Hey, you gotta great digital camera, wanna shoot....

[GenEOS]

This post is not really to ask for any input, but more to rant.

Why is it that most your friends and co-workers are more than happy to refer you or ask you to shoot something and then when you quote a reasonable price for deliverables, they say.....

"Man I didn't want to spend that much"

or

"I could buy a camera for that much"

or

"I don't want any prints, so why are you so high"

What brought this on was a friend of a friend wanting me to shoot some high quality shots of his wife and a friend's race car. Bikini shots. I guess I was supposed to just volunteer, or he expected me too.

I quoted $125 for 8 finished images fit for printing in digital format. That amounts to an hour on site or whatever it took, and then processing all the images in photoshop. Giving him copyright to print as many as he wanted.

Is that too much?

[iwatkins]

Depends on his wife. :twisted: :twisted:

Does charging that amount sound fair to you ? If so, it is the right price. If that isn't good enough for him, tell him to go and look up another photographer in the phone book and see what quotes he gets.

Cheers

Ian

[Bruce Hamilton]

...tell him to go and look up another photographer in the phone book and see what quotes he gets.
And when he decides your price is reasonable after all, give him 8 prints for the $125 you quoted, but keep the digital images and copyrights for yourself... Next time, he'll keep his big mouth shut.

[Ikinaa]

GenEOS,

looking at your gallery, I think it's a fair price.

But give him the choice :
8 pics with copyright for $125
or
8 pics printed without copyright for $125

Perhaps explain him how much all your gear costs and that "I could buy a camera for that much" may be true, and that he should try. He'll come back, because as we all know : The camera Takes the picture, but it's the guy/gal behind it that Makes it...

[chris.bailey]

In my business I have a rule of not working for friends and family. That way the issue of value never arises.

Your quoted cost seems very fair to me, it comes down to about $40 and hour, how much do they think is fair.

[Jesper]

I think at least part of the problem is because your clients don't understand that making really good and interesting photo is more than just point-and-shoot. Why would they pay so much money for someone to push a button? Maybe you should explain what you're doing besides pushing the button - Photoshop work, etc. to make a really interesting, great quality photo, so they'd understand how much of your time it costs.

[GenEOS]

I opted for the simple "OK, let me know if you decide to get use me."
I think he thought I would volunteer if I got to shoot his wife spawled out on a Camaro. Might be the case, if I was not married, but I have to pay the bills somehow... Most people think the camera does all the work...
The other comments that makes my skin crawl is this one...."Hey....man that is a sharp picture, that looks awesome...You MUST have a really nice camera." But, these are the same people who go to JC Penney's for portraits, because they have professional photographers.

[Belmondo]

In my business I have a rule of not working for friends and family. That way the issue of value never arises.

I can't think of a better way to ruin a friendship or to cause a strain in the family than to put yourself in a position of being a paid service provider. Obviously, I've deliberately worded this in a way so that it's not limited to just photographic services. In nearly any example you can mention, it's probably a bad idea.

Look at it from the other point of view---that of the purchaser. If you've hired a friend or family member to do something, how do you tell that person if you're not happy with their work? If something is done purely as a favor, that's one thing, but if money changes hands or is expected, that makes the situation much more awkward.

Which is more valuable? The relationship or the money?

[Bruce Hamilton]

If you've hired a friend or family member to do something, how do you tell that person if you're not happy with their work? If something is done purely as a favor, that's one thing, but if money changes hands or is expected, that makes the situation much more awkward.
Not in my family... I've done too many favors that have been met with b****ing, moaning, and whining. People have no problem expressing their dissatisfaction, despite no money changing hands.

[BobbyC]

I think it shows just how important it really is to your friend, obviously not very.

I have run into the opposite as well. I have a friend who builds show cars (trucks actually) and wanted a magazine style layout done on an award winning truck, he called a photographer and the guy wanted 1,500.00 with no pictures included. I happily took the job for 600.00, (about 2 hours worth of work) then he sold the truck the next day (offer he couldn't refuse) so I didn't get to shoot it :o(

The way I see it, if they don't want to pay, I won't play, there are plenty of people out there that will.

