As I take more and more photo’s, learn more about this hobby I have, and share it with others I get asked, generally, the same question – how much do you charge? Well – I have been doing it for fun but perhaps now is as good as any to start looking at this as an opportunity to make a little money to offset costs.
As I did some research, talking to people, reading what I can on the web, and looking at what other photogs charge I find that there is no real guideline except that your services are worth something and “it all depends”. Depends on where you live, depends on what you shoot, and depends on your experience and style. In the end I found it very difficult to create a price structure.
I don’t think I’ll get rich and famous taking photo’s, that’s not my intent. I want to learn as much as I can to capture the best photo as often as I can. In the process of doing this I am finding that this field of work does have some costs involved from the light stands to hold a light, the softbox to make the light appealing, the lens to get the sharpest images possible. All these items do cost money. If I can create a price structure to offset my costs and time then I think I am successful.
So after looking at what others charge, comparing my works with theirs, and giving it much thought I finally put together, what I think, a very competitive price matrix for that question I often get asked – how much do you charge? I figure my time to take the photos is worth something, then the processing time to go through each photo, evaluate them to see if they are keepers or not, make adjustments to lighting, cropping them to exploit the real topic of the shot, cleaning up the skin, eyes, etc (do photogs really do that – yes), other post processing edits to make the photo pop and then create a web page for others to view them is worth something. Then to get prints or copies of those is also worth something – they are works of art, aren’t they?
At the top of this blog you will now be able to find a link to my price structure for my work, which of course can change at any time and is definitely negotiable.