An Update On Figuring Out What To Charge For Photography

An Update On Figuring Out What To Charge For Photography

by William Lulow

Putting a price on your photographic services has always been a challenge. The best advice I’ve come up with is first to do some homework. You need to take a look at the kind of photography you do and examine carefully, how good you think you are at your job. If you’ve been working in photography for a while, if you’ve been an assistant in a busy studio and seen first-hand, how the business is run, if you’ve had a number of repeat clients (people who have come back to you for more than just a couple of assignments), if you are supremely confident about your ability to make photographs that have sold products or been used in magazines, newspapers, brochures and on the web, then you should be at the higher end of the pricing scale. Maybe not the top, but up there! If you have a busy studio in which you are shooting several times per week and at good day rates ($2,000 and up), then you have a good business. If you keep getting referrals for new business, if you are continually booking new shoots on a regular basis, then your prices should reflect your business.

If you are booked at least two full days of shooting each week, (translates into about  $4,000 per week or roughly a $160,000 yearly gross, based on 40 weeks a year of work, not including extras), that’s probably not enough to pay for rent, staff and living expenses in New York City, but it might just be enough in a smaller market. On the other hand, if you are booked five days each week, that will translate to a $400,000 yearly gross. That might be enough to own and operate a photographic studio in New York City. My experience has been though, that the five-day-per-week shooting schedule is not the norm at those prices. Also, don’t forget that even with a $400K-a-year business, you might be able to put half of that in your pocket after taxes and expenses. So, will $200,000 per year support the lifestyle you want? Can you send your kids to college with that income? Will it be enough to pay rent on your studio as well as enable you to live in a decent apartment or house, pay the commuting expenses as well as everything else?  That’s something we all have to figure out for ourselves. And don’t forget that most photographers who are sole proprietors (i.e., they are basically one-man/woman operations with assistants hired as needed), are not actually shooting five days per week. That kind of schedule is mostly for large studios that have clients with daily photographic needs. So, 40 booked weeks per year is almost unheard of. There are some highly successful wedding shooters who maybe book 35 to 40 weddings a year. But they are at the top of the list. This means that they are shooting almost every weekend. Some large wedding studios with multiple shooters will be booked 52 weekends a year as well as both Saturday and Sunday. But, this is almost impossible for one shooter. You have to provide yourself with some vacation time and take a rest once in a while to enjoy your family!

So, for the successful wedding photographer who charges say, $5000 for a wedding, and who spends at least 20 hours shooting and editing the shots, that translates to $250 per hour, not taking into account expenses. Let’s say that of that $5000, the photographer pays $400 to an assistant (or second shooter), $1000 on album cost (not including editing time), this now brings the hourly rate down to around $180 per hour. Now, of that $180, she would have to pay tax, rent on an office or studio, advertising costs as well as website design and maintenance, auto maintenance and purchase, computer purchase, phone bills, electricity costs, workmen’s comp insurance, other insurance as well as keeping equipment up to date, etc. All this has to be factored in to what you would ultimately charge. You should also do what’s called a “break even analysis,” which would let you know how much income you would need just to keep your door open.

These are just some of the things we need to consider when trying to figure out how to put a price on our artistic work.

If you are just starting out in the photography game, you have to take that into account as well. Obviously, you cannot charge what a well-known name can, but you must place a value on your artistic ability. Keep in mind that everything photographers do in creating their art has a value. Just because you are starting out, doesn’t mean that you have to work for free. As I said, you need to do your homework. Nowadays, you can find photographers whose work you admire on the internet and try to see what they charge for their services. You’ll need to know what they provide and how they deliver the final product. This may entail getting someone to call them, discuss a possible job and try to get their prices. Some photographers publish their prices on their websites. More often than not, they don’t. This is because they usually need to meet with a prospective client to find out what they are willing to pay and what exactly, the job entails.  Most photographers bill on a “day rate plus expenses.” This means a fee for the photographer’s time and expertise, plus extra for transportation, assistants, digital post-processing, uploads and downloads as well as flash drive burning and delivery. Extra fees might include: stylists, location scouts, additional rental equipment, as well as studio rentals. These items should be detailed on your invoice.

