Architecture Photography

[camjam]

Took on the task of photographing a building for a local architect. First time, so I told him a $100 if he liked the photos and we would discuss pricing on any additional work. He liked the photos and wants me to do 6-12 more of his designs. Not sure what to charge him. Some of the buildings are local and 4 are anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half away. He wants golden and blue hour photos for each building. I had about any hour and a half on site. Most just waiting around for the sun to go down and the lights on the building to come on.

Thoughts on what to charge him and how do you account for travel time?

Thank you,
Jim

 

[vintagesnaps]

That's a lot of hours adding up if you need to travel, shoot mornings and evenings of each, etc. And you're talking commercial work, 100 bucks seems so underpriced... what seems to happen is someone wants pictures taken by an amateur, but then expectations may change when you're talking competitive and appropriate cost for the work. Being a business they should expect to pay the going rate (possibly on the lower end rather than the high end if you're not already an established photographer); it's probably a matter of if you can provide professional quality work.

Try http:/asmp.org or PPA for information on how to license usage, do contracts, etc. It should be for specific purposes (website, brochure, thumbnails for social media, etc.) and for a specific timeframe (a year, one print run of a brochure, etc.); then any further usage would also be licensed. ASMP has a " 'paperwork' share" feature that lists a couple of example of sample contracts incl. pricing from working pro photographers.

 

[tirediron]

I charge straight time for jobs like that ($125/hr) and half-rate for travel time. Twenty years ago the licensing on a job like this would have been worth thousands, but sadly, in this day and age, you're going to be hard-pressed to get more than your hourly rate.

 

[jeffW]

I charge straight time for jobs like that ($125/hr) and half-rate for travel time. Twenty years ago the licensing on a job like this would have been worth thousands, but sadly, in this day and age, you're going to be hard-pressed to get more than your hourly rate.

I really didn't want to respond to this thread as I feel it doesn't do anyone any good if the OPs (plural) keep thinking they can just ask other people to do their work for them - they don't want to take the time to figure out their production costs or their CODB, quite frankly it ruins this forum and is probably why we never seen any of the "big dogs" online to share their wealth of info.

That said my response is for tirediron only; I respect a lot of your posts and your ability to keep a sustained business for many years however this is the internet we don't know the exact information being provided by any other poster and your reply will be readable for years to come via anyone else doing a basic google search. While your response might be candid and an honest response in a pub to blatantly say licensing is dead and that the best a photographer who is providing images for marketing purposes can hope for is a work for hire hourly rate is both irresponsible and absolutely wrong. Sure there are stupid @#%$ nitwits out there who don't want to put forth even the slightest amount of effort to figure out what their costs will be and what their time should be worth will get roped into bad deals. That's not to say professionals should be promoting throwing in the towel across the entire internet so anyone wether newbie or even a potential client doing any research will read these ideas that are clearly outright wrong.

So an architect who has building across the state of Ohio is not going to truly market those images, what happens when the health care conglomerate, international corporate business, or Agricultural monopoly wants the images to go in their Annual Report or marketing materials and the Architect just willing gives them away. Can I give away the Architects plans drawn up for a single house to a developer who wants to make ten more? Someone had the money to build those buildings. A recent (couple of years now) case that went before the Supreme court was between an Agricultural monopoly and a lowly farmer. The farmer said any seeds he got from his first harvest could be planted for a second harvest in the season the Agricultural monopoly said nope that's still our licensed goods whether you grew the seed and he couldn't use them. Point is for the people who built those buildings, licensing is still very much a thing! Buy a song off iTunes and then play it on a tv commercial.

to the OP you want a number, charge $7,000 for no more than single party use for five years

 

[tirediron]

Joe... don't disagree with the majority of your post. I am definitely NOT promoting in the towel, and what I said was "hard pressed" (as in, "It will be difficult") rather than "licensing was dead". I stand by that assertion based on two factors: (1) Real world experience; and (2) my assessment of the OP based on his/her post.

