[Leica] How much to charge...

[tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant)]

Richard Man asked:
Subject: [Leica] How much to charge...

>>>How much is the going rate for a documentary style event 

photographer? Specifically, it's ~5 hours in a hotel at a company function
with about 75 people.<<<<<

 

Richard,

A number of things to consider.

 

1/ How much is your time worth every day? By your time description this
automatically becomes a " DAY SHOOT TIME!"  In other words by the time you
leave your office or home, do the shoot and return to your office the amount
of time will basically be considered a day.

 

2/ Never mind what others charge, what is your time worth to you? $500 a
day? $1000 a day? Or more?

 

3/ How much post production time will you do? Every bit of the time facing
the computer screen is billable. $75 an hour? $100.00 an hour? More?

 

4/ What are you giving them as the finished product? Prints, more charges
for each print? Or a finished CD that has all the final edited and corrected
images burned and they do whatever they wish with it? 

 

5? The number of people attending isn't relevant, it's your time you are
selling and charging for.

 

6/ Is this some kind of group who are thinking.. "we'll get Richard to do
this as he's pretty good and we wont have to pay him very much!" Remember
the general public these days consider everyone with a digi-whatever as a
photographer and anyone can do it! "Therefore we don't have to pay very
much!"

 

7/ Have you done this before and do you think you can do the shoot
perfectly? Obviously I have no idea what your experience is in relation to a
gang bang shoot like this.

 

But if you can't flow about the room clicking away without worrying all the
time, "And being somewhat intimidated by the number of bodies and photo
requests?"  I'd think about doing it all.

 

However charge high as you can always come down. Start low and you are dead
in he water doing all the work and end up actually paying them to let you do
their pictures. In theory!

 

Bottom line still is.. "How much is your time worth to you?" 

I could very easily say "$1500.00 and not blink!" Only because I know how
much work this type of event will create, as they never are as simple as
they sound.

 

I trust this helps. Just don't go cheap! Think about how much the camera in
your hands cost and have you earned enough money with it to actually make it
pay for itself?

 

ted