Shooting 5,000 products

He countered my offer with 33 cents a photo.

I passed.

Thanks for all the great advice though, gave me a lot to think about when it comes to product photography. Y'all are awesome!

Shawn_BS wrote in post #18315810
He countered my offer with 33 cents a photo.

Geeez! I expected them to cheap out, but didn't think they'd have the balls to break the dollar barrier.
It's been kind of fun thinking about how best to do the job, though. Next time I bet you'll ask "Whats your budget?" first thing, right? ; )

Shawn_BS wrote in post #18315810
He countered my offer with 33 cents a photo.

I passed.

Thanks for all the great advice though, gave me a lot to think about when it comes to product photography. Y'all are awesome!

holy shart.

i am literally laughing out loud. 2 bucks a product?

please try and find out if someone takes this job and report back. this could be some good internetting.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #18315895
"Whats your budget?" first thing, right? ; )

yup. It is not an easy question to ask, but often saves a lot of time and effort on dumb asses.

This specific client might be a dud, but the project concept is still an interesting one to think about.

Having a background in computers would really come in handy. For something like this I would really want to have a barcode scanner and automation software. If you're manually keying in product codes or typing names, then you're wasting a lot of time that could be used for setting up actual shots. However if you have all your data set up ahead of time, keyed to the product barcode or product code, then the process ideally becomes almost as streamlined as going through a checkout.

Another important thing is going to be organization and good batch planning. What products are quickly shot together? Jumping between a box for one shot and then trying to set up the lighting to get a good photo of a bunch of bananas and then back to another box is not going to make the task quick or easy.

Building a system that would let you generate interactive checklists would probably be a nice bonus as well. As you enter products into the system you would ideally have a list that provides a link to each of the specific views, and a sign-off function. Or even better a webpage like interface where each item is shown with all the photos at once, one item at a time, and rated pass or fail. Quality control kind of thing, double checking that the correct product has been photographed to a usable quality, and each image is in fact labeled and stored where it is supposed to be.

Report generation on pending items vs finished items would be handy, maybe broken further down into states like the item has been collected and is ready for photography, and has been photographed but not yet returned to stock. The goal there would be making sure the proper items are collected and readied for photography, and items aren't skipped or duplicated during collection.


Then there are storage conditions to consider. If you're doing frozen or refrigerated goods you need to decide how are you handling those. Are they being kept in sale-ready condition? Are you collecting and storing them prior to photography in a manner that is safe to return them to stock for sale? If not, do you want to thaw them out and deal with them at room temp to avoid condensation?

Luckless wrote in post #18319269
This specific client might be a dud, but the project concept is still an interesting one to think about...

This is a great idea. As you said, while the job may not materialized, there is plenty of conversation in this topic. I do product photography but have not yet had the fortune to land such a large job. All I can do is take my current workflows and expand on them, but you are right that there are alot of other considerations not initially foreseeable. I would love for someone who's done this chime in with their workflow.

Wow... 33 cents per photo?
Horses for courses I guess.

We were asked to bid last year for a project that involved 100 packaging images for a large consumer package group company that was redesigning it's entire line of product. All frozen fish for retail packaging (as seen in the supermarkets). The design firm that requested the bid was upfront about budget- $150,000.00. We were able to make the numbers work in our proposal but truthfully not without a lot of 'finessing' of rates for food stylists, food stylist assistants, prop stylists, digital techs, assistants, et. etc.

Luckless wrote in post #18319269
This specific client might be a dud, but the project concept is still an interesting one to think about.

Having a background in computers would really come in handy. For something like this I would really want to have a barcode scanner and automation software. If you're manually keying in product codes or typing names, then you're wasting a lot of time that could be used for setting up actual shots. However if you have all your data set up ahead of time, keyed to the product barcode or product code, then the process ideally becomes almost as streamlined as going through a checkout.

Another important thing is going to be organization and good batch planning. What products are quickly shot together? Jumping between a box for one shot and then trying to set up the lighting to get a good photo of a bunch of bananas and then back to another box is not going to make the task quick or easy.

