I learned a VERY important lesson

Stacey L · December 7, 2005

I've been "lucky" that alot of my friends like my work and want me to do stuff for them for free. :rolleyes Up until just recently, I was fine with that because I was nice, but now I'm serious about photography as a whole and trying to build my portfolio and client base. Too make a long story short, one of my "friends" asked me to take some belated graduation pictures a couple of weeks ago. In her defense, she did ask me what I would charge for something like this. I told her that what we could do in this instance was to just do the shoot and if she liked what I did...we could discuss a price (I think you all are probably reading the writing on the wall by now). I took about 50-60 pictures of her some good, some fooling around. It's been a little over a week now and I haven't heard word one from her ( I've been emailing and left a voice mail message). I've already sent her the links to all of her pics and there's no way to really tell if she bought any at smugmugs dirt cheap price

.

Has this ever happened to any of you? Should I just let it go and be glad for the lesson I learned or pursue it further?

gus · December 7, 2005

I never mix friends & money unless i am prepared to lose possibly both. If they are a good friend then to me i would accept their difference & drop it.

Stacey L · December 7, 2005

Thanks, Humungus! I have to ask myself if it's all worth it. I have to ask myself if I really want a friend like this (NO). But you are right, mixing business and friendship does not work well. Instead of charging money, I tried to barter that was a disaster, too. One friend wanted me to take some pictures of her and her dog outside with the fall colors. We went to a nice park in the DC area and out of the 60+ I took about 20-30 she really liked. The shoot was about 1 1/2 hours and with PP time I spent about 3 hours total. I asked her to buy me a $55.00 upgrade for a software program insted of money and she thought that that price was "too high". Never again.

Humungus wrote:

I never mix friends & money unless i am prepared to lose possibly both. If they are a good friend then to me i would accept their difference & drop it.

StevenV · December 7, 2005

No prophet is well-received in his own land;
No photographer is well-paid in his own circle of friends.

--=--

That's one of the hardest things about "going pro" - the change from "sure, I'd love to" to "well, you know I used to do this just as a hobby but now it's a business and I'll have to charge you."

I'll toss this out. If you decide to give your friends (church, school...) a discount, put it in writing. Don't say "sure, I'll do it for half price" and leave it at that. Instead say "you're my friend so this first time I can give you a discount" and then put it in writing. Give them an invoice with the full price shown and then a seperate line item with the discount clearly marked as a one-time deal. That way their expectations are set properly; you're a business and you expect to be dealt with as such, and the next time it'll cost more.

Otherwise, once you've given them a great deal then they expect that's their price forever.

Stacey L · December 7, 2005

You hit it right on the head, Steven. I think next time what I'll do is ask them to call around and get 3 quotes from photographers in the area who's work they like and ask them how much they would charge for xyz. I live in DC where you can throw a rock and hit a photographer so I'm sure the price they get will make them faint outright. If I under cut them by 25% I'm still making out good!

StevenV wrote:

No prophet is well-received in his own land;

No photographer is well-paid in his own circle of friends.

--=--

That's one of the hardest things about "going pro" - the change from "sure, I'd love to" to "well, you know I used to do this just as a hobby but now it's a business and I'll have to charge you."

I'll toss this out. If you decide to give your friends (church, school...) a discount, put it in writing. Don't say "sure, I'll do it for half price" and leave it at that. Instead say "you're my friend so this first time I can give you a discount" and then put it in writing. Give them an invoice with the full price shown and then a seperate line item with the discount clearly marked as a one-time deal. That way their expectations are set properly; you're a business and you expect to be dealt with as such, and the next time it'll cost more.

Otherwise, once you've given them a great deal then they expect that's their price forever.

smhs.images · June 21, 2006

what to charge???
Just wanted to throw my two cents in. I am always being asked by friends to shoot their kids or dogs, whatever. Usually they offer to pay me but I wouldn't know what to charge since it isn't what I do, much less what to charge a friend. And it is very time consuming. What I ususally do is blow them off.

