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02/09/2007 08:55:09 AM · #51 |
| so...did you get the job? :) |
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02/09/2007 09:15:05 AM · #52 |
Originally posted by muckpond:
so...did you get the job? :) |
oh hell no ;-)
"After carefully reviewing the bids and knowing our budget constraints, we have chosen to use another photographer. Thank you for taking the time to respond to our request." |
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02/09/2007 02:18:11 PM · #53 |
| Can I ask what you bid? I'm just interested in knowing what you finally ended up giving them as a price. |
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02/09/2007 02:27:57 PM · #54 |
Originally posted by Skip:
oh hell no ;-)
"After carefully reviewing the bids and knowing our budget constraints, we have chosen to use another photographer. Thank you for taking the time to respond to our request." |
That sounds like / my cousin billy just got a new BarbieCam he will do it ...
(no no don't ask about billy .. he's had "problems" .... )
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02/10/2007 06:48:14 PM · #55 |
Originally posted by skip:
now, knowing this, and having read the spec, would you bid differently, or would you just walk away, shaking your head... |
A major rule in business is to NEVER turn down work. If you dont want to do something, then quote over the odds rather turn it down. Force then to look elsewhere. It is more professional than turning a job down point blank. You may get invited in the future to bid again.
Message edited by author 2007-02-10 18:48:51. |
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02/10/2007 09:41:24 PM · #56 |
Originally posted by ralph:
That sounds like / my cousin billy just got a new BarbieCam he will do it ...
(no no don't ask about billy .. he's had "problems" .... ) |
what's wrong with guys named billy??????
;) |
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02/14/2007 10:47:43 PM · #57 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
4. Delivery of negatives and rights is the NORM for work like this, and realistically that's the way you want it! |
No, it's not. It's a dangerous mindset to have believeing work for hire is the norm.
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02/14/2007 11:18:11 PM · #58 |
I wouldn't think that I could get a whole lot of future usage or income from a bunch of pics of people wandering around a boring 1 hour tape cutting ceremony.
That said, I'd probably have quoted 250-400 CAD.
I do find it interesting that you guys think it's reasonable to charge for travel. Do you know of any other types of 9-5 work that include travel? In Vancouver, my uncle used to make a 1.5 hour commute (he eventually said screw it and now pays richly for a downtown studio apt) in rush hour traffic in his gas-guzzling Porsche 911. Yeah, 1.5 hours each way. 3 hours in first gear every day on a car where the clutch replacement costs $2500 bucks or more. Last time we spoke (maybe 8 years ago?), he was pushing the envelope of making a lousy six figures, so one has to figure that his hourly rate is getting up there. He never saw the need to charge an hourly rate for him merely getting to the venue though. Where you live and where you are before the job begins just isn't the employer's problem. I'd change that stance if the job did not take place in a major urban area though.
It seems that this is a very specific type of job. I'd secure a letter of recommendation as well as at least the right to say "I was published in ______ Business Retail Magazine issue #19." if I was really worried about losing out any future benefits.
Having read some of those magazines in the past, I can say that Rob's probably right. They don't want anything more than some mediocre 'Paparazzi style' angles and fairly uninteresting lighting.
I too am curious at what your bid might have been skip. |
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02/15/2007 12:02:18 AM · #59 |
most professionals try to factor travel time into their bill, one way or another. lawyers, accountants, consultants, even photographers. if you don't get it into the bill, you at least have to account for it on the cost side, because, well, your time has value, and if you spend time travelling, you need to include that time when trying to figure out just how much you're making an hour.
actually, for work like this, work for hire is the norm. it is very rare that these situations produce anything with any shelf-life. there are a lot of shades of gray out there, and you can't paint all the jobs with the same brush.