These days, many clients don’t pay what they used to. There is no film, no processing, no tests, no Polaroids. Much of what it used to cost to produce a professional assignment has been eliminated by the digital revolution. So, photographers need to try to figure out what their time is worth based on the items I have detailed above.

I hope you can easily see from this that doing a shot for $50 is not even feasible for a serious photographer/businessman. People who say things like “This shot will only take an hour,” really do not understand what goes into producing a photograph. They don’t realize that unless you live in their house, it will cost you something just to get to where the shot needs to be done. Even if you go by subway, it’s still going to cost something. So, the $50 is now less transportation costs. Now, in the digital age, you will have to spend some time uploading the image to your computer, then do some manipulation in Photoshop ($700 program) and then email the image or burn it do a flash drive for this client. So, now you’ve put in say, two hours for that $50, less the transportation cost. We are now down to around $30 that you get to put in your pocket for the two hours. That’s $15 per hour. It’s above the minimum wage, but not by much. And, you still haven’t factored in the cost of your equipment and your learning curve!

I would say that the minimum fee to charge for any professional image should be $300. This is for one basic shot that should take no more than an hour to shoot. If I do a simple still life (product shot) on white no-seam paper, I have to:

• Have client send product or travel to pick it up
• Clear a space in the studio
• Set up a table top
• Put up the paper background
• Set up all appropriate lights
• Do a series of test shots
• Adjust the product or decorate the set with appropriate props (if called for)
• Download the images to the computer
• Analyze and manipulate the shots as needed in Photoshop & Lightroom
• Size the images for the intended use
• Burn images to a flash drive or send them to client via Dropbox or other FTP program (usually means maintaining an account. These days, around $10/month).
• Make sure the images are acceptable
• Write up an invoice for transmittal
• Wait for the check to arrive. (For this, you often have to be a bank because some clients take more than 30 days to pay. This means that you are, in essence, lending them the money).

So, before you accept those really low-paying jobs, make sure you understand how photographers arrive at their pricing schedules, what’s involved in a top-notch photo shoot and what you have to do to compete in this market.

Now with nearly 40 years of experience, I have seen my business reduced by quite a bit over recent years, largely due to the proliferation of digital cameras. As I have said many times, the whole process of making images has suddenly gotten a whole lot easier for many people. I am not complaining. I have retooled my studio completely for digital work and done the appropriate amount of computer training so that I can manipulate the software easily. I still wind up with a substantial income most years, but overall, it is not what it used to be. I have seen photographers who are not as devoted to the art form as I am, simply close down their businesses because it was just getting too expensive to keep their studio doors open and they weren’t getting the bookings they have had in the past. Clients come and go in this business and there is often no telling why. I have bid on several nice jobs this year (2019) and have gotten very few of them so far. The reasons for this are myriad. Maybe my fees are too high. Or maybe some of these people had other photographers they liked better. Or, perhaps the parameters of the job changed and now their companies can’t afford to spend money on quality photographs. Who knows? It is very difficult to fathom sometimes, why one photographer is chosen over another.

Being a lifelong photographer though, I take pictures most of the time whether I get paid or not. It is something I have devoted my life to and I’m not ready to stop yet. The bottom line is that any artist has to pursue his or her art no matter what. It’s not only a matter of money. If you consider your particular art an expression of who you are, why would you stop? You must continue to do your art even if you can’t actually make as good a living from it as you used to. That’s what artists do. You might just have to rely on something else to support your family, however, unless you have managed to put money away for retirement. But for people like me, retirement is really not an option. I have always looked forward to making more photographs for myself in addition to making them for clients. So, I really can’t see myself not shooting, unless I reach a point where I physically can’t continue. That would be it. Otherwise, there is always tomorrow!