Product Photography

Hello guys,

I've just recently did a quick shoot of some products that the company I work for produce. I was rushed as the store had to open fairly shortly after these shots were taken. There's a lot of flaws in these photo's, such as DOF, reflections, composition, background.

The brand director is interested in my work and wonder if I would like to take this photography more seriously. I have not had any professional business experience in this field, but have tried to research the utmost I can. They already have a one off photographer that does the work, which has many flaws than my current level. Im not sure whether the current photographer is paid, but as im not experienced in this field, I would like to know how I should approach this situation.

Im paid £8 hourly to supervise the operation of the shop business and wonder whether I should match the same if I do photography or whether I should charge by the shot.

Altenatively do I even have enough experience and credibility to even ask to charge for my photography and just get credit for my work to stick it in my portfolio.

Im a novice in the business world of photography and would like some advice from the professionals on how to start off and get on my two feet.

Photo's would be used in marketing on the website/poster boards (A0) Is my camera even capable of producing such images for this application? (see sig)

Many thanks for your help,

Rich

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If you charge £8 per hour you are selling yourself short - really short.

The difficulty that you have is that the company already know that you will work for that amount so convincing them that they should pay much more will be a difficult task for you.

You should be charging two things :

1 : Session fee - this is the cost that covers your time on the shoot from arrival to departure. For something like this, depending on the number of products that you have to shoot I would work on a full and half-day rate. A full day rate for someone in your position may be in the region of £300 with a half day rate of £200 - this would be a cheap rate. An experienced food photographer would be over double these rates with ease.

2 : Licensing - licence fees are charged per image that they select and per usage i.e. website and posters arre 2 uses.

Licencing fees could easily be in the region of £50 per image for web use and £200 per image for a poster.

As I said however, the problem here is they could easily end with a bill of over £1000 for what they percieve as a days work that you usually get paid £64 for - that's a big barrier to overcome.

You're in a tough situation. first...

Don't allow that. Take charge of the shoot & take the time you need. Second...

Find out. You said that your work is better, so work up to getting paid at least as much to start.
And find out what London prices are for food shots for marketing on the website/poster boards.

UK - HindSight's Photo Price Guide
http://www.hindsightlt​d.com/products/PriceGu​ide.html

http://www.asmp.org/co​mmerce/estimator.php

http://media.gn.apc.or​g/feesguide/photo.html

Third, Food links...

Nightstalker wrote in post #13135161
If you charge £8 per hour you are selling yourself short - really short.......

Thank you for the concise and quick reply. Your info has helped me set up a baseline of subjects I need to research more into.

PhotosGuy wrote in post #13136718
Don't allow that. Take charge of the shoot & take the time you need.

I was doing the shoot the morning of 9/11 and being situated outside St Paul's cathedral, they were running a memorial service, therefore we were closed. I only was able to spare an hour only to do the shoot, so quickly gave it a shot before we had to open the doors.

Many thanks for your links lots of interesting reads there.

Rich