[IndyJeff]

GenEOS several years back I had a friend of a friend who wanted some shots of his wife on his new Harley. The guy got in touch with me and we met. His wife, or should I say his trophy, was a knockout. Now all of this was going to be done in a warehouse and she would be in various forms of dress and undress.
What he was wanting was a few shots for his private use (the naked ones in 8x10) and a poster size for display in his sports room. I quoted him a price for six 8x10 and one 20x30 poster. The price......$500.00. Dude just about fell off his chair and said he was thinking more along the lines of $50. I told him you can't get naked pictures developed at the local Wal-Mart and I would be taking them to a Pro Lab to get processing done and that is more expensive, not to mention the printing costs.
I then asked him how many frames did he think I was prepared to shoot? His answer, "maybe 24". I told him for something like this I would shoot at least 2 rolls of 36 or 72 shots, maybe 108.
It ended with him saying I was ripping him off and I left. All I had invested was about 45 minutes driving time and 30 minutes of the meeting.
Three weeks goes by and he calls me up and wants to talk. He said he contacted some other guys and $500 wasn't to high. He did find someone to do it for $50 and they spent more than that on processing and enlargements. When the prints came back he said the 8x10's weren't all that great and the poster was fine if you stood back about 20 feet, otherwise it was fuzzy. The $50 guy shot the job with drugstore film, 800 ISO, got his $50 handed to him and handed them the film and said BYE.
So I agreed to do the job, he keeps the negs but he had to sign an agreement that no more than six 8x10's and one 20x30 poster would be printed. He wouldn't agree to that so, I walked.
About 2 years later I see the wife, now divorced and she said that he paid another guy $750 to do it and he got to keep the negs, this guy sharged him an extra $150 for the negs. About a year later he met a younger and better built blonde and the wife caught him at thier lake house "laying the wood" to the new blonde so the divorce. She got his Harley, the lake house and boat and 2 cars.
Since then, last year she contacted me and wondered if I could do "Boudiar" {sic} shots. I did them at the lake house and she was very sexy. She gave her new boyfriend a 11x17 print for his birthday, and paid me $350. We narrowed the 50 or so shots down to five and I put them on disk, she had the printing done. I still regret not making an extra disk for myself LOL
In all with travel time, the setup and shooting, processing I had about 4 hours invested. Of course I could have done the shoot in less time but why rush a good thing!!!

[Canuck]

IndyJeff,
Hmmm...who got the best deal??? :) I know the answer.

[Canuck]

In my business I have a rule of not working for friends and family. That way the issue of value never arises.

I can't think of a better way to ruin a friendship or to cause a strain in the family than to put yourself in a position of being a paid service provider. Obviously, I've deliberately worded this in a way so that it's not limited to just photographic services. In nearly any example you can mention, it's probably a bad idea.

Look at it from the other point of view---that of the purchaser. If you've hired a friend or family member to do something, how do you tell that person if you're not happy with their work? If something is done purely as a favor, that's one thing, but if money changes hands or is expected, that makes the situation much more awkward.

Which is more valuable? The relationship or the money?


I never let money change hands till they are satisfied with the product I am selling. If they don't like it we do it again till we get it right or run out of patience. I did a shoot of a then 9 month old daughter of a coworker for fun and that worked out brilliantly. There was about 10 pics I did and it took about a minute and a half to do all 10 pics and a few hrs tweeking them. I shot them small fine jpeg as I didn't want to have to mess with them too much later. This was just for fun anyway. Speaking of which, I need to see if they want some family pics done. I am gonna wait till spring if it ever comes. We had snow last night too! That was interesting, for this part of England. I am used to driving in the snow though. Good luck!

Cheers from England,
Canuck

[IndyJeff]

IndyJeff,
Hmmm...who got the best deal??? :) I know the answer.


Oh I know who got the best end of the deal....I did. Funny thing was when we started, she was kind of shy and then she began saying things like, tell me what to do. So I did, rather subltley at first then a little more bluntly as the session went by. By the end we were talking like a hooker and a pimp but, we had fun doing it. When we looked at the images on the PC, we both criticized the shots. Some she liked and then I would point out how different angles and lighting would bring out this or that better. We actually went back in the bedroom and shot about 10 more shots of one pose she really liked and ended up going with one of those. She also wanted to do some full nudes, which I obliged, just because she always wanted to pose nude. You know the kind of shot, almost seeing something but just enough shadow to make it undefinable. It was just about then I was wishing that I wasn't married, LOL but it never came down to more than a little dirty talk and some flirting.

