Originally posted by tomgm36:
I was ask to shoot this banquet for this rather large company. It will be a 4 hour deal with random and posed photography. How much would you charge for something like this??? I do not think i have to make prints or anything like that. I never done a banquet before. Thanks! |
What to charge depends on what's expected of you. If all you have to do is show up and shoot without any real direction and then turn over a disc of images, you wouldn't be charging much - maybe $100 for the whole deal.
On the other hand, if you are going to
* meet with the client ahead of time to develop a shot list
* evaluate all the equipment and personnel requirements
* be shooting a wide variety of images
* need an assistant
* need to rent equipment
* need to set up for specific shots
* be shooting for a number of different uses
* printing on site
* be delivering processed images (hi & low res)
* be delivering images immediately following the event
* be doing a lot more than simply showing up and shooting
you could be charging as much as $250/hr, plus expenses.
A lot of times, these events look like any Uncle Bob with his new DSLR could handle them. Unfortunately, it's not until after the event is over that they realize they picked the wrong person. Why? Because they probably needed one or more of the things on the list above (especially the first one), but the person hiring the photographer didn't know about these things and the person hired didn't know about these things. And that's the difference between $25/hour and $250/hr, the difference between meh event coverage and successful event coverage.
Sometimes, events really are simple...but, if you don't find out before hand, you might find the event is a lot more involved. The key to success is managing expectations, and that means finding out everything ahead of time. When you bother to do your homework ahead of time, you are actually adding value to your services.
Good luck!
[ps: One thing I do when helping a client plan their event coverage is to help them realize they might not need start-to-finish coverage. This is especially true of events where the scenery will stop changing, leaving nothing more to shoot. What's the point of paying a photographer to shoot for four hours if the last two hours won't yield anything useful?] |