Building a system that would let you generate interactive checklists would probably be a nice bonus as well. As you enter products into the system you would ideally have a list that provides a link to each of the specific views, and a sign-off function. Or even better a webpage like interface where each item is shown with all the photos at once, one item at a time, and rated pass or fail. Quality control kind of thing, double checking that the correct product has been photographed to a usable quality, and each image is in fact labeled and stored where it is supposed to be.

Report generation on pending items vs finished items would be handy, maybe broken further down into states like the item has been collected and is ready for photography, and has been photographed but not yet returned to stock. The goal there would be making sure the proper items are collected and readied for photography, and items aren't skipped or duplicated during collection.


Then there are storage conditions to consider. If you're doing frozen or refrigerated goods you need to decide how are you handling those. Are they being kept in sale-ready condition? Are you collecting and storing them prior to photography in a manner that is safe to return them to stock for sale? If not, do you want to thaw them out and deal with them at room temp to avoid condensation?

Canon includes a solution with a "specialized" camera that includes the ability to print bar codes and tie them to a custom data set. You include the barcode in the frame, it is recognized and the data is bound to the file, including naming.

Pretty sure I'm not making that up, lol, think it was sold with the 7D

Left Handed Brisket wrote in post #18328569
...think it was sold with the 7D

Well, this is something I didn't know was available. Thank you for bringing this up. I read the article, "professional Canon camera now supports barcode reader," that gives a quick overview of how it works.

Apparently this is the first camera to support 'in-camera' marrying of barcode data with an image file. Previously (or alternatively) it would have been done on capture into a computer. Looks like it was geared towards the school and sports portrait photographers who need some way to match the images with the child. I.e.

• Child fills out a form with name and address. That form has a unique ID printed on it in barcode form
  
• Child sits down for the photo, hands the assistant/photographer the form and the barcode is scanned
  
• Photographer takes photos knowing those images are now tagged with that child's unique ID number
  
• Next child comes in and the process is repeated. How simple is that?
  

It will be better to charge per photo basis. Are you going to do the basic photo editing task that will be needed by yourself as well?

Shawn_BS wrote in post #18313148
So I was recently contacted for a job, and the client is looking for 5,000 photos. They run a small grocery store and would like to put all of their products online.

Did you ever find out if another photographer took on this project?

If you have never done a large job of this scale which I suspect is the case, really take a long look at it.

When I worked for a medium sized printing company I did 3300 product shots for a major sports league back in 2001. Thought it would take 3 months but it took 8 due to not getting the products as promised. I did 175 Jerseys in one day. It took a day to organize them and place them on racks in order of the naming convention the files needed to be. Shot on a slant board which I was standing behind with the loaded rack on my left and an empty one on the right. Had a remote to fire the camera and guides on the board so each jersey was exactly the same. 175 was pushing it. Then the next day to export and name the images. Price was $65.00 per image. The following year I was on my own and the league came to me to do the 2000 products that were changing. I found myself in a bidding war with another photographer. Once it was down to $30 I bowed out as I did not that much work for that pay. I was afraid if I bid $27 I would get stuck with it.

Granted much different than food products but I've also done that for another client as a day shooter. Bottles, cans, boxes you can move through real quickly shooting. When you come to bags its different. Change to a overhead set up? Go to frozen products again different workflow. Getting the 5K of products and storing them. All the frozen products but as empty packages, Perishable products, will need to be discarded.

I work now for a large manufacturer and tomorrow I have a freelance photographer starting about 300 hundred basically copy shots of carded items some of which have gold type and gold products mounted on them. I'm figuring he will take 3 days as he is familiar with doing this. It looks simple but its not as simple as just taking a photo.

Trust me in saying it will take longer than expected. If it takes a minute to photograph you will have pre and post production time also. Receiving the products, logging them in, taking the photos, saving and naming the files, repacking and returning the products, and files. dealing with questions and corrections after the client gets everything back etc. Clients do not always want to understand that it's much more than clicking the shutter. Taking the photo is the least amount of time involved.

Figure 5 min per product. 60 per day, how much do you want to earn for a day? $600 then it's $10 per product. $300 a day then it's $5 per product. The issue will be like what another said here is that the store might not have a realistic budget. What does it cost per day to run a photography business?