as for me, i'll just say that it was enough over $300 for it to have been worth my morning, should i have gotten it (but not so much over as to make me look like a pretentious jerk). |
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02/15/2007 01:57:24 AM · #60 |
Originally posted by Skip:
most professionals try to factor travel time into their bill, one way or another. lawyers, accountants, consultants, even photographers. if you don't get it into the bill, you at least have to account for it on the cost side, because, well, your time has value, and if you spend time traveling, you need to include that time when trying to figure out just how much you're making an hour. |
Absolutely right. One way or the other, YOU are paying for it, so the client that hires you is paying for it as well. If you don't factor it into your estimate in the first place, it comes out of your profit. As a rule of thumb, if you are hired by someone within your metropolitan area, you'd not charge travel expenses. If you are hired by someone further afield, you WOULD charge travel expenses as part of the estimate, itemized.
We did this all the time in architectural photography. We were based in San Diego, and we regularly worked LA County, Orange County, Palm Springs, and Las Vegas. Less frequently we worked San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Hawaii, and even the East Coast a couple of times. On all these jobs we charged travel expenses and travel time; hotel rooms, meals, mileage or tickets + rental car, whatever was involved. We found it more effective to charge a reasonable travel time fee (less than our shooting fee by a substantial amount) plus a fixed rate for everything else (based on our estimate) than to try to bury this cost in the "shooting fee" by overestimating the time we'd spend shooting, or whatever. It was more professional. At first we said "X dollars plus expenses" and we listed what qualified as expenses but did not give a fixed amount for the bottom line, and this would sometimes upset clients when they found out after the fact how much "extra" they had to pay: so based on our own experience, we started estimating expenses and quoting a flat fee for the expenses on the job, which made everyone happy; they knew what the bottom line would be.
This even included PHOTOGRAPHIC expenses; we'd contract for X number of shots, and we knew how much it was gonna cost to produce them, in film and processing and so forth, so we just quoted a lump sum. Then we'd have a rider on the contract saying if the on-site representative of the client wanted extra views shot, they'd be billed at so much per view additional expenses. Remember, this was working with a 4x5 view camera, so each "view" took a lot of work to set up and expose, we basically knew how many shots we'd be able to take in a day of work.
Originally posted by Skip:
actually, for work like this, work for hire is the norm. it is very rare that these situations produce anything with any shelf-life. |
That's absolutely right; thanks for backing me up on that. If you are an average photographer (not a big "name") and you are contacted by in-house PR or an outside PR agency to bid on a grip & greet or a ribbon cutting or whatever other stage event, they are assuming you will be turning over the negatives or files. Absolutely. There is NO way these people want to be dependent on the vagaries of a photographer's schedule and availability to get reprints on demand, and there is NO way they want to have to contact you for "permission" each time they use the image in a new piece of PR or send it to another industry publication.
And from YOUR point of view, as a photographer, you don't WANT that responsibility; the only way you'd ever get it is if you are willing to make & deliver prints on 24-hour notice for pennies apiece, and who needs the aggravation? Let THEM worry about that stuff, you just move on :-)
R.
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02/15/2007 02:39:20 PM · #61 |
Hey Skip,
Charging a day rate is reasonable. and $1000-$1200 is fair for a job like this. There isn't any loss of future income imo.
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02/15/2007 02:53:44 PM · #62 |
I have an hourly rate, 2 hour minimum, for shooting.
PP - the basics are included (WB/CC for instance). in this bid they don't need more.
The captioning requires a bit more work, but since it's in the initial hour part I can't see charging tons for that alone.
most jobs like this they want Hi-res on CD, so nothing odd there. That you can't use them in your portfolio, and since you're giving up copyright, that may be worth an up-charge.
I have a tendency to shoot a lot, and since I generally don't meet afterwards to let them pick from the proofs on something like this, I might double my rate and let it go at that - so $360 would not be unfair to me.
I'd love to charge 1/2 day and $100/image, but that's not the way it works where I am. If you can get $25/image plus the hourly rate around here you're doing pretty good.
