Hello, I was recently hired to do a 2-hour event shoot of a company’s parade float. They only want 12 photos in the end, but obviously I’ll have to edit much more than that so they can pick out which 12 they want. I’m also a sophomore in college and wouldn’t say I have more than the average amount of experience. I really just don’t know what to charge for shooting or editing. I don’t want to overcharge, but I know if i lowball then I won’t be taken seriously.
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$150 for the event $25 an hour for post. Remind them it’s not just about what they see you do
Look up the cost of photographers in your area and stick to the low end of that if you feel you aren’t too experienced in terms of professional photography.
When I was figuring out my hourly rate, I found the range of how much photographers charge in my area, figured that I can deliver a product better than 2/3 of other photographers so I set my rate accordingly.
You said you were hired. If so you should have a contract to provide specific services, with a specific cost, or fee structure. It sounds like you have not been hired yet, as you say you don’t want to over charge or lowball. If they are wanting 12 images you have to determine how much post processing those will require, and your processing skill and speed. If it is some good quality JPEGS, with minimal retouching then double your hours from the event for a total of 4 hours. Again, your rates are described in the contract when they hired you. If they haven’t actually hired you and you don’t have a written contract I would caution you to not take the assignment.
Around 400 dollars would be pretty ok in many places and it depends on how you want to price. Hours and photos are often calculated separately, like 100 dollars hour with 3 pics and extra pics 25 bucks each, but sometimes you might want to make an offer for the whole thing, like here most likely should. Ofc if you live in some poor country, then it could be overpriced. Wouldnt be wonder if someone wanted like 600 or more.
Tell them to pick the ones they want, so you know which ones to edit, and only edit the ones they pick. You can put some auto edits quickly on them if it makes them look better.
But since this sounds like you are not going to do it for living, so ask what ever you think your time is worth.
What do I charge?
$200 - $500 is reasonable, although I personally would not do it for $200.
They only want 12 photos in the end, but obviously I’ll have to edit much more than that so they can pick out which 12 they want.
Don’t do that. Either choose, edit, and deliver the 12 shots with no input from them, or let them choose from proofs (unedited or minimal exposure & white balance adjustments), then edit the 12 they choose.
I prefer to ask up front what is important to them (signage, costumes, specific people, etc), then focus on getting the types of shots they want. From there I choose the final shots but make sure everything on their list is covered.
I’m also a sophomore in college and wouldn’t say I have more than the average amount of experience.
This changes the way you feel about yourself. It does not change the value of the pictures to them.
Do you think if you are less experienced but can put out good photos, is it ok to charge less and how much less most of the people in your area or would that be undermining the business? I never know what to do when it comes to money and end up screwing myself.
It’s in your best financial interest to charge as much as you can get people to pay you. As time goes on, your goal should always be to do less work for more money. Why work ten $100 jobs if you can work one $1000 job?
I don’t really believe in the concept of undermining the business. If you are a $200 photographer and I am a $2000 photographer, your pricing is not impacting me at all. My clients aren’t going to hire a $200 photographer. There are plenty of people out there who can only afford $200. They deserve good pictures.
If it comes down to you at $200 and someone else at $300, well that’s just business.
of course you don’t, because you have a tendency to be impulsive. Just like how you impulsively posted trash in my topic.
Thats a hard question i think everybody is struggling with especially in the beginning. Some points i would recommend:
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Charge a fee that includes everything (shooting.time, editing, transport, ect). If they want to keep you longer than the two hours/have extra fancy editing wishes charge more. I personaly dont think its good to charge per final images or editing time separately. If you are good or have a fast workflow, why should you get less money for that than someone who has no experience in that and take forever?
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You choose the final images (but if there are more than 12 good ones, give them more) I almost never let my clients choose the keepers out of all the images i take and i never had anyone complain about that. Deliver the best of the best shots and dont even show the bad or mediocre ones.
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Think about a price that you are comfortable with. That means that you give them a good product but also you will get something out of that in the end beside all the work and stress. If 75 bucks per hour is ok for you and you feel like its fair, charge that, but you could also say 250 per hour if you feel confident enough. Nobody beside you can decide that. BUT before you say your price add 10-20% to it. If they want to haggle, go back to your original price. If not, congrats to some extra bucks ;)
I had the same discussion with myself a lot of times as well, even after a couple of years its often hard to give my time and effort a price. Selling your service is an artform itself and same as photography this takes time and practise to master
Hope this helps a bit
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When you are being required to be present at a 2 hour event you need to be charging based on the time you are there. In the modern age the number of photos you shoot is really not a relevant aspect to cost. Back in film photography days you had to consider the cost of film as well but with digital that is a non-consideration.
As for the editing, you should not be editing too many more than what they want. First you will need to go through the rough photos to determine the ones which meet the need and from there you go and edit the appropriate number. What you should do is limit the number you edit to show then to a given number (say 24, twice what they wanted) and figure your editing time based on this and then charge for that at an hourly rate.
A professional will charge anywhere from $150 an hour up depending on what they can “command” for the job. You are a college student and should consider that you are partially doing this for experience and building your name so Charging more around $75-100 an hour is appropriate. If anyone ask it is not just about your time it is also the equipment / software etc… that is required to do the work which you are providing as well.
for what you are listing I would assume around 4 hours total work assuming average skills (2 hours shooting then 2 hours sorting and post processing) which would give you perhaps a $300-$400 charge for it.
You don’t edit photos they’re not gonna want. Send them a gallery of the unedited photos (with a watermark over them) and they can pick out their favourite 12 photos. Then you only edit those ones.
I personally charge for my time + number of edited images.
So that would be something like $100/hour + $25/photo.
since you are new to this let me grind this into you now.
please make your life and the clients life easier and let the paying client choose which final photos they want. this will save you so much time and headache having to go back and edit different photos because you didn’t know they hate the top left corner of their face and all the photos you chose have that in it.
i know you are shooting a parade float but this applies to anything going forward. because their marketing team might be looking for something specific in the shots that you don’t know about. go through the photos first and YOU remove photos that YOU don’t want your name associated with then you send the rest in low res JPG with your watermark nice and big across the entire center of the photos. then you let them choose the agreed upon number of finals and you edit only those.
example. they want 12 photos. you take 100 photos. you narrow down to 30 BEST photos. you let them choose between those 30 BEST. now whatever they choose you will be happy with because you already chose it. everyone wins.
if they don’t like any of those 30 then… well you got a bigger problem…
i can’t tell you how much to charge because i don’t know what market you are in and the going rates in that market but if your work is good then charge accordingly.