Event Photography Pricing

Got a phone call today asking for a quote to shoot a 2 day dog sled race. The race covers about 100 miles. They want coverage of the start/finish and checkpoints along the way. They also want banquet coverage the evening of the second day.

Basically it is a 2 day event. They want exclusive rights to the photos. I'm still waiting to here back on how many fully edited photos they want which will also give me more of an idea of how much editing will be required.

Anyways, I've done 1 wedding and it was tonnes of work. What would you guys charge for this assuming they want say 200 full edited photos of the event.

I was thinking in the $3000 range to cover travel/time to shoot/PP and full deliverance of the images without the ability to make any more on these photos. I asked them if we could share digital rights, but they are not interested.

Any hints/suggestions would be appreciated!

Thanks!
Corey

try this: cost (travel/meal/gas etc..) + your hourly rate * # of hour you expect to work

it should be: (your hourly rate * hours of work) + travel, meal, gas, lodging, equipment rentals, other expenses (such as protective gear or whatever you may need).

Sounds like a LOT of work.

Ya, that is what I was thinking but I don't yet have an hourly rate. I guess I can make one up based on the prices I charge right now. What is the average person charging themselves out at these days. I was thinking $50/hour. That is where I came up with the $3000 mark.

Anyways, appreciate the feedback. It will be a lot of work for sure and even more work if the weather is cold. We frequently get -40 f here. It is -48 f here with the windchill right now.

I know how to operate in the cold though, but it does add a bit of a freezers fee!

Hourly rate depends on region, skill level and experience. I would think there ought to be some additional compensation for the exclusive rights request.

Get some of those chemical hand warmers that you just shake to activate. Put them in the hand that holds your camera to keep the battery warm and operating. Good luck, sounds like a great assignment.

OK - how will this work in practice.

Will you shoot for 2 days and just dump the high res images to CD and let them have them all, or will you supply a proof CD for them to pick the final images that they want you to fully process.

Will they have exclusive rights to all images or just the ones that they select? I ask because the one thing that has not been addressed in the responses so far is Licensing.

You say that the client wants exclusive rights to the photos - this is usually very expensive as you cannot generate any more income from the images.

The $3000 that you state may cover your (admittedly low) hourly rate and expenses etc. but certainly would not cover licensing fees imho.

If you are looking at delivering 200 fully processed images even at a licence fee of $10 per image that would add $2000 to the bill. Licence fees much higher than $10 are normal BTW.

At the end ofthe day however they will have a budget and whilst it is theoretically possible to build this into a $30,000 job it is unlikely that they will have a budget that will stretch that far.

Best advice I can give you is to try to find out their budget - just ask them - very often they will tell you - at least then you will know the ball-park in which to aim or even if you want to play.

I agree with Nightstalker. (Hourly/day rate) * (amount of time) = price to start from. Then put some serious thought in the licensing. Why do they want 200 images? That's quite an insane amount! Are they really sure about what they want? For how long do they want to use the images and for what purpose?

Exclusive licenses are very expensive! My guess is they don't realize this, especially if they want 200 images!

Asking them their budget is a good idea. You can make a package of options from there of what you are willing to offer for this price, and let them cut on options they can't afford.