In reverse order: I have made the assumption that the OP is new to the business of photography, and in all likelihood probably doesn't have a real business (as in, paperwork, licenses, insurance, business plan, etc... you know, all the fun stuff) based on his/her question and my belief that someone who had an established business wouldn't need to ask those questions. Further, I believe that the person hiring such a photographer does so because he/she wants things done on the cheap. If you want a top-end job you hire an established professional in the field with the expectation of paying professional rates for services. If you hire someone who's asking for $100 for an image (we assume with full rights release) then chances are, you're looking for, at best, "good enough" and cheap.

My experience (and I've posted this here before, so you may have already read it): A couple of years ago I was contacted by the regional manager of a huge international construction company to photograph a brand-new Lexus dealership they had just built. The scope of work entailed interior & exterior images for display in the company offices ($1000/sq ft space if it was a dime), use in the company magazine, website and potentially year-end report, with a delivery requirement being 6-8 high-res .tif files and one large-format framed print. In the hope that if they liked my work, they would use me regularly, I quoted them what I thought was a very low price for the work, in the area of $4000. I heard nothing... nothing... I finally called back and was told that they though my proposal was ridiculously expensive and they hired someone else to do the work for a more reasonable price. I've since learned through the camera-club grapevine that the reasonable price was around $250.

So, while there are still opportunities for licensing, they are getting fewer and farther between, and IF a client is going to pay what we think of as reasonable rates, I am fairly sure that he/she will be demanding top-end results which in all likelihood, someone asking the most basic of pricing questions may not be able to provide.

 

[dennybeall]

Come on guys, get back to the realities of the current world. There are a hundred folks lined up to do pictures of buildings. They have a nice new DSLR's they bought at Sam' Club that came complete with a Proclamation declaring the new owner to be a professional photographer. You have to somehow convince the customer that your photos are so much better then the ones these 20$/hr. folks will do.

 

[tirediron]

Come on guys, get back to the realities of the current world. There are a hundred folks lined up to do pictures of buildings. They have a nice new DSLR's they bought at Sam' Club that came complete with a Proclamation declaring the new owner to be a professional photographer. You have to somehow convince the customer that your photos are so much better then the ones these 20$/hr. folks will do.

My point exactly.

 

[jeffW]

...They have a nice new DSLR's they bought at Sam' Club that came complete with a Proclamation declaring the new owner to be a professional photographer.

I'm assuming your post is in jest.

To respond to Tireiron's previous post, and this will be my last response on the subject. Yes anyone who's been working in any of the art fields these past fifteen years can tell a horror story about clients either not being upfront and honest or being so ridiculously undercut that it boggles the mind. I've got friends in corporate sales who tell stories that are just as bad if not worse, it was recently reported on a multi-million dollar contract that doesn't account for even the operational costs required to do the contract and everything is going to court. A major city in the US is going to get sued big time because of an obvious lowball quote. Does that mean companies should adjust their price for these extreme examples? I photographed a project within an hours drive of Cleveland last year, similar to the OP's and billed for many thousands of dollars. So while you may quote one single rumor of a project going for a ridiculous rate that is not the norm. Your CODB is not a number pulled out of the sky, it's a number that keeps companies in business and I know you know this.

My point and reason for my response on this thread is the education system has failed the independent artist and the forums (online) are the way people seem to be getting their education. I feel it's irresponsible both to our profession and even the OP to state the sky is falling especially on a media that has both a life span, up to years with google search, and is understandably inaccurate for relaying all the relevant info for any given question. What if your clients read your posts(fears) and then won't budge in any of your contract negotiations believing this was the way things are? (because quite frankly most of this thread will be taken out of context for an outsider who reads it)

If you want some horror stories relating to undercutting photographers, I've got some. I believe when the 5dm2 came out that entire year one third of all the projects I photographed were reshoots. In that the client had hired someone for too good of a deal and then needed to apologize to their client because they would need to access the space again to have it rephotographed. Money lost on purchasing props for images that never arrived. I interviewed with one large interior design firm where they dumped a pile of prints on the conference table, one lady was practically in tears, they had paid this photographer a good chunk of their marketing budget, had scheduled with their clients all these spaces (busy - commercial spaces) and now they had all these images that they could NOT use. The quality of a photograph communicates the quality of the company. I can't reduce my costs even if I truly want to help. Hiring a cheap photographer is never going to be beneficial if in the course of the photography the architect or design firm lose their relationship with their client because someone had no professionalism

I doubt you can even find an assistant in Ohio for a hundred dollars, none the less one who supplies equipment without a rental fee. To clam that the way into our profession is via lowballing projects is absolutely wrong, take some college classes, assist other photographers, etc.. Why is it for a lot of the lowballing photographers that sprouted up I've either heard horror stories or they are no longer in business. There was rumors that one was dodging legal action, moved in the middle of the night not to be sued.

