When should I begin charging for my work?

DavidS · April 28, 2007

I am being asked to shoot a fair number of parties and events. At some point I would like to start charging for this. What do I need to improve upon with my photography before I would consider this? I am also considering doing informal portraits of kids and possibly adults at some point. I definitely need more experience here, as I have primarily shot my kids.

What are your thoughts?

P.S. I have no illusion of quitting my day job.

dragon300zx · April 28, 2007

David,

There are a lot of different ideas on this. Some people say charge full prices right up front. Some People say until you have more exp, shoot for the practice.

Do you know your gear? Do you know the basics? Can you get the shot and make your clients happy? If you can answer yes to those questions charge them now. If you want to give them a discount on stuff that you are not comfortable with completely then simply state:

"My normal rate is $$$$$$$ but I don't have as much exp as I would like in this area so if you want me to do the shoot I will give you a $$$$ discount as long as you understand this will also be a learning exp for me at the same time."

Or you can do the shoots and only charge them for pictures they order.

In my own sales and marketing though I have found the more confident I am in myself, the more I show my pictures, and the more I ask a fair price for my work and don't waiver, the more business I book.

If you feel you are ready to do the shooting, if they want you to do the shooting, then you are ready to be paid for it.

As far as what you need to do in order to improve your photography..... Shoot, shoot, shoot, study, shoot, shoot, shoot. Practice gets you as close to perfect as you can be. And watch your metering and your histograms.

medallion · April 29, 2007

I dunno but you are a damn good photographer.

rosselliot · April 29, 2007

I believe your style should be developed and tweaked a little more, and that will come with time, only. you can read as many books as you want, but time and practice is all that will bring that about. either way, I think you should start charging NOW, why are you doing this for free? No photographer should ever sell their work for free; you should take pride in your work and let your client know you take pride in it as well by charging. even if it's not much, you should charge at least to cover your time (including editing time) for minimum wage (at least $6.00 in my opinion). so let say you stay at a party for 3 hours and you expect to spend about 2.5 hours editing all of those photos - - - that's just $33.00 and I feel most people will find that that's a great price. then, when you become more reknown and your style improves, you can increase your prices.

my opinion.

- RE

photogmomma · April 29, 2007

Here's what I wish I had done after I had enough experience under my belt to even think about doing this: I wish I had gotten a Pro Smugmug account, set my prices at very reasonable rates and then protected them and watermarked them. (Actually, that wans't all possible the way I wanted to do it when I started wanting to charge, but...)

Why do it that way?

You can figure out a professional flow that works well for you. (For me it's shoot, discard bad shots, edit in Lightroom all decent shots, upload, allow ordering, fully edit only the ordered ones, get my money! !)
You can see what image they LIKE and which ones are ordered. Even if your prices are lower, you'll get a good feel - although it might be skewed a bit as they may not order as many when your prices are higher.
You'll get more comfortable with charging
You won't resent all the time you put in - you'll get excited to see a little bit of $$ come in to cover a few of your expenses
You'll see that people ARE willing to pay for a good photographer! While I think you can improve, I've seen you improve and ask for a LOT of feedback - and that's the only way to get better. And you deserve to get paid for your time.

As time goes on and you get more people asking for your time, make them pay for it. Both with a sitting fee AND higher prices for prints. Why? If you give them away for free or very little, you'll get a LOT of requests - and I've found that people who get a LOT for free dont' always appreciate it and can be really tough to work with. If you price yourself higher later on, you'll find that the people who hire you truly understand what you're giving them - they'll be happy to pay you, and you'll feel good that you're providing a good service.

Don't be afraid to put your pricing on your site and send people to it. If they question why you're all of a sudden charging, you can do something like this: http://tippiepics.smugmug.com/gallery/2157565 (I had a LOT of family members ask why I was charging them and I just put this together and it helped a LOT. They started to GET why I did it.) This link may also help you feel more comfortable with what you charge.

Hope all that helps! Took me a LONG time to get comfortable charging for what I did.... Hope it doesn't take you as long!

Good luck!

johng · April 30, 2007

David,

Absolutely start charging RIGHT NOW. While it's fine to give friends and family a discount don't undervalue your time or abilities. Personally I would suggest a $10 per hour rate as a bare minimum for friends/family - so 3 hour event plus 2 hours processing = $50. That's just for your time - this assumes you're selling the prints on top of that.

