What to charge for an infant shoot?

[mgnike1]

Hello all! I've been asked if I can take photos of a 6 month old baby and not sure what to charge for about 20-25 shots....I am looking to include 1-11x14, 1-8x10, 2-5x7, 16 wallets.

Also, I will be shooting in my living room with my lighting set-up.

Does anyone have a better package or a package used by most that sells well? What is your normal fee?

Thanks in advance

[jra]

Is this just a one time thing that you're doing for a friend or family member that you have very little to no experience doing? (I'm guessing so considering the nature of the question) If that's the case, I would suggest just covering your time and costs would be sufficient.

[bayvillian516]

I do in hospital shoots for newborns. 20-25 photos, sent in a link edited and cropped for $150. I spend about 15 minutes shooting, so you might want to charge more + I dont include prints only digital. Hope this helps a little

[Daship]

Well if you suck free, if your pro sky is the limit. Post an example and you will be told if you should even charge at all.

[GerryDavid]

Figure out what your travel and other businesses expenses are to shoot this, figure out what your time is worth to you and how many hours youll spend on this between shooting, talking with them, working on the pictures and delivering, and go from there. :)

Since its your living room theres no travel time or expense, thats good. figure 2 hours to shoot, an hour to show the pictures, and a couple more hours to process the pictures and place the order. Plus the half an hour to setup before they get there, half an hour that they will probably be late and a half an hour to clean up after they leave.

All in all thats an estimated 7 hours involved. If you are using a pro lab like WHCC that above package will cost $24 shipped to you due to the min order requirements, the extra prints you may as well order can be used for your portfolio. :) Then there is equipment depreciation, insurance, utilities, etc.

You should figure out what you need to charge per hour then you will know what to charge for the above package. :)

how did you come up with that package? Why force them to get specific print sizes? Some people hate wallets, some people find 8x10's to large, and some find 11x14's pretentious.

[GerryDavid]

Oh and when they say on here the more you charge, the easier the clients tend to be is true. :) Last year I really raised my prices and it was a great move. :) I wasnt getting a ton of customers at my cheaper pricing so I figured I may as well make enough to do one portrait a day. Now I dont have to worry about rushing a portrait to get it done to work on the next one, im paid enough to be able to focus on their pictures, make sure theres no acne, etc.

I also found it hard to make enough off prints alone, so I started to offer other things my lab had to offer like the press printed books, once I started offering those, my average sales tripled. People had a problem spending over $100 on prints alone at my cheaper pricing, but they didnt have a problem spending $250 or more on a custom book.

[GerryDavid]

I do in hospital shoots for newborns. 20-25 photos, sent in a link edited and cropped for $150. I spend about 15 minutes shooting, so you might want to charge more + I dont include prints only digital. Hope this helps a little

How did you get started in that? The local hospital where my son was born has the nurses do the pictures, and I think its either free or cheap. The pictures are just snapshots. I am tempted to find out if I can step in and do better pictures for them, but I would have to charge at least $100 to make it worth my while.

How often do you go to the hospital for it?

Do they prepay you or do you do them for all the babies and hope they sell?

[tman2782]

"Find More Posts" (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/search.php?do=finduser&u=259571)

nuff sed!

[Austin.P]

Regardless if the prints, charge $100 then make them pay extra for the prints and the disk.

$100- that's in your pocket off the bat.
1- 11x16-$5.00~ charge $10.00
1- 8x10-$2.30~ charge $7.00
2- 5x7-$2.40~ charge $7.00
16 wallets-$3.22~ charge $10.00
Disk- $20.00-$25.00
(^^^based on my cost^^^)

So you made roughly $55.00-$60.00 minus your print cost.

[GerryDavid]

Using my pricing, the above package would be $50 for the hour of photography, $125 for the 11x14 and $100 for the four sheets. :) Plus tax. So $275 before tax.