?
The amount you receive should motivate you to develop further. And if you fall into the “have time to exhale before the next shooting” state, then something is going wrong.
Photo: wikimedia.comBonus: How to Raise Your Price When You Already…
When you have already grown out of the old, like a teenager out of clothes. It’s not enough already, because you gained experience, there was enough filming, the results are pleasing, and you recently bought a new camera.
It was not by chance that I remembered the advertisement I saw recently: such an action should not be sudden and cause rejection among customers or, even worse, among regular customers and acquaintances. This should be done gradually, openly and, importantly, explaining to people why you are doing it. The same experience, backed up by quality, growth, perhaps even courses and new equipment, is something that the hairdresser Aunt Lyuba cannot boast of, but you can. You can even write a separate text about it in your social networks. Adequate people will not only understand, but also support.
At this stage, you do not need to look at what others are doing and how much they are asking for it. You are an established unit with a stated market value. Look at yourself in the past and evaluate how much you have grown compared to your previous self and how much higher the price of you as a photographer should be now. Ask yourself the same question: all things considered, what price would I be comfortable with?
[ad_2]