Photographic Fees

[jon72]

I've got a few small jobs to quote shortly, and I was wondering what the rate formula is for catalog shots. Is there a general or standardized per shot fee that can be used, i.e. $150.00 per shot?

Thanks,

Jon

[2goldens]

check cornering the pros. You should be able to find your answer in that forum. I think I remember that question about a week or two ago in that forum.

[Moments]

It all depends. Some clients, mostly the cheap ones, will like a day rate for a shoot. I had a few clients which then tried to add more shots to the shoot list after a day rate was agreed upon. So I tried to stay away from day rates for catalog jobs, or I gave a max amount and or type of shots I would do for the day rate.
Most of the catalog jobs I did were based upon a per shot price. Depending upon the type of shots the amount of shots and the circulation and or usage is how we priced each shot.
I have been out of the commercial end for a few years now, but the last national catalog client I had some 5+ years ago was paying $185.00 per small tabletop shot and it went up to $600.00 for a jewlery shot. For 12 years, I did 10 catalogs a year for them with an average of 80 - 125 shots per.

On the flipside the last job I quoted on, and lost was for 2000 images of pins, hats, jerseys, for the online webstore for a major sports industry. I was to unpack, organize, log, style, shoot, color correct to exact team colors, silo, then save as high and low res. I did the same job the year before for 3300 images at $75.00 per shot for this client. My final bid to do the job again that was undercut by another studio was for $30.00 per image. Eventhough they were very happy with my work on the initial job which launched thier on-line store, and I was told I would get the job again, they then said they really needed to save money and needed to give the new studio a try. I do not watch pro ball anymore and I said goodbye to catalogs after 15 years. All those multi million dollar contracts affect more than just ticket prices.

I made a good living for 15 years with catalogs but the downward trend of the catalog buisness still has me a little p'd off, but have fun and good luck!

[ShadowFlyP]

I did the same job the year before for 3300 images at $75.00 per shot for this client.

Wow... 3300 images at $75 = $247,500. Not bad for a years worth of work. :lol:

[chtgrubbs]

Pete, I would be interested in knowing how much time you estimated the sports catalog job would have taken. I have never shot a job involving such a large number of images, especially requiring the logging and digital post printing, but I may have an opportunity to bid on one coming up.

Thanks,
Charles

[Moments]

Pete, I would be interested in knowing how much time you estimated the sports catalog job would have taken. I have never shot a job involving such a large number of images, especially requiring the logging and digital post printing, but I may have an opportunity to bid on one coming up.

Thanks,
Charles

I did make a mistake in the fees, it was $65.00 per product. We were also able to use the clients UPS account to ship all of products back. And we also used thier Fed ex account to ship out CDs. If we would have had to pay for the return, it would have cost a good penny. That is something that the account rep forgot about.

The job was to take 3 months, but the hold up on product delivery made it take 8 months to complete. I started in Feb 2001 and it ended durring the 2001 World Series. Product delivery to the studio was the biggest problem. Some days I would recieve a few products and some days I would recieve tons, that was the biggest problem. No matter when I would get products to shoot, they would have to match the angles etc of the other products that I shot before, no matter if I shot the first product 8 months before, they all had to match. When products came to the studio, they were sent from the manufacuters or vendors. I had a master list that had all of the product on it listed by manufacture. As far as jerseys, and caps, I could have three manufactures, each with different styles and sizes (adult, Kids, etc.) I had home jerseys and away jerseys and some of the jerseys were the same but they might have different players names on them, and I had to possibly shoot each or some of them, I spent a lot of time checking paperwork and making daily phone calls to the client.

When I recieved the products, I had to get the final images out ASAP. I would have to give each image a specific product number for the catalog and then hand them over to another person in the studio to do all the color, corrections, etc. We had a day shift and an overnight shift for the post production. We were given all of the exact pantone fabric colors for each team to match. The next day they would be put on a CD and fed-ex'd to the company that was setting up the on-line store. I could shoot 10, 30, 60 tabletop products a day. The most I shot in a day was 190 jerseys, which did take two days just to log in and steam each one and then on the third day I shot them in a specific order. It took the color guy two days to finish all of those images. The entire job was done by myself and another person to do all of the post production.

It was the biggest job I ever did, and I was highly praised by the client thoughout the job. It was a real kick in the face when it was lost to another studio simply via a new person at MLB, and under cutting by another studio. I almost bid $27.00 per image for the second year, but I thought if I did, I might get stuck with all that work again for not enough money to justify at least a half of a year of constant work that would possibly take away from working with any other clients.

Since then, I have worked with a friend helping him with other catalogs that were not as big, 300 - 400 shots, but every year one does take 2 - 3 months to complete, and it was just as hectic because of too many changes in merch and layouts. The money is good, but you give up a lot of your life and hair.

I know a lot of very good commercial photographers, but when it comes to high volume catalog photography, not all of them could deal with the pressure that it takes to produce the job after a few days. Doing 10 to 30 shots over a day or two, is much different then consitantly shooting catalog shot after catalog shot. With that, good luck with the catalog that you are going to bid upon.

Now I do the occasional commercial job for a few friends and studios, but I do not miss the everyday saga of them and the shrinking bugets. After 15+ years of doing catalogs, and other advertising photography, I'm much happier with the wedding buisness now.