But I have been trying to figure out a fair price and timeline if asked again. I figure the session would last 1-2 hours worth at least $50 for my time. And the post processing is where the cost really comes in. I am thinking I could comp the session and just charge for post but what to charge? Figure cost per hour? Any suggestions?
Thanks

By the way I like the invoice/contract idea. It tells them that although we are friends, this is my business!!!

scooter78666 · June 21, 2006

Stacey, you should see the trouble my wife, who is a professional seamstress, gets herself into over this very issue....how to do things for friends without getting imposed on by them. She is not tough enough nor straightforward enough with them at the outset, which is the root of her problem. I remind her that our doctor, dentist, auto mechanic,etc etc etc, all have friends too. Being 'nice' and being straightforward are not mutually exclusive, EXCEPT in the eyes of a "sponge". Who needs sponges for friends? (This sermon is straight out of my bible which I preach to my wife from. lol)

Stacey L wrote:

I've been "lucky" that alot of my friends like my work and want me to do stuff for them for free. Up until just recently, I was fine with that because I was nice, but now I'm serious about photography as a whole and trying to build my portfolio and client base. Too make a long story short, one of my "friends" asked me to take some belated graduation pictures a couple of weeks ago.

Nikolai · June 21, 2006

Stacey,
My approach to "shooting for friends" is rather simplistic, but it works (for me, that is).

If this is something rather easy AND I'd do it on my own for whatever reason (for my own portfolio, to name the reason #1:-) I'd go there.

Not the weddings or 200 people receptions (BDays, ba{r/t}mitzvas, etc.) of course, here I'm pretty rigid (see below). "We'd like to invite you to our XYZ, oh, and btw, do you think you can bring your camera?" does not fly anymore. Been there, done that.:):

In any case, even if the shooting is free, prints are not. With SM Pro account I can set up a proper margin level. So if they like the results - they know where to buy them. If, for whatever reason, they decide not to - that's fine, too (remember, I had my own reasons:-). I don't even bug them with reminders.

If it's a large event (like the one mentioned above) or something I don't have my own reason to go to, I simply name the price in advance, which may or may not include certain amount of prints.

Didn't lose a friend over this, that's for sure.:D

HTH

dragon300zx · June 21, 2006

Stacey the real lesson hear applies across the board, with friends, family, and regular customers.

NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER, DELIVER USABLE PRODUCT UNLESS PAID IN FULL. Also never special order (prints are special order) unless materials cost is paid in full with reciept acknowledging balance owed.

Friend or not you never let them have the option to see a full size photo that they can copy off the internet, you never let them get the option to order it at a discounted price from someone else, and you never wait till after you work to discuss price. For both the situations you discribed this was the real problem. Discuss the price first let them know what the costs will be either on a per print basis, package basis, or shooting fee's if you are gonna charge them. Tell them if they don't like the photos you won't charge them. Then when the photos are ready, show them to them on a computer that isn't on the internet (IE you go to their house with a cd and show them on their computer and take your cd home making sure none of the photo's are copied to their computer, or on your laptop, etc), or you take print proofs to show them. That way they don't get copies, nothing they can download, etc, unless they have paid up.

I have wedding clients from last year who went ala' cart and still haven't ordered prints cause they haven't had the money to yet (bride lost her job after the wedding). But I know they will order eventually cause they can't get decent prints off the photo's on the web even if they find the security loophole to steal them which is highly doubtfull, and because they keep calling. Business is business. No pay, no product.

Nikolai · June 21, 2006

Shay has anwered this long time ago

smhs.images wrote:

..what to charge? Figure cost per hour? Any suggestions?

