First portrait shoot/

photographyfanatic · May 10, 2009

Hello all! I might my first potrait shoot coming up of a father and his 5 year old son. I will be shooting them at their home I am looking for some tip before I make it officail with them. I will be using a Canon EOS 40D, I have the Canon 135mm f3.5-5.6, the Canon 50mm f1.4, and the Canon 70-200mm f2.8. Will these lenses be enough or should I get another one? After the shoot I will upload the proofs to Smugmug. They will then just order directly from there. How is the Smug mug print quality? I am wondering if I should offer a photo cd of all the prints as an option to ordering indivdual prints. How would I price that? Like $500 for a cd of all images is what I am thinking. Too much? Too low? I am also thinking of charging $200 for the shoot. Any other tips would be great! Thanks

Johnboy2978 · May 11, 2009

So you're going to charge $200 for the shoot and another $500 for a cd of hi quality images? That sounds a little steep to me. I wouldn't pay $700 for a simple portrait shoot w/ my family.

tsaraleksi · May 11, 2009

Just from the tone of your post I would say that $700 is way out of line with your experience.

robertswoods · May 11, 2009

Too much ... just my opinion

In His Image · May 11, 2009

My opinion is too much...the going rate for amatuer photographers is anywhere from $50.-$130. for a 1-2 hour shoot. Depending on how many frames your planning on getting, plays into it as well. $300 in my opinion would be what I would charge for the shoot and CD by the sound of your equipment, which will be great for what your getting.

JaimeGibb · May 11, 2009

If this is your first portrait sitting I would either do it for free or a very minimal fee (like no sitting fee and they can buy prints from you or something). You have no portfolio of work to accompany your steep price.

platano · May 11, 2009

$700 ?????? no way. not for your first or 30th shooting.

I rather go to Boudoir and Glamor Photography using Exotic Cars - Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley and post with 4 different exotic cars for 3 hours and get a good amount of quality pictures on CD for the same price.

photographyfanatic · May 11, 2009

Do you guys really think that $200 for travel, 2hours of shooting, postprocessing, editing, and uploading is out of line? I really don't think so.

B Kennedy · May 11, 2009

The $200 may not be bad depending on the amount of travel you have, but as far as the CD 500 seems excessively high. Put yourself in your client's place, would you pay 700 for a family portrait, and not even get prints out of it? For someone who has a very elaborate portfolio in portraits and is heavily booked as a portrait photographer(putting jobs down because they are that good) might go for 700. I think that you won't even get the job if you told them that much, i would probably stick to no more than 300. At best you make a little bit of cash and should you do a good job, you'll get the reference and your name out there.

MelodySoul · May 12, 2009

I would say $200 including the CD at most considering this is your first shoot.

photographyfanatic · May 12, 2009

Ok I totally agree that an additional $500 on top of the $200 is crazy!!! Not sure what I was smoking that morning! So what about $350 for shooting time, travel, postprocessing, editing, and then a cd of 15-20 images to print? Or should i just bag the cd all together and just charge like $150 - $200 and then let them order what they want off smugmug?

Even though this would be my first official portrait shoot, I have been a photographer for 16 years. It is only now that I am approaching the professional side of things.

Imaginis · May 12, 2009

photographyfanatic said:
Ok I totally agree that an additional $500 on top of the $200 is crazy!!! Not sure what I was smoking that morning! So what about $350 for shooting time, travel, postprocessing, editing, and then a cd of 15-20 images to print? Or should i just bag the cd all together and just charge like $150 - $200 and then let them order what they want off smugmug?

Even though this would be my first official portrait shoot, I have been a photographer for 16 years. It is only now that I am approaching the professional side of things.

Find out what your client is willing to pay. If he likes your work and he is willing to pay you $700, go for it. There is no reason to sell yourself short if a client is willing to pay a higher amount because he likes what you have done so far.

Chairman7w · May 14, 2009

Let us know how it goes, I'm eager to see the pics!

Jim Gratiot · May 14, 2009

Imaginis said:
Find out what your client is willing to pay. If he likes your work and he is willing to pay you $700, go for it. There is no reason to sell yourself short if a client is willing to pay a higher amount because he likes what you have done so far.

Gotta agree, for the most part. If you can deliver quality photographs that the client is happy with, why not charge $700? Experience per se isn't an issue... but you do need to deliver quality pictures.

The general mindset of this thread (no way you should charge that much) is in part why there are so many poor photographers out there.

Johnboy2978 · May 15, 2009

Jim Gratiot said:
Gotta agree, for the most part. If you can deliver quality photographs that the client is happy with, why not charge $700? Experience per se isn't an issue... but you do need to deliver quality pictures.

The general mindset of this thread (no way you should charge that much) is in part why there are so many poor photographers out there.

I gotta think that you are smoking the same Kronic as the OP. Who is going to pay $700 for a simple family portrait. A lot of people feel that you are overcharging them when you quote that price for a wedding that you spend all day/night at and then spend another 2 weeks+ editing the images. You are talking maybe 1.5 hours of actual shooting time here and I can't imagine that the quality is going to be so phenominal that anyone is going to consider $700 thinking they got a deal.

Where do you people live? I'm moving there and opening up a portrait studio tomorrow.