Spoiled rotten little rich girls make playful models. It was almost fun letting her teasing me the way she was and then not giving in to my temptations. If I were a single man.......well I wasn't so LOL

[Canuck]

IndyJeff,
Hmmm...who got the best deal??? :) I know the answer.


Oh I know who got the best end of the deal....I did. Funny thing was when we started, she was kind of shy and then she began saying things like, tell me what to do. So I did, rather subltley at first then a little more bluntly as the session went by. By the end we were talking like a hooker and a pimp but, we had fun doing it. When we looked at the images on the PC, we both criticized the shots. Some she liked and then I would point out how different angles and lighting would bring out this or that better. We actually went back in the bedroom and shot about 10 more shots of one pose she really liked and ended up going with one of those. She also wanted to do some full nudes, which I obliged, just because she always wanted to pose nude. You know the kind of shot, almost seeing something but just enough shadow to make it undefinable. It was just about then I was wishing that I wasn't married, LOL but it never came down to more than a little dirty talk and some flirting.

Spoiled rotten little rich girls make playful models. It was almost fun letting her teasing me the way she was and then not giving in to my temptations. If I were a single man.......well I wasn't so LOL

rotflmao

[IndyJeff]

Yeah Canuck you rotflyao but me, I have stirred up old memories and now I have to hope I don't talk in my sleep tonight.

Lets see what was Mickey Mantles batting average his last year? Ernie Banks? Ahhh Ron Santo..............

[cyberphonics]

Whether or not your price is reasonable isn't the issue. In circumstances like these, it's more so that people ideally want you to be doing it for free - even if they ask how much it'll cost (they want you to say, "For YOU? Don't worry about it..."), so no matter what price you quote, they'll typically come back with an answer like the ones you posted. It's habitual.

Just say it's how much you charge and that's it. If you feel the need to explain why, go ahead, but you can't second guess yourself whenever someone else questions you or what you do. Or hey, do what I do sometimes - quote something really high and ridiculous you had no intention of charging anyway and when they say, "Geez, that's crazy, no thanks" you then say, "Ok, well, since you're a buddy and this would sort of be a favor, I could swing it for you for..." and then give the price you actually wanted to charge in the first place.

Much of the way people perceive things is a matter of relativity. Everything is expensive compared to "free", so you give them something more expensive than your rates to think about before quoting yours and it'll be cheap by comparison.

If they still won't pay it, it's just not an amount they're willing to pay for the project period and that reflects nothing on your price (in some cases), just their individual lack of willingness to pay it. If it's not really all that important, they probably won't pay even if you charge 10 bucks and lunch at Wendy's.

[dmead516]

You know, ever since digital came around, and became more affordable for the consumers, I heard someone say that the regular folks are getting used to bad quality, as they are printing them off on their $100 home printers. Now when we who have lots of time and $$ invested in our craft come along, they think we should just be giving away our services. Weddings are the worst. They will pay big bucks for the cake, the catering, the dresses (all of which will not be used after the big day), yet they try to get us at the lowest price possible (of course the photos will be the only thing they will really have after a year). When I shot film, I had a Canon A2 with a Metz 60-CT1 flash-everyone knew I was a professional. Since digital came out EVERYONE has one, now it feels like I am no better than the rest of the camera toting people, even though I have over 20 years of shooting seniors, models, weddings, special events, etc. Another thing that aggravates is the "lets shoot it as it is, then fix it in the computer", which totally takes away the creativeness of the photographer. I saw an article in a magazine where the guy said "It is better to spend 10 hours a day being a photographer than to spend 5 hours working on a half-_ssed photo you did not like in the beginning".

[ScullenCrossBones]

If someone mentions to me they could buy a camera for the price of the photos, I just start recommending cameras they might like.