DavidS · April 30, 2007

Thanks Gary, Akiva, Ross, Andi and John. I appreciate the advise and input. A special thanks to Gary and Andi for the lengthy and detailed responses. They were very helpful.

Mrs F · May 2, 2007

Hi David,
I'm in a similar position so this thread is very interesting to me. I have no intention of quiting my day job. However, I'm starting to get calls for shooting portraits and events from people I've never met before. Everyone that calls me has said they've seen my work somewhere so I figure they know what kind of work they're getting when they hire me. I still consider myself a kindergartener in the photography world, but my time is worth something, so I charge my "clients" a fee up front.

I've never watermarked my photos, but after seeing some of these comments, I'm reconsidering. I put in a ton of time in PP a LOT of shots.

evoryware · May 2, 2007

This is a really expensive and time consuming hobby.
I've spent a lot of time and money from my "day job" to buy stuff for this hobby. Then I spent a lot of time taking pictures even more money giving away free prints to family and friends and co-workers.
I'm finished doing stuff for free now. If people wants prints, then they pay or I don't print. Prices are always subject to change.

LiquidAir · May 2, 2007

If you are being asked to go out of your way to take pictures, you should be charging. If I am going to a friend's party and I happen to take some pictures I don't charge. If someone specifically asks me to come to an event to take pictures I do charge.

In general, I break my work into two categories: commissioned and non-commissioned. I always charge in some way for commissioned work albeit sometimes it ends up being more of an informal barter than a cash price (an evening of looking after my 3 year old in trade for shooting your christmas card portrait? Sure!) On non-commissioned work, my fee structrure varies quite a bit depending on what I think the shot is worth and who the customer is. For friends and family I usually make the photos available on Smugmug with no markup. Aquaintances and strangers typically pay a moderate standard markup for prints of unreleased photos.

DavidS · May 3, 2007

LiquidAir wrote:

If you are being asked to go out of your way to take pictures, you should be charging. If I am going to a friend's party and I happen to take some pictures I don't charge. If someone specifically asks me to come to an event to take pictures I do charge.

In general, I break my work into two categories: commissioned and non-commissioned. I always charge in some way for commissioned work albeit sometimes it ends up being more of an informal barter than a cash price (an evening of looking after my 3 year old in trade for shooting your christmas card portrait? Sure!) On non-commissioned work, my fee structrure varies quite a bit depending on what I think the shot is worth and who the customer is. For friends and family I usually make the photos available on Smugmug with no markup. Aquaintances and strangers typically pay a moderate standard markup for prints of unreleased photos.

Thanks for your feedback. I like your idea of bartering with friends and family. Depending on how close they were, I would either barter, offer a discount or do it for free. My wifes parents for example do so much for us, I would never consider charging them or bartering. I also do some work for a foundation and will never charge them. I view it as a contribution to their cause. It could also help get my name out, but that is not why I do it. If I do this, I would be charging acquaintences and strangers. I am looking at what others charge on DGrin and what other photographers in the local market are charging.

thegridrunner · August 7, 2007

well, I'm new to DSLR photography (2 months) but I do have experience with film photography. For a three hour party, I wouldn't charge less than $150 (and that only because I am new to this format) in six months, my rate would jump to $200 and in one year $250. (I think this is a fair price for a hobbyist photographer) To me, my time is money and I consider it precious.

If I was a pro (2~4 years of continuous shooting, you should be real good by now and have a lot more contacts and maybe operating this as a legit side business), basic price would be $450 ~ $600 and more if the clients were loaded.
Remember, you paid a bundle for your equipment and should be compensated.
Of course, this is just my opinion but I think it is fair (actually, maybe on the low side).

~Jan~ · August 9, 2007

I just started doing photos for friends and family and have recently branched off to people I don't know via word of mouth. I started charging on my 2nd client. Granted I charged like 50 cents to a dollar over cost per print at first, and the prices are still low. But, I'm make anywhere between $30-100 per session, and that makes me feel better about the HOURS I spend working on the photos and helps cover the cost of a pro account here.

DavidS · August 10, 2007

Thanks for the advice Patrick and Jan.

When should I begin charging for my work?

Comments