New to the site, with a few questions!

SilverWingedFaerie · Dec 10, 2007

Hello everyone,

My name is Katie, I'm 26, and photography has been a passion of mine for quite a few years.

I have taken photos of 2 weddings now, and have done sessions with family members, along with many young children. Recently one of my co-workers who knows about my passion asked me to take photos of her, and her horse, and she insists on paying me. My questions are what should I charge? I would feel good charging a flat rate. I have no issues with taking as many photos as she wishes, it's my day off, and experience is a good thing. She mentioned that she might be having some other people come with their horses to get photos done as well. That's where the pricing thing gets all complicated. Any advice???

:heart:Thanks for your time and advice!!!:heart:

*~*~*Katie Mae*~*~*

kundalini · Dec 10, 2007

Hello and welcome to TPF.

There are several threads and a multitude of opinions on your question. I kindly defer to them and only offer for you to make sure your costs are covered in the early days.

dpolston · Dec 10, 2007

Welcome to it!

This is a little tricky because I'm not sure if you want to do it more or less for the experience or the side money.

If it were just your friend, I'd say go for the free thing and give her some prints cheap, swear her to secrecy on what you charged her and use the photos for a portfolio and a learning thing. But... if you charge, figure what your time is to you (and don't forget things like editing time, going to the photo lab and dropping off orders and picking them up and everything else). Then because it's a friend... perhaps cut that cost in half (but don't forget to have her swear secrecy to your deal!).

For the other people. If (and that is a huge IF) you feel comfortable with taking other people's horse photos, charge full price for everything (labor and prints).

Here's the tricky part. If you don't get what you're looking for (as far as quality) from what will be your test run at these types of photos, do not take on the other clients because bad word of mouth advertising is hard to overcome. And if you explain this fully to your friend with terms like "I can't guarantee anything.. but I'll try... blah, blah, blah", and "I don't want to commit to these other folks yet", I believe that your friend will understand.

I would rather turn down a job that I'm not sire of rather than hose someone that might expect more than what I might be capable of. Plus animals (even though it's a trained horse) can be unpredictable.

I'm not trying to talk you out of it. Go for it! But you need to determine for yourself what you're worth an hour. And set limits like; I'll agree on 3 total hours for the project (1.5 to shoot and 1.5 for everything else as an example) but if it takes 2.5 hours to shoot, charge that extra hour. Don't lock yourself into a set fee. Base it all on projected hours.

Hope this helps.

David

SilverWingedFaerie · Dec 11, 2007

Thank you for your help, I understand where you are comming from. I am a little worried about the bad word of mouth, but then again, I am pretty confident in myself and my skills. My main fear for me and this project is the weather vs. me. The photos will be outside, and I live in MN...so I am crossing my fingers for warm weather.

I'm sure I'm going to be on here with many more questions...hopefully eventually I'll be the one with answers for some noobs!!!

Big Mike · Dec 11, 2007

Welcome aboard Katie.

This can be a trick thing. On one hand, you may not be 'professional' yet and you don't have a set price structure...but if you are performing a service and delivering a product, then you deserve to get paid. (I won't mention that you should have a business licence and pay tax on the money you get...)

I would suggest that you look around your area and see what professional photographers charge, then set your price based on that.

If you plan on turning this into a business, you will want to be careful of setting your price too low. That would make it hard to run the business and raising your prices at a later time, isn't always as easy as it sounds.