It's not just wether we have an artistic eye it's our professionalism, our responsibility to hire help so the garbage can in front of the building gets moved, to put forth the effort to create accurate proposals so the client know's how much the final invoice is going to be without surprises. And our responsibility to keep our profession a profession.

 

[camjam]

"I really didn't want to respond to this thread as I feel it doesn't do anyone any good if the OPs (plural) keep thinking they can just ask other people to do their work for them - they don't want to take the time to figure out their production costs or their CODB, quite frankly it ruins this forum and is probably why we never seen any of the "big dogs" online to share their wealth of info.

I shoot sports for our local paper. It's not a glamours gig at a big paper; it's only published once a week and at most is a dozen pages. It started because I wanted photos of my son and the paper did not cover his sports. It grew into a hobby, I get in free, I get a free subscription to the paper, reduced advertising rates for my business that actually pays the bills, I get the best view of the games and it keeps me off the streets at night. This has lead to opportunities to photograph all kinds of community events, seniors, babies and even the Miss Ohio finals. The parent of the kid who I photographed during lacrosse season called me to do her son's senior photos. Then asked me take her daughter's pre-dance photos and now her husband asked me to photograph buildings he designed for his website and brochures. I don't believe he called me because I am cheap; I think he called because of the relationship.

I really shouldn't call what I do a hobby any more, but I don't see photography as a full-time gig. At least until I retire or sell my business. I recently got stuck in a conversation with a local pro photographer about all the "soccer moms" ruining his business. He was complaining about me and I really didn't like being called a soccer mom since I'm a guy. (I've raised my prices since the encounter). I'm not sure why he was complaining as I also tend to get people who cannot afford his prices and every year I do a few sessions for free as I know the family is struggling financially. (I still do this).

My point is, everyone values their time differently. I don't need to take photos to put food on my table. The reason for my question is I'm tying to be courteous to the other photographers out there that do this full time. I knew going in how long it was going to take to get the images in camera and I had a fairly good idea how long it was going to take processing the images. What I don't know is what is normal and customary to charge for this type of work. I don't know the other photographers in the area that do architecture photography, but I don't want another repeat encounter with pro photographer complaining about all the soccer moms ruining their business.[/QUOTE]

 

[table1349]

Man, you damn near need hip waders for all the, em "stuff" floating around about the business in this. The fact is the world is changing, like it or not. It is a more service industry mindset these days plus the "Art" of photography due to the cost of equipment and the ease of use is open to the masses in a far different way.

The simple fact is, unless you feel like donating your time, you need to charge enough to cover your time, expenses, and make a bit of a profit. Whether that means just enough profit to buy a lunch or two and replace a lens here and there or if that means making your entire living, that is up to you.

 

[astroNikon]

...They have a nice new DSLR's they bought at Sam' Club that came complete with a Proclamation declaring the new owner to be a professional photographer.

I'm assuming your post is in jest.

So many past threads of "new wedding" or portrait, etc photographers and the like getting a Christmas/Birthday DSLR present.

Given hopeful advice from family and friends of their immediate total grasp of a dslr in taking perfect photos.

Learning the hard way that their equipment, knowledge and techniques are not quite up to the task of photographing various events such as a wedding when the results are more critical.

But that's okay. The wedding party can just repeat the ceremony so the photographer can learn and get it right.

 

[dennybeall]

Unfortunately I was absolutely serious. I've seen it many times where a person with a D3300, from Sam's Club, is bidding to do a birthday party for $75 or $100 dollars.