Just honestly answer to yourself WHAT is the price you'd like to get - and name it (first time/friend discounts may be considered).
If you have trouble figuring that out - use standard binary search method:
Zero (free) is a natural lower limit, everybody is clear on this one.
Name some outrageous amount for the top one, just to start with. Say, $10K for one hour of shooting a dog. You'd do that, wouldn't you? (I know, I would:-).
Now, ask yourself - would you do it for $5K? Perhaps yes.
$2.5K? Yeah, sure, (s)he's a good friend after all.
Now, how does $1,250 sound? Still OK?
$625? Hmm, mmmmay be, she helped me with my kids last fall..
$312? Not sure, I'm kinda busy next week... (Attention - you got a new low limit instead of boring "free":-)
OK, up the ante - $469? (it's a middle between $312 and $625). Is this OK?
How about $390 (this, again is the middle between your current NO level of $312 and YES level of $469)?
....
I hope you got my drift:-)
....
Couple more of such steps (we called them "iterations" in programming) - and you would know your presonal, case-specifc price with the accuracy of a few bucks (or even a few pennies:-)..

HTH

Nandita · June 21, 2006

Stacey,

Like Gus, I never mix business with friendship. I started out with freebies to friends (incl. 8x10s for framing). My thinking: They'd frame the pictures and I'd get word-of-mouth advertising. Plus, I could build my portfolio.

It worked great. I got lots of calls from potential clients. But they thought that like my friends, they too would be getting free services. Uh...I don't think so.

I took it on to build my portfolio and hone my skills but I'm done. People have an entitlement mentality and it is emotionally exhausting to keep explaining that my talent, equipment, time and post-processing skills are all worth money. Plus, all this time spent on them is time away from my hubby, my three kids and my dog. It just wasn't worth it.

Now, I have a basic minimum sitting fee (I love Nikolai's way of arriving at the "right" amount) and will not budge from it. Those who appreciate that quality is worth paying for will understand. There are only two friends for whom I'd do free stuff...the rest will have to get over it.

I'm sorry you learned that your friend is a user. But hey! One less person to stress you out, right?

Take care.

rosselliot · June 22, 2006

I've had the same problems...My friends seem to think I have nothing better to do BUT take free pictures...but one thing you have to make sure not to do, is give your friends a discount, cause the first time you get someone who is your "friend" but not as close to you as the one you gave the discount to, then they'll want to know 1) where their discount is and 2) why they're not your friend like the other is. either way, maybe it's just my opinion of the maledramatic world, but I don't give discounts because I'm afraid my other, less close, friends will expect one too.
Just my thoughts.

- RE

Nikolai · June 22, 2006

Re

rosselliot wrote:

I've had the same problems...My friends seem to think I have nothing better to do BUT take free pictures...but one thing you have to make sure not to do, is give your friends a discount, cause the first time you get someone who is your "friend" but not as close to you as the one you gave the discount to, then they'll want to know 1) where their discount is and 2) why they're not your friend like the other is. either way, maybe it's just my opinion of the melodramatic world, but I don't give discounts because I'm afraid my other, less close, friends will expect one too.
Just my thoughts.

- RE

There is an easy way to work around the discounts:-)
Once you have figured the amount you want to get, also think of a pertinent discount (i.e. the one that would suit this particular case), then revert it, thus making your price (much) higher, name this higher price, and they "make a favour" of applying the discount, getting back to the original amount you wanted to get in the first place..
YMMV, etc.
HTH

Dick on Aruba · June 28, 2006

Hi Stacey,

In my good old film days I had a similar thing with friends & family, till I was asked to do something for a friend of a friend...I suggested they pay processing cost and materials like albums and things, thus no labor because it was a "friend of a friend"

Long story short: I came to deliver the pictures in albums and was asking for refund of only the material cost (of which I had all the receipts). It took me almost 2 months to get my lousy $80.00 back

From that day foreward I have a fixed price regardless whoever you are. It's only going for free as a gift for a special happening AND you must be my direct family AND I feel like it. Anybody else has to pay!

As soon they now you charge, they leave you in peace unless they willing to pay.

Dick.

I learned a VERY important lesson

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