Clients You Need For Your Business

Clients You Need For Your Business

By William Lulow

I literally cannot count the number of times I have had to negotiate with prospective clients over my fees. Many of the clients I have had over the years have been those who really didn’t know what was involved in a photographic assignment. Many times I have had to teach them. There have also been times when I have had clients who were used to buying photography and sometimes educated me as to what they were expecting. Mostly, though they didn’t know what commercial photography costs.

The ones who are used to buying photography are the kinds of clients you want and need for your business to grow. You have to be speaking the same language and you shouldn’t have to do too much “hand holding” when it comes to what each of you expect from the other. Clients have to be clear as to what they want for their needs and photographers have to be equally clear about what the client needs as well. Without that basic understanding, you will be working at cross purposes and may have to wind up spending way too much time on the project.

Clients who say things like “I only need one shot, so it shouldn’t take much time,” are just ignorant about the photographic process. You begin with having the necessary years of experience and photographic knowledge to be able to shoot a commercial job. You then have to have years of experience working with various types of equipment so that you are prepared to give the client what they need in terms of images and service.

Here: Well-known makeup and hair stylist Jill Harth applies finishing touches to portrait subject Patricia Vaccarino. 

Then, there is the execution of the job itself requiring the photographer to be professional, show up on time and otherwise be able to solve whatever problems may arise. Commercial photographic assignments usually involve a “day rate” plus whatever expenses might be required. The day rate is what the photographer charges for his or her time for actually shooting pictures. Expenses might include things like: travel, computer post-processing, assistants, stylists, special backgrounds, set construction, special props and anything else not included in the actual shooting time. Typically, this might include items such as: location scouting, location van (for fashion shoots), special filters, equipment rental such as special lenses or equipment, studio rental, personnel fees, other labor such as delivery and catering for all-day assignments.

So hopefully, from this you get the idea that commercial photographs are seldom simple “point-and-shoot” affairs. They require pre-production work AND post-production work. Clients who understand all of this are the ones you need. When you are building your business, these are the people you want. People to whom you don’t have to explain everything and who understand what goes in to producing quality images for advertising or any other commercial use.