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01/10/2005 10:58:50 AM · #1 |
I've been asked to shoot a series of portraits for a group of graduating executive MBA students. There are 25 people, and I would need to shoot about 2-3 shots of each. All shots would be taken the same, kind of like the typical school portraits when we were kids. There would be no prints to make, as they want to receive the shots in electronic format, and someone else will take these and make a photomosaic with them. I would have to travel about 15-20 minutes each way to get to the school.
I have a studio strobe and reflector which should be sufficient for the job.
This is probably pretty basic, but would love some advice as to what would be a reasonable price to charge. Thanks.
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01/10/2005 11:17:21 AM · #2 |
Originally posted by mariomel: I've been asked to shoot a series of portraits for a group of graduating executive MBA students. There are 25 people, and I would need to shoot about 2-3 shots of each. All shots would be taken the same, kind of like the typical school portraits when we were kids. There would be no prints to make, as they want to receive the shots in electronic format, and someone else will take these and make a photomosaic with them. I would have to travel about 15-20 minutes each way to get to the school.
I have a studio strobe and reflector which should be sufficient for the job.
This is probably pretty basic, but would love some advice as to what would be a reasonable price to charge. Thanks. |
For shoot I usualy charge per the day, so for you that's one day, plus half a day or a whole day for editing.
For a rate try £280 per day, not to high and not too cheap.
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01/10/2005 11:45:48 AM · #3 |
That's about $550CND which sounds good to me considering you won't actually be doing too much. |
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01/10/2005 01:01:31 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by GoldBerry: That's about $550CND which sounds good to me considering you won't actually be doing too much. |
Wow! That's close to twice the amount I was thinking of charging. I had thought about $300-375.
Do you charge for a full day, even if you're only going to spend less than half a day?
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01/10/2005 01:19:32 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by mariomel: Originally posted by GoldBerry: That's about $550CND which sounds good to me considering you won't actually be doing too much. |
Wow! That's close to twice the amount I was thinking of charging. I had thought about $300-375.
Do you charge for a full day, even if you're only going to spend less than half a day? |
I'm talking Canadian dollars. For most things I charge about $200 an hour, because gigs are usually quick and there's no point even taking a booking less than $200 in my opinion to make it worth your while.
Since you'll be there for half the day and aren't putting a lot of effort (in all honesty) into the setup or shots, meh, I'd say an even $500 would do it. WHich is probably the equivalent to $300USD.
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01/10/2005 01:30:00 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by GoldBerry: ... I'd say an even $500 would do it. WHich is probably the equivalent to $300USD. |
I'm not sure you should convert the cost of photography in the US into canadian dollars like that. Cost of living in the US is the same as here (I'm Canadian too), so I would think a $300 job is the same here or there.
Thanks for the advice Lori. You're absolutely right about $200 being a basic minimum for any shoot. I can't imagine how this could take a long time to complete.
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01/10/2005 01:32:32 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by mariomel:
I'm not sure you should convert the cost of photography in the US into canadian dollars like that. Cost of living in the US is the same as here (I'm Canadian too), so I would think a $300 job is the same here or there. |
The conversion is to compensate for the dollar value, not the cost of living. $300CND is far from $300USD.
I didn't realize you were in Canada, I didn't check out your profile. So yea, I'd charge $500 CND for the job you're talking about. |
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01/10/2005 01:57:41 PM · #8 |
$500 Canadian is closer to $405 US Dollars, at the current exchange rate. In either case, both are a respectable 'day' rate, if you will be spending anywhere from 5 to 10 hours taking and then post processing the images. If you expect to be spending more, then it's not so good.
If you haven't talked to them about pricing yet, advise them that your 'day' rate is $650. If they balk at that pricing, you can advise them that you do have some room within your standard pricing. If they want to know why it is so expensive, you can explain to them that your rate is normally lower, with you providing final prints, but since you are signing over high resolution copies (Make sure you mention copies BTW) of all the images they will be obtaining final prints themselves. YOu can continue by saying that you normal 'day' rate is lower, but with the cost of prints, the final price typically comes in closer to $1200 Candadian.
Don't sell yourself short, if this is your business, or one you are growing into a business, you need to pay your rent and other bills. $500 Canadian minimum for a job like that isn't bad, if you can get 4 of them each week. You never know, it could be several weeks before you could obtain another job like it.
In the end, it is up to you. Price the job in a way that not only feels right, but won't end up putting yourself out. |
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01/10/2005 02:13:08 PM · #9 |
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01/10/2005 02:33:20 PM · #10 |
And remember they are graduating executive MBA students, they can afford to pay a fair (read high) price. Ask them some time what just one of their text books cost or how much a year they plan to make, before stock options.
They are professionals and they expect that they will be well compensated in they jobs, but so are you and as such you should also be well compensated. |
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01/10/2005 02:43:40 PM · #11 |
We recently had a photographer in our office for headshots to use on our website and in our marketing efforts, and he charged $100 (US) per person. That included hi-res .tiffs and low-res photos for the website. I thought that was cheap, but I don't know the going rate. |
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01/10/2005 02:52:16 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by Patents4u: We recently had a photographer in our office for headshots to use on our website and in our marketing efforts, and he charged $100 (US) per person. That included hi-res .tiffs and low-res photos for the website. I thought that was cheap, but I don't know the going rate. |
A lot will depend of the equipment used, we are just now getting out of using medium format cameras and then using a drum scanning to scan in the images. The drum scanning alone was costing us $50 / photo. I would imagine that much of the price structures out there still reflect this high price per photo. As the pros move more towards cameras like the 1Ds Mark II they will have to rethink their pricing structure, most likely going to an hourly rate.
For this job it does not sound like anything nearly as good as the 1Ds Mark II is needed, but for the photo shoot at your office I bet it was.
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01/10/2005 04:12:07 PM · #13 |
I did in-office headshots for a large interior design company a few months ago...I initially charged $600 for what was to be 2-3 hrs of work with 5 people plus a group shot. They would be getting all the negatives, but no prints. The job ended up taking less than an hour since no one would gave me more than 10 or 15 minutes, and there was no group shot. So I dropped it to $300.
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01/11/2005 12:52:56 AM · #14 |
Thanks for everybody's replies. Some very good advice in here. I think I'll soak in all this info overnight and try to come up with a fair price for both parties.
Thanks.
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