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02/15/2007 03:16:51 PM · #63 |
may I play a bit, too?
what price would you sell this photo for:
printed on canvas, 50x70 cm
it looks good on canvas:) hehe
I am sorry for asking about this photo again! this is the last time, really!
:) |
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02/15/2007 05:19:03 PM · #64 |
Originally posted by silverfoxx:
may I play a bit, too?
what price would you sell this photo for:
printed on canvas, 50x70 cm
it looks good on canvas:) hehe
I am sorry for asking about this photo again! this is the last time, really!
:) |
That's SO hard to answer :-)
Print only? Cheap framing? professional framing? Single matte? Double matte? Sell from a gallery or privately? Sell out of a show?
A double-matted, professionally framed 16x20 copy of this just sold for $350.00 out of the juried exhibition in which it took 2nd place. But out of that 350 I have to pay the gallery commission (20%) and the cost of matting and framing ($70.00)...
I'd sell you the print alone, signed and numbered, for $200.00...
Robt.
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02/15/2007 05:42:42 PM · #65 |
wow thats quite a price, but i wouldnt consider myself to be that great a photog that i could charge a price like that. But I am in no way relying on my shots as an income i suppose but i have had interest in this shot 
I had no idea for prices really so i said £30 for 16x12 + the cost of getting it printed. More of a one time sale that came about from the photo society having an exhibition up in one of our student unions.
Message edited by author 2007-02-15 17:43:44. |
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02/15/2007 05:43:21 PM · #66 |
proffesional printing :), professional framing, hm, I forgot what matte is:) sorry, sell on an exhibition of "fine art photogrphy", 40% for the center for fine art which holds the exhibition.
printing and framing = ca $335
signed and numbered, sure:)
thank you Robert for answering me!
yeah, I forgot to say, "fine art" photos that they sell from their gallery and website cost around $1000-2000...
I'd never pay this for a photo...
:)
Message edited by author 2007-02-15 17:44:30. |
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02/15/2007 05:43:36 PM · #67 |
Originally posted by virtuamike:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
4. Delivery of negatives and rights is the NORM for work like this, and realistically that's the way you want it! |
No, it's not. It's a dangerous mindset to have believeing work for hire is the norm. |
It's not the norm for most work, but for this PR stuff, it is.
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02/15/2007 08:13:25 PM · #68 |
Originally posted by silverfoxx:
proffesional printing :), professional framing, hm, I forgot what matte is:) sorry, sell on an exhibition of "fine art photogrphy", 40% for the center for fine art which holds the exhibition.
printing and framing = ca $335
signed and numbered, sure:)
thank you Robert for answering me!
yeah, I forgot to say, "fine art" photos that they sell from their gallery and website cost around $1000-2000...
I'd never pay this for a photo...
:) |
So just to get some numbers out there to correct for the shifting currency exchange, CAD 335 for printing, that would mean that goes right on top.
Rob said for the pic itself at $200 USD plus expenses...
at 40% for the gallery, I assume that this is the price aside from framing costs, divide the pic price by 0.6 to keep your price the same.
That makes $335 for the pic to get $200 out of the price for yourself (all in USD).
$335 USD = approx $385 CAD
So you could either list the price at $385 plus framing expenses or group it all together at $720 CAD. A relative bargain for the gallery. Now they might have a problem with selling stuff so cheaply, so you might be able to do something like $500 for the print plus framing expenses and bring yourself a bit closer to their gallery norm, but still keep yourself on the humble end of things. They might even balk at anything with only 3 digits. You might end up at $1000 if you like it or not ;).
Another question you might ask yourself is how many prints would you make. If you want to number it, you might want to check out how other prints at different pricing levels from that same gallery work out with their numbers. Are those prices for limited prints where they won't print any more than the first run of 20? 50? 100?
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02/16/2007 04:23:14 AM · #69 |
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02/16/2007 07:28:53 AM · #70 |
I do not have any knowledge of what goes on with the matting and framing and what the range of quality is for these additions.
