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Thread: Pricing Dilema

  1. #1
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    Pricing Dilema

    Being the utmost amateur photographer, I've shot some little league baseball games and some soccer games and posted the photos online and gave the parents the website to purchase prints (not making any profit). My sister is in the at home health care industry and her company was one of the sponsors of a prom for seniors. They had a photographer from the local TV station that was going to setup and do some "Prom Portraits", and I was asked to just mingle and get some candid shots and post them online like I had done with the ball game.

    Turns out the guy they had lined up to do the portraits had a death in the family and was called out of town. The organizers called and told me their situation and explained that he had left his equipment for them to use and I was asked if I would help them set it up and then I could do what I had originally been asked to do. When I arrived, they had nothing, must have been some mis-communication but they had nothing but a laptop and a photo printer.

    To make a long story short, I went home and got my lights and setup. Took all the portraits as well as some candids in between. We printed out 4x6 prints for the folks to take home and everyone was happy. The attendees as well as the staff that put on the event were all very please with the work. After the event was over I was on my way out and the guy had organized the event told me they wanted to purchase all the photos for their archive, and told me to give him a price and they would pay "whatever" my price was.

    What to do? I would like to more events they do and it would be nice to make a little money doing it. I don't want to be dirt cheap but I don't think I can charge as much as someone that does it professionally. I spent about 3.5 hours at the event, and I'll spend another couple sorting the photos, post processing and uploading. After sorting I think I'll end up with around 100 photos. What's a fair price? Do I charge be the photo? By the hour?

    Any thoughts or ideas to lead me down the right path would be very helpful.

    Thanks in advance,
    Steve
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  2. #2
    Panarus biarmicus Moderator (Sports) SmartWombat's Avatar
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    Re: Pricing Dilema

    By the hour for your services time 5 1/2, or per photo which is the same price but divided by 100 (the number of photos) ?
    Do you still retain the rights to the photos (so you could sell reprints) or are they getting exclusive use - so as well as their archive they sell the reprints ?

    I don't have an answer as I don't do this myself.
    But at a seminar someone who was printing 10x8 on site at a party with a similar setup he said the printer was printing £10 notes in his eyes So I guessed that's what he charged per print.
    PAul

    Scroll down to the Sports Forum and post your sports pictures !

  3. #3
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    Re: Pricing Dilema

    Quote Originally Posted by SmartWombat
    By the hour for your services time 5 1/2, or per photo which is the same price but divided by 100 (the number of photos) ?
    Do you still retain the rights to the photos (so you could sell reprints) or are they getting exclusive use - so as well as their archive they sell the reprints ?
    I guess my question really is, how much is a job like this worth? I understand that the per hour price and the per photo price would be the same if you had the final value, buts that my problem, I don't know what the total value should be. After sorting last night I ended up with 67 photos.

    Nothing was said about the rights of the photos, I can only assume that I'll keep them posted online to sell prints and they can use the files anyway they want. I'm not too concerned over the rights.
    Olympus Evolt E-510
    Olympus 14-42mm f3.5-5.6
    Olympus 40-150mm F4.0-5.6
    Olympus 50-200mm f/2.8-3.5 ED
    Olympus 14-54mm f/2.8-3.5
    Sony DSC-HX5V

    My Blog

  4. #4
    Panarus biarmicus Moderator (Sports) SmartWombat's Avatar
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    Re: Pricing Dilema

    Last year at work, we were quoted £500 for a day to cover a conference and the party afterwards, that only worked out at £50/hr.

    So then how much an hour could you have earned if you were doing something else ?
    Or how much per hour would you like to earn - as much as a car mechanic's hourly rate ?
    PAul

    Scroll down to the Sports Forum and post your sports pictures !

  5. #5
    Senior Member brmill26's Avatar
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    Re: Pricing Dilema

    Cruz, most "pro" photographers in our market charge a minimum of $100 an hour for on location stuff, with photo prices and retouching on top of that (with handsome profits built in to those as well). I'm not exactly sure what the situation is, but I'd say anything under $100 an hour is going to be cheaper than any "pro" I've ever seen around here. Or you could charge by the photo, but if I understand that you're giving them electronic files, that's a little more difficult to do. Physical photos are easy to charge by size, but with files it's often hard to get people to see the value in a file.
    Brad

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