Freelance product photography

[Prometheus]

I've been propositioned by a small, local business I do contract computer work for to do recurring product photography for their web site. Small items, mostly electronics. All digital.

I have no idea where to start as far as pricing goes. I've never had a photography gig before. Would it be more appropriate to license the images or to provide a full copyright release? Should I do a package deal (ex. 50 products for $xyz) or use an image-by-image pricing structure? What can I expect to receive as compensation from a small business?

I'd love to make this a regular thing, I just don't know where to start.

AHHH, help please

 

[craig]

Begin by bidding a half or full day rate. This will cover drive time and a lot of other incidentals you may have forgot about. As the relationship grows you can adjust the bid accordingly. Check out this link Stock Photo Price Calculator and somewhere out there is a Cost of Doing Business Calculator.

As far as rights goes; that is a personal decision. I generally give the client full rights. This is because most of my clients are small businesses. I am familiar with their traffic and thankfully photos are updated by me regularly. Now if you are shooting for Disney or AT&T that theory goes out the window because it is good to sock to the man. Long story short rights decisions should be based on the clients photo usage and it's distribution. Another theory is if you do not charge for usage you are losing out on a huge part of the business.

Love & Bass

 

[JimmyO]

Price it bases on what its worth to you. Dont sell your self for less then its worth, but dont over charge if you really dont know what your doing. Maybe if you went more in depth with details we could help you more

 

[Prometheus]

Sorry for the late reply- I haven't been able to log-in the past few days for some reason.

We originally agreed on $30 per hour with no copyright transfer fee because it was originally supposed to be computer work with maybe 20 minutes of shooting now, with more photography work in the future. I get there and he now wants 12 products shot and processed into 72 separate animated GIFs. I got 18 done in 4 hours yesterday and the guy complained that I was going too slow and running up his bill, so he argued and argued until I agreed to $300 for two days of work. It's ridiculously low but I need the money really bad - I've been unemployed for months. If things go the same way on monday I'll ask for payment for everything completed up to that point and walk away. If he still tries to get out of payment I'll bring him to civil court with the original correspondence indicating $30/hr.

For my first real photo gig it's not going as planned. I'd have walked out yesterday and billed him for the work completed up to that point if I didn't need the money this bad.

 

[KmH]

Many people had problems trying to log in.

The rest of the Internert was still available, though.

It sounds like you started doing this product photography work without a written contract, but you have a contract for the computer work?

 

[Prometheus]

Many people had problems trying to log in.

The rest of the Internert was still available, though.

It sounds like you started doing this product photography work without a written contract, but you have a contract for the computer work?

Yep. It was originally supposed to be 90% computer work today with most of the photography next month, so I hadn't drafted a contract for the photography yet. Me, in my not-so-clear state of mind considering I need the money, decided to go ahead and start on the photography when I was asked to ditch the computer work that day and do photography.

I'm going to go in next week, ask for payment for the $30/hr due up to that point previously agreed upon, and bring in a contract for the rest of the photography work. This is ridiculous. He even had the gall to tell me at the end of the day "I have thousands of dollars worth of professional grade photography equipment, I just wanted to bring in somebody like yourself to do the work."

It's mostly my fault, but it doesn't change the fact that the guy's a dick.