I must say however, that the print itself on canvas would make me drool because I love to look at it even on my monitor. The work has already been done.
Now ... HOW MANY you print would have a HUGE impact on the price to me, even though I love this image dearly.
If I had one of 50 prints (especially in the low numbers) I would be happy to pay a MUCH bigger price than 476/1000 even if it was personally signed (IF I had the money) and I think those that DO have the money would think the same.
Edited to say: Just for the record ... that quote above " ... divide the pic price by 0.6 to keep your price the same." should be MULTIPLY the price by 0.6 ...
You probably figured that 60% stuff out and what he meant but I just wanted to put it forward for the record.
Message edited by author 2007-02-16 07:32:36.
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02/16/2007 07:44:54 AM · #71 |
thank you so much Greetmir! you are very kind to me.
ok, so I have been looking at all possible online galleries, calculated all my costs (why is everything so expensive here in Norway?) and ended up with this:
one of 10 or one of 5 for $4000? this is ridiculous.
ah, I hate this, I'd rather only take photos and not think about this stuff.
and no, I don't want to print many. |
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02/16/2007 08:17:51 AM · #72 |
What about one of 20 limited edition for a 1000 a piece? (signed, matted, on canvas and framed fairly nicely, of course) ...
Anything in the 20 - 25 range print production is pretty damn elite!
If they don't sell ... you can always lower the price ... but you can never increase it.
Here is a story ... This is true. I had a friend that ran an oil painting art gallery ... There was this artist that came along and had painted some FANTASTIC nude silouettes ... almost remiscent of INUIT art with their simple lines that said so much! My friend gave him a wall for a week to display his 20 best and the painter set the prices even though the gallery owner told him that his prices were WAY too cheap and sold ONE in six days. The last day was a Saturday and my friend begged artist to trust him and let HIM set the prices (OK ... there was an art hunting tour in town for that day) and the artist agreed. He did not have much to lose. The owner simply added a "0" to ALL prices, multiplying them by ten.
They sold ALL but ONE on that Saturday! ...
Lesson to be learned here? People that REALLY REALLY appreciate and want to buy good art are afraid of purchasing art that is really low priced. They figure there MUST be a reason that they are not aware of but don't dare admit it.
Remember dearie ... if it doesn't sell for an exorbitant price, then you can always bring the price down or let someone have a "SUPER" deal to make them feel special. BUT ... if you price your work too cheaply ... then serious collectors may think you are not a serious artist if you are only going to ask peanuts for it and you won't sell ANY.
Personally ... with YOUR talent ... my opinion is that you should take (especially THIS print) and decide what you want to make for your work on it MINIMUM and decide on a limited edition of 20 to 25 ... multiply it by 10 ... then add the price of the matting and framing (if that is how you want to sell them) and then divide it by 20 or 25 to find out your initial asking price for each ... and then you can ALWAYS come down after if they don't move.
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02/16/2007 08:21:51 AM · #73 |
| you are wonderful Greetmir:) |
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02/16/2007 08:35:44 AM · #74 |
Well if you follow my advice and sell 24, then you can always give me 25/25 because I LOVE the image to thank me ... :)
If you don't ... well you can always send me some chocolate with poison in it ... I LOVE chocolate!
;)
... It is just my opinion and my ideas ... I may be TOTALLY wrong ... please don't forget that!
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02/16/2007 08:41:43 AM · #75 |
Svetlana, yours is a perfect example of something not to be undervalued. what is the dollar value? honestly, more than i could afford. it is the type of image that really separates fine art from pedestrian art. i think you should price it so that it will be bought by someone who can afford to appreciate it.
also, your image is at the exact opposite end of the spectrum from the job i outlined in my original post. while i can agree with all those that would want to get a decent day rate out of a job, unfortunately, that type of event-job does not have the same value as one requiring a full day's attention and creative energies, resulting in top-notch marketing imagery. |
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