If they wanted a glass of milk and the milk wasn't free, would they try to by a cow?

My experience is that friends rarely make good customers. YMMV

[JWright]

I don't seem to have the problem of my friends asking me for photography because all my friends are photographers...

And the only family member close by I haven't spoken to in ten years...

[fatmantan]

Nice 5 1/2 year grave dig 8-)

[Karl Johnston]

I quoted $125 for 8 finished images fit for printing in digital format. That amounts to an hour on site or whatever it took, and then processing all the images in photoshop. Giving him copyright to print as many as he wanted.

Is that too much?

!?!?!?!?
That's way way way too little. That's worse than the 400$ wedding guy I know in las vegas.

If anything don't give him copyright...get that right out of there, eliminate that clause all together.

I advise two things; finding better clients, and two, moving on and finding better people to work with. Anyone that tells you you're too much shouldn't be looking for a pro photographer.

[NeoTokyo]

Well I have very close friends that I would not mind doing work for absolutely free, these are people who have been in my life since I was 14 years old. So in those respects I think there are SOME people that would be OK to do free work for, but then just reflect on how much they helped you through your life.

Now I have good friends that are a lot more recent and I would NOT do free work for them, there is even some family that I will not do free work for and some that I wont work for at all.

I think it all comes down to how you feel around those friends and family members and how much of a valued true friend they have been.

One thing I do ask when I do free work for friends and family members, pass my name along but don't give out prices, just say that I am great! :D

It never works but oh well :D

[NeoTokyo]

Wow, I didnt even see how old this thing was..... I wouldnt have posted if I knew :P

Nice 5 1/2 year grave dig 8-)

[kitacanon]

Never mix friendship with money...never mix one business with another...too many pitfalls...too many possible misunderstandings...before, during and after the shoot...

That's my rule...and this month I broke it...kinda...
My cousin's husband wasn't selling off her mom's estate fast enough and they told him so in front of me knowing that I could help...well, I offered to help HIM, not her, and so I avoided the confrontation and any conflict there...we're helping each other out, but it was tricky getting to that sense of agreement...business is all about building relationships, not breaking them...

[SMP_Homer]

This post is not really to ask for any input, but more to rant.

Why is it that most your friends and co-workers are more than happy to refer you or ask you to shoot something and then when you quote a reasonable price for deliverables, they say.....

"Man I didn't want to spend that much"

or

"I could buy a camera for that much"

or

"I don't want any prints, so why are you so high"

What brought this on was a friend of a friend wanting me to shoot some high quality shots of his wife and a friend's race car. Bikini shots. I guess I was supposed to just volunteer, or he expected me too.

I quoted $125 for 8 finished images fit for printing in digital format. That amounts to an hour on site or whatever it took, and then processing all the images in photoshop. Giving him copyright to print as many as he wanted.

Is that too much?

When friends are involved, all bets are off...

when you need help moving, you call your friends... I don't think any of them will hand you an invoice for a set # of hours, gas, etc... they're your friends, and you expect them to help if you ask nicely...
If you have a friend that's also an auto mechanic, you'll ask him about all your car noises, and probably expect to not need to pay him for his advise. If he does work on your car, you'll probably hope he cuts you a deal on parts and labour, etc...

I think same thing applies when our friends see our cameras... they want that same treatment, and for the most part, I don't see why not!

[SMP_Homer]

I now know this is an old thread...
but the 'free' stuff I often do for family can be seen as free advertisement from time to time...
my uncle works for a local GM dealer... he asked me to take pics of his dad's old Vette... I didn't charge him anything, but he supplied all foods and drinks that afternoon... he showed them around at his work, and next thing you know, I get a weekly gig going in to the dealer to shoot the new & used cars for web and print ads.

[Hand_of_Cod]

It was almost fun letting her teasing me the way she was and then not giving in to my temptations. If I were a single man.......well I wasn't so LOL


I imagine a teasing model would produce wonderfully teasing shots! One most be professional at all times..... even if a more primitive part of your mind is kicking you in the arse.

[KenjiS]

Yeh..this is sadly one of my problems with trying to actually make money off my work is trying to figure out how much my work is worth :(

And trying to find something